How does the economics program at the University of Rochester compare with Dartmouth’s?

Dartmouth is likely the more appealing economics program for a student who wants a small, highly residential liberal-arts experience with close faculty contact and a fast-paced academic calendar.

The Dartmouth major has a conventional but rigorous economics foundation: students build through theory and econometrics before choosing upper-level electives. It suits students who want economics in conversation with government, environmental studies, mathematics, public policy, or the humanities, while still completing Dartmouth’s broader liberal-arts distribution requirements. Undergraduate research is often relationship-driven, through faculty RA work, independent study, honors thesis work, and policy-oriented opportunities connected to campus centers.

Rochester may fit a student who wants more curricular freedom and a more explicitly research-university environment. The Rochester Curriculum has no universal general-education sequence; instead, students use clusters and a major to create an academic plan. That flexibility can make it easier to build a quantitatively intensive economics path alongside mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science, or finance-related study.

Rochester’s economics program is particularly attractive for students who want to explore economics alongside the University’s graduate and professional ecosystem. Research-minded students can seek faculty projects, independent research, and advanced coursework, but they may need to be proactive in a larger university setting.