Classroom at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School
Imagine arriving at your MBA campus and not just joining clubs—but leading them, reshaping them, and watching your classmates rally behind ideas you helped bring to life. That’s the rhythm at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. With more than 75 student-run organizations, global projects that push you out of your comfort zone, and a community where even partners and families are part of the fold, engagement at Tuck isn’t an afterthought. It’s the whole point of the experience.
Tuck’s small scale makes this possible. Each class numbers around 285 students, which means nobody fades into the background. The intimacy of the community gives everyone a real stake in shaping the culture. Faculty know students by name, classmates hold one another accountable, and the result is a level of participation that larger schools can only envy.
From day one, engagement is built into the architecture of the program. The structure of Tuck’s first year—its study groups, cohorts, and team-based curriculum—forces collaboration from the start. Then come the centers, clubs, and committees that keep that momentum alive. Students don’t just attend; they run everything from the Consulting and Tech Clubs to the annual Tuck Winter Carnival, which turns Hanover into a community-wide celebration.
According to the school, there are more than 75 student-run clubs and organizations, a number that feels even bigger when you’re living it. They include professional clubs that link directly to career centers, identity and affinity groups that shape belonging, and social traditions like Tuck Follies and the Ski & Snowboard Club that give the program its personality. It’s engagement in the broadest possible sense—career, culture, and fun all rolled together.
Poets&Quants has often pointed to that sense of immersion as one of Tuck’s superpowers. In profiles and interviews, students routinely describe Tuck as an “all-in” experience where it’s almost impossible to stay on the sidelines. The Hanover setting—quiet, close-knit, and beautifully remote—only intensifies that effect. When there’s no big city to disappear into, you build your social and professional life together.
That closeness carries into the academic experience. The First-Year Project, Tuck’s signature consulting-style course, pushes teams of MBAs into real-world problem solving with clients across industries. Every student participates, and every project becomes an opportunity to lead, collaborate, and deliver something tangible to a business or nonprofit.
Global engagement is another mandatory dimension. The TuckGO requirement ensures every student spends time working or studying in a country new to them. Whether it’s through faculty-led expeditions, independent projects, or exchange programs, the goal is the same: push students to stretch themselves, learn in new contexts, and return with a broader worldview.
The centers at Tuck—like the Center for Business, Government & Society, the Revers Center for Energy, Sustainability & Innovation, and the Center for Digital Strategies—add another layer of involvement. They’re built around mentorship, research, and project opportunities that let students shape programming, host conferences, and drive thought leadership in emerging fields. It’s engagement with academic purpose.
Even partners and families are part of the Tuck equation. The Tuck Partners and Tiny Tuckies organizations make sure that spouses, significant others, and children feel like members of the community. You see them at social events, service projects, and ski weekends. It’s not uncommon for families to host study-group dinners or help organize major student events. That kind of inclusivity strengthens Tuck’s already-tight network.
Professional development at Tuck is also powered by engagement. Career clubs coordinate treks, case competitions, and networking events that complement the work of the Career Services office. Students in the Finance Club, for example, organize industry panels with alumni, while the Entrepreneurship Club connects MBAs to the broader Dartmouth innovation ecosystem. It’s student leadership in action, shaping how peers explore industries.
What ties all this together is the school’s ethos of personal engagement—what Tuck calls “wise leadership.” Students are encouraged not just to participate but to contribute thoughtfully, to bring others along, and to leave the community better than they found it. Faculty and staff echo that message constantly, which is why engagement at Tuck feels authentic, not manufactured.
When you add it all up—75 clubs, a tight class size, required global experiences, partner integration, and an environment that rewards showing up—Tuck’s claim to leadership in student engagement is easy to understand. It’s a culture built on participation and ownership, where every student has a role to play. And in 2025, that makes Tuck a model for how to turn an MBA program into a true community.
And the impact doesn’t stop at graduation. The same culture that makes Tuck’s student body so involved extends into one of the most loyal alumni networks in business education. Tuck’s alumni routinely post among the highest giving and engagement rates in the world, and the responsiveness of its network is legendary—graduates answer emails, make introductions, and open doors for one another with an eagerness rooted in shared experience. The sense of belonging that begins in Hanover lasts a lifetime, and it’s why Tuck’s reputation for engagement isn’t confined to campus—it’s a lifelong advantage.
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