<p>I’d argue that the average Joe on the sidewalk who is a loyal OSU fan doesn’t know any of the HYPSM (maybe except Harvard). But it doesn’t matter to you.</p>
<p>And I think Dartmouth is as close to a LAC as a national university gets (after all, it is called dartmouth COLLEGE) – but it’s still a national university, since it has Tuck (the business school).</p>
<p>Regarding to what truth123 said, while I personally prefer UChicago, I give Dartmouth a lot of credit for being and staying what it is over the years, when it could’ve easily expanded and had a more prominent graduate school. Probably not as prominent as Chicago’s due to location, but still prominent nonetheless. And Dartmouth wins in the alumni loyalty department hands down. In fact, I’d argue that Dartmouth produces THE MOST loyal alumni in the ivy league, matched only by princeton (partly because of the relatively small sizes of the two) </p>
<p>But I agree that UChicago is on the rise as of late, and with the abundant resources it has had over the years, it will become even better in the future now that the admissions office/the college itself are paying more attention to how the world outside of academia perceives it.</p>