Hi! My name is Jack and I am a Sophomore at Dartmouth. I currently plan to major in sociology modified with anthropology, all with a human-centered design minor. Outside of class, I enjoy performing and I'm currently involved in both a student dance group and acapella. I love hiking and running outdoors and have already explored a lot of Dartmouth's surrounding trails. I am also involved in Greek Life, the Student and Presidential Committee for Sexual Assault, and the Inter Fraternity Council.
Hey everybody! After a brief return home from Boston and a spring break that felt much shorter than it was, I am beyond excited to be writing to you all from my dorm room in Hanover! While I'm in a new room on the other side of campus from the one I was in fall term, it feels great to be back and I can't wait for what this term has to offer. However, there is definitely something more exciting and probably stressful for the high school seniors reading this right now: decision time! Everyone has their own experiences and I can only speak for myself, but I thought I'd do my best to explain to you all why I personally chose Dartmouth a year ago.
I got into Dartmouth Regular Decision and had an extremely challenging decision to make in the spring of 2020. To make matters worse, COVID had just shut down all in-person admitted student events, and I was forced to decide based on the information I was able to obtain from my computer. However, the virtual programming allowed me to discover that Dartmouth was the right fit for me.
I attended virtual events for admitted students at numerous schools, desperately hoping to understand the experiences and lives of students at the colleges. I yearned for virtual tours to transport me to campus, for panels to illuminate how I'd feel attending a university, but no virtual event came close to helping me understand the overall atmosphere or 'vibe' of the colleges I chose between. Except for Dartmouth.
Dartmouth's virtual admitted student programming convinced me to attend because I felt as if it was the only school that had such an emphasis on community that I was able to discern what the school's atmosphere was like through remote and virtual events. The Dimensions show for admitted students was a zany Zoom video, with students dressed in flair (weird, crazy costumes); I talked to current students (all very friendly) and heard about their experiences, all of which were positive. Dartmouth did for me what no other school could: it communicated the on-campus experience through virtual events. At the end of the day, I knew that between the schools I was considering, they all offered superb academic, artistic, extracurricular, and professional opportunities, and the deciding factor was simply if I thought I'd get along with my fellow classmates and simply feel like I belong on campus. While I still haven't experienced the true Dartmouth lifestyle, the past year has been better than I could have imagined in multiple ways, and I'm extremely glad I made the decision that I did.
Good luck to everyone, and I hope to see some of you all on campus next year!
Senior spring is here and it is surreal to reflect on how much my daily routine has evolved. We have just welcomed the Class of 2030, and I am so incredibly excited for the next generation of Dartmouth students to find their home in Hanover!
Ah, college—a new beginning. Read on to hear what the transition was like for me, from being a nervous but excited high school senior to slowly settling into college life.
