I grew up in the Northeast as well. No way Dartmouth College is more prestigious than Duke.
FWIW US News’ Peer Assessment Score rates Dartmouth College as a 4.3. Equivalent to UCLA & CMU & Georgia Tech.
Sixteen (16) National Universities have higher Peer Assessment Scores than does Dartmouth College. (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Michigan, Caltech, Brown, JHU, Penn, Cornell, UCal-Berkeley & Columbia.)