It's hard to imagine a Winter Carnival like Dartmouth's existing at most other schools.
Just picture a snow sculpture plopped in the middle of Harvard Square, a polar bear swim in Penn's Schukyll River, or a keg jump on Brown's College Hill. It just doesn't click. And that's probably why Dartmouth's Winter Carnival is pretty unique among most other colleges' and universities' festivities.
When asked what students at Brown University did to celebrate winter, a student there told The Dartmouth that he would call back after consulting with a few friends. After the consultation session, he came up with very little information.
"There's really nothing traditionally winter here," he said. However, he noted that certain fraternity parties and other dances may have winter themes.
A girl interviewed at Harvard seemed a little bitter at her university's lack of wintertime celebration. She justified the lack of a Winter Carnival-esque weekend saying, "We have a spring carnival, though."
The University of Pennsylvania, which is located in the city of Philadelphia, is often short on snow, which may impede a wintertime celebration. However, this year, with the wave of snow storms that has hit the East coast, even Penn has had its fair share of snow.
When asked how the university celebrates winter, one Penn student joked, "The way we celebrate winter is saying 'Ohmygod, there's a snow day. Let's sit inside and smoke pot.'"
When asked to clarify, the student explained that Penn does, in fact, have actual days off from classes when it snows. That, according to some students there, is celebration enough.
Although Cornell University held a winterfest several years ago, the school currently has nothing comparable to Dartmouth's Carnival.
For Princeton University, the winter festivities are small and are mostly centered around exclusive formals in the school's eating clubs.
Yale University celebrates with an annual Winter Ball, but it does not have any major all-weekend celebration.
Outside of the Ivy League, there are a few schools that come closer to matching Dartmouth's Winter Carnival.
Middlebury College has a winter weekend celebration, centered on a yearly theme, that is strongly community-oriented, with both social and athletic events during the weekend open to all community members.
Middlebury's weekend extravaganza revolves around a big ice-show -- a 26-year old tradition -- which is the collaborative effort of students and professional skaters.
Bates College and Williams College also celebrate their white winter landscapes with celebrations, but theirs are not on the same large scale as our "College on the Hill."
