Dartmouth's original sports field was the Green, where students played cricket and old division football during the 19th century.Today, two of Dartmouth's athletic facilities are located in the southeast corner of campus. The center of athletic life is the Alumni Gymnasium, which includes the Karl Michael Competition Pool and the Spaulding Pool, a state of the art fitness center, a weight room, and a 1/13th-mile (123 m) indoor track. Attached to Alumni Gymnasium is the Berry Sports Center, which contains basketball and volleyball courts (Leede Arena), as well as the Kresge Fitness Center.Behind the Alumni Gymnasium is Memorial Field, a 15,600-seat stadium overlooking Dartmouth's football field and track.The nearby Thompson Arena, designed by Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi and constructed in 1975, houses Dartmouth's ice rink. Also visible from Memorial Field is the 91,800-square-foot (8,530 m2) Nathaniel Leverone Fieldhouse, home to the indoor track. The new softball field, Dartmouth Softball Park, was constructed in 2012, sharing parking facilities with Thompson arena.

Dartmouth's other athletic facilities in Hanover include the Friends of Dartmouth Rowing Boathouse and the old rowing house storage facility (both located along the Connecticut River), the Hanover Country Club, Dartmouth's oldest remaining athletic facility (established in 1899),and the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse.The college also maintains the Dartmouth Skiway, a 100-acre (0.40 km2) skiing facility located over two mountains near the Hanover campus in Lyme Center, New Hampshire, that serves as the winter practice grounds for the nationally dominant Dartmouth ski team.

In 2006, The Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth third in its "Quality of Life" category, and sixth for having the "Happiest Students." Athletics and participation in the Greek system are the most popular campus activities. In all, Dartmouth offers more than 350 organizations, teams, and sports.The school is also home to a variety of longstanding traditions and celebrations.

Student groups

Dartmouth's more than 200 student organizations and clubs cover a wide range of interests. In 2007, the College hosted eight academic groups, 17 cultural groups, two honor societies, 30 "issue-oriented" groups, 25 performing groups, 12 pre-professional groups, 20 publications, and 11 recreational groups. Notable student groups include the nation's largest and oldest collegiate outdoors club, the Dartmouth Outing Club, which includes the nationally recognized  Big Green Bus; the campus's oldest and most prestigious a cappella group, The Dartmouth Aires; the controversial conservative newspaper The Dartmouth Review; and The Dartmouth, arguably the nation's oldest university newspaper.The Dartmouth describes itself as "America's Oldest College Newspaper, Founded 1799."

Partially because of Dartmouth's rural, isolated location, the Greek system dating from the 1840s is one of the most popular social outlets for students.Dartmouth is home to 32 recognized Greek houses: 17 fraternities, 12 sororities, and three coeducational organizations. In 2007, roughly 70% of eligible students belonged to a Greek organization;since 1987, students have not been permitted to join Greek organizations until their sophomore year. Dartmouth College was among the first institutions of higher education to desegregate fraternity houses in the 1950s, and was involved in the movement to create coeducational Greek houses in the 1970s.In the early first decade of the 21st century, campus-wide debate focused on a Board of Trustees recommendation that Greek organizations become "substantially coeducational"; this attempt to change the Greek system eventually failed.The college has an additional classification of social/residential organizations known as undergraduate societies.

The fraternities have an extensive history of hazing and alcohol abuse, leading to police raids and accusations of sexual harassment.

Dartmouth is well known for its fierce school spirit and many traditions. The college functions on a quarter system, and one weekend each term is set aside as a traditional celebratory event, known on campus as "big weekends"or "party weekends". In the fall term, Homecoming (officially called Dartmouth Night) is marked by a bonfire on the Green constructed by the freshman class.Winter term is celebrated by Winter Carnival, a tradition started in 1911 by the Dartmouth Outing Club to promote winter sports. In the spring, Green Key is a weekend mostly devoted to campus parties and celebration.

The summer term was formerly marked by Tubestock, an unofficial tradition in which the students used wooden rafts and inner tubes to float on the Connecticut River. Begun in 1986, Tubestock met its demise in 2006 when Hanover town ordinances and a lack of coherent student protest conspired to defeat the popular tradition. The Class of 2008, during their summer term on campus in 2006, replaced the defunct Tubestock with Fieldstock. This new celebration includes a barbecue, live music, and the revival of the 1970s and 1980s tradition of racing homemade chariots around the Green. Unlike Tubestock, Fieldstock is funded and supported by the College.

Another longstanding tradition is four-day, student-run Dartmouth Outing Club trips for incoming freshmen, begun in 1935. Each trip concludes at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. In 2011, over 96% of freshmen elected to participate.