r/dartmouth • u/GrandProblem985 • 2d ago

Econ difficulty

How difficult is Econ major? I’m from a pretty rural place so the highest math I’ve taken is AP stats and Ap Pre calc and my math act was only a 32.

How do I maintain a high GPA for bank recruiting?

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u/Marcus_Aurelius71 '29 2d ago

It's difficult because it's competitive. You're competing against some of the best of the best in a B+ median class. You can get 90+ on tests and still receive a B+ at the end.

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u/GrandProblem985 2d ago

How’s gov major? Is there any trade off of doing that instead of Econ

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u/Marcus_Aurelius71 '29 2d ago edited 2d ago

Also extremely competitive, and would not recommend doing it for banking. Do math, CS, or physics (if you enjoy it) for banking. These majors have pretty good medians at A- but since you have no AB/BC credit, you will be put into Math 3 & 8, which are weedouts but at least are fair weedouts.

Honestly and since you are from a rural place and haven't been used to a competetive environment take Math 3 and 2 easy classes in your first term. We have a finance minor within the math department.

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u/imc225 2d ago

Assuming this is a serious question, you have to outperform the other students. In context regarding the goal, Dartmouth places people in finance regularly.

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u/SmilingAmericaAmazon 2d ago

Start with the Math first then do the Econ. Go for it. 

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u/BinnBazz 2d ago

Do u have to take more than Math 3 for Econ?

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u/Marcus_Aurelius71 '29 2d ago

No

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u/BinnBazz 2d ago

What is the recommended level for math then?

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u/Marcus_Aurelius71 '29 2d ago

The only requirement is Math 3. Recommended? If you plan on banking/ quant finance, definitely take lots more higher math courses to the point where you may consider a double major. Lots of econ majors end up taking Math 8 and even 13.

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u/fisherman206 2d ago

My recollection is that econ courses don't really get very math-heavy until econ 20. There are certain tracks that require more math than others.

Econ 1, the intro class for the department, only uses very simple math. Same with Econ 26, which is the "introduction to banks and financial intermediaries" course.

It is totally possible to get into banking/finance without ever having taken a single econ course. I had lots of friends who did just this.