What The Guidebooks Say About Us

A handful of writers help shape the attitudes of one of Dartmouth's most important constituencies.

THE NEWS MEDIA ARE NOT THE only shapers of Dartmouth's image. For high-schoolers forming their first naive impressions of college, the best-selling guides are probably more important than anything that appears on "60 Minutes" or in The New York Times.

So what kind of image appears in these guides? That depends on whether their editors rely for their information on fact or on student's-eye-view opinion. Dartmouth looks wonderful in the fact-based books, while the guides that purport to tell "what it's really like" tend to drag out the old College stereotypes to create images that are not always flattering—and that sometimes even conflict.

Two of the most popular handbooks in the opinionated category' are The Fiske Guide to Colleges, edited by Edward Fiske of The New York Times; and The Insider's Guide to Colleges, compiled and edited by the staff of the Yale Daily News. The Insiders Guide archly pictures Dartmouth as a conservative little school that throws big parties and attracts "drunken, rich, indolent frat boys," in the words of one Dartmouth student. The College's traditionalism is described as "frenzied adherence to rituals that are imaginative and bordering on the absurd [giving] the student body a uniquely unified spirit."

The Fiske Guide, on the other hand, sees traditionalism doing exactly the opposite. The editor is a newspaper reporter, after all, and conflict is news. Like the Yale editors, he depicts Dartmouth as a conservative, frat-dominated, party-oriented school, but he suggests that there is considerable resistance to this way of life. The lead paragraph in his description of the College pants about "bitter strife" and "warring" between liberals and conservatives. "It is as if Gloria Steinem, Jesse Jackson, and the Nobel Prize judges have shown up uninvited at a beer blast thrown by the brothers of Animal House," he writes.

Still, both Fiske and the Yale Daily News have nice things to say about Dartmouth. They agree that it is an ideal place to go to school if you are athletic, outdoorsy, socially active, and want an excellent education. And it helps, they both say, if you are a bit conservative.

Dartmouth looks considerably better in the just-the-facts guidebooks like Peterson's Four Year Colleges or Cass and Birnbaum's Comprehensive Guide to American Colleges. Peterson's lists Dartmouth's extensive educational and recreational assets in detail, describing an idyllic environment for learning and living. As to character, Peterson's describes Dartmouth impartially as "rich in history and tradition." While Cass and Birnbaum sniff a bit at the College's rural location ("distant from the cultural and intellectual facilities of any major metropolitan center"), they note that the student body is "solidly coeducational" as well as "capable" and that "academic demands are rigorous."

What impression does a prospective applicant get from all this? A positive one, most likely, although the timid may be turned off by some of the hyperbole. "Fur is flying," Edward Fiske writes in a possible subtle reference to Dartmouth's climate, but he adds in the same breath, "you can't say it isn't a lively place."