Well, I’m not sure where to put Dartmouth on the spectrum of big/school/small/school, but, there’s really no secret that NESCAC, Swarthmore, Pomona and other SLACs use what’s called a holistic approach to the admissions process. We know this because every Supreme Court affirmative action case since Grutter v. Bollinger refers to it:
http://amherststudent-archive.amherst.edu/current/news/view.php?year=2002-2003&issue=15§ion=news&article=01