When students at other Ivy League schools and Colgate University go to sleep tonight, Dartmouth students will probably just be starting to celebrate.
The traditions -- and parties -- of Dartmouth's Homecoming are far more extensive than those at our peer institutions.
At Harvard's homecoming, "Not much happens," according to Cyrus Moody, a junior in the Harvard University Band.
Senior Matt Bruce, an editor of the Harvard Salient, said "Homecoming, if we have any traditions, is laid back. About as many people will go to the football game as usual."
But "we do have athletic school spirit. We are very proud of our hockey team," he said.
But Harvard homecoming is not totally devoid of the abnormal.
"The band puts on its annual Dartmouth concert. It is a concert by the wind ensemble and the jazz band. It is the weekend of the Dartmouth game every year," Moody said.
The University of Pennsylvania's homecoming weekend is similarly uneventful.
Perhaps Michael Hasday, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, best expressed his school's attitude toward homecoming when he said, "Hold on a second. I'll find out if we have traditions."
"We had a little barbecue last year, but it wasn't a big deal," Hasday said.
Maggie Shi, a junior at Princeton University, said "We don't have homecoming or anything comparable."
Like Dartmouth, Colgate University has a bonfire the night before their homecoming football game.
School employees build the structure, "although the final touch is supposed to be an outhouse added by the freshman class," according to J.T. Paquin, a senior.
Paquin said he has "no idea" why the freshmen traditionally add an outhouse.
Colgate's structure is "a couple stories tall, maybe" Paquin said.
Although other schools may place scant importance on homecoming weekend, some do have party weekends at other times.
According to Bruce, Harvard's principal party weekends occur during the Head of the Charles Regatta and during the weekend of the annual football game against Yale, the last contest of the season.
At Pennsylvania, "Spring Fling is the big party," Hasday said.
Paquin said at Colgate "parent's weekend is athletically pretty big."
