<p>BalletGirl,</p>
<p>You are wrong in your logic. Dartmouth excels at the business world and with recruiting overall because elite firms recognize that actual learning and the ability to critically think is more important than departmental ranks (i.e. undergrad attention is much more valuable than cramming for finals to beat a curve in a 300 person class at a research university.) </p>
<p>Why would McKinsey or Goldman care that you went to a top 5 graduate ranking program when this has nothing to do with the quality of the education or student. These places are looking for smart students (hence they will only recruit from highly selective schools) who had good teachers and actually learned something (undergrad focused schools do well here). The fact that so many Dartmouth alumni are successful at elite firms only helps recruiting.</p>
<p>The education you will receive from Dartmouth in an undergraduate department will significantly exceed the education at a highly ranked graduate department. This is why Dartmouth students so do well at graduate placement as well.</p>
<p>Dartmouth = better education, better jobs, better grad placement, and more fun. In my experience its one of the few places that really does well at everything that matters.</p>