Dartmouth is an Ivy League university nestled in idyllic Hanover, New Hampshire. It’s a great school for the outdoorsy type who wants a superior academic experience with a little bit of classic collegiate shenanigans. Dartmouth is known, along with offering an exceptional education, for providing students with a lively social experience that includes a strong Greek life.
With a 6% acceptance rate, Dartmouth is among the most competitive schools in the nation. When applying to Ivy League schools like Dartmouth, it’s essential to have a clear strategy. Gone are the days of expecting to get into a top tier school based on an excellent GPA and strong extracurriculars alone. If you want to get into the best, it’s important to build an application that fully expresses who you are — and what you see for their academic future.
When you fill out your Dartmouth application, you’ll be asked to select a major. Please hear us: this is, for the vast majority of majors, not at all binding. Dartmouth knows you may want to change your major, and they welcome it once you are there. But when they are reading your application, they want to see that you are clear in your interests right now. What they don’t want are classes full of generalists who don’t know what they want. So, you’ll need to pick a major. But which one? There are more than 60 majors.
To help you out, we’re sharing what we consider to be the five best majors at Dartmouth based on the depth of the program, the diversity of interest of the faculty, and the resources for internships, research, and study abroad that are available to students within the program.
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Economics
Economics is a very popular major at Dartmouth, which isn’t a big surprise. It’s also one of the most popular majors in the country. Students interested in going into finance for their eventual career, in particular, find economics to be an important building block towards success. The curriculum at Dartmouth offers opportunities to focus in on finance, international econ, macroeconomics, competition and strategy, labor econ, public economics, and more. They also offer a modified major for students who are interested in Economics, but want to study some specific topic that falls partially in another field.
Econ students also participate in a national competition called the Fed Challenge, which seeks to teach students about the Fed, the Federal Open Market Committee, and decision-making therein. The major is research-focused and invites students to apply to the Dartmouth Economic Research Scholars program. This program provides additional mentoring and advising, lectures, dinner discussions, workshops, and more, in order to enhance coursework and research. Students work towards paid research positions with faculty in the department.
Computer Science, with a Digital Arts Minor
Computer Science at Dartmouth has a traditional major and minor, but what we actually care about most is the Digital Arts minor, which intersects with Studio, Art, Film, Theater, Engineer, and Music. Courses in this major are divided into three pillars: Theoretical, Systems, and Applications. By bringing together computer science and the arts, Dartmouth goes beyond what most top universities offer to creative students who want a technical degree that builds upon their art experiences.
Once in the program, theoretical coursework centers around the mathematical foundations of Computer Science, including algorithms and computational complexity. Students learn techniques for building software and hardware systems and explore different operating systems and program languages. As you get deeper into the program, you have the chance to zoom in on sub-disciplines like machine learning, computer graphics, computational photography, and more.
Government
We honestly can’t think of a better time in recent history to study Government, and the major at Dartmouth is a powerhouse of a program. Sure, Dartmouth isn’t in the political thick of things up there in New Hampshire, but that distance has actually created a protective cocoon for scholars and historians who call Dartmouth home. They can push boundaries, explore new ideas, and challenge assumptions from a place where tradition and exploration of new concepts are both embraced and celebrated.
Coursework breaks down into four subfields: American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory. First-year coursework includes Nationalism in War and Reconciliation, The Media and Politics, The Political Theory of Game of Thrones, Does Democracy Work?, Dictator 101: The Politics of Authoritarianism, and more. The department also offers modified majors in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.
Biology with a Climate Science Minor
Biology is all about learning to “understand the big picture,” and at Dartmouth they take the study of biology to a new level through resources at the cutting edge of what’s possible for humans to accomplish. For students in the program, the New Hampshire location is a major asset, as they have access to fieldwork opportunities in a range of micro-climates and ecosystems all from a Hanover home base. Course offerings focus on Animal Behavior, Biochem, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Ecology, Genetics, Molecular Ecology, Paleobiology, Pant Biology, and more. Research is an important part of the program with myriad opportunities for across your Dartmouth experience.
What we are most excited about, though, is pairing the Biology major with Climate Science minor. Like the Computer Science major, which is made most interesting by matching it with Digital Arts, the Biology major is simply biology until you match it up with this relatively new minor. The Climate Science minor benefits greatly from the New Hampshire location, and from a faculty packed full of outstanding natural scientists and researchers. The Climate Science bridges biology with earth sciences, environmental studies, and geography, offering outdoorsy students, in particular, a path that satiates their love of the environment while having a clear track to a lucrative and fulfilling career.
Psychology
Dartmouth’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences is at the forefront of scholarship on the human brain and behavior. The undergraduate major in psychology offers students at the beginning of their higher education journey the opportunity to access impressive resources like an MRI lab, a small animal lab, a video production and editing center, labs for studying social and group interaction, neurophysiological and psychophysical recording facilities, and more. As an undergrad, students are able to “directly contribute to new discoveries” while receiving mentorship and guidance from professors and researchers at the very top of their field. You can even apply for a paid fellowship in Human Relations, funding for additional full-time research, and a coveted research prize for undergraduates pursuing research projects or internships. In the classroom, the program focuses on social interaction, neuroscience, learning, social and cognitive development, and more.
When targeting a dream school, especially one with an acceptance rate below 10%, it’s crucial that you pursue a strategy that represents you as the amazing, intellectual, kind, collaborative, and leadership-minded person you are. If Dartmouth is among your top picks, we hope these majors serve as a jumping off point for exploring the resources and opportunities the school can offer top-performing students.
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