<p>Slipper - I think I understand your perplexity. Dartmouth is similar enough to the colleges you named that you wonder why the kind of applicants who regulary list a multiple number of those schools (and hence demonstrate that they seem to find attractive the kind of school that Dartmouth also is) don't have Dartmouth on their radar screen. (I am not entirely sure they don't by the way). As others have observed, there definitely is a regional recognition issue. I grew up in the Western New York State and always knew what Dartmouth meant. I now live in the midwest and people are genuinely puzzled by my child's choice. One person, upon hearing that while she loved her school very very deeply, she was a little envious of the ability of so many of her friends to come home on a regular basis, earnestly offered that the local community college was really really good - maybe she should look into transferring there. That is how much Dartmouth registers for what it is around here (but, in fairness, I doubt any of the schools on your intial list would register with some of them other than Duke, because of basketball, and Northwestern because its in the Big Ten conference, as well as a mid-west academic heavy weight. Northwestern has long been offering bright students from middle-school on up the opportunity to take summer courses and even school -year correspondence courses, so its really made a big effort toward name and value recognition - Princeton does some of this as well - I don't think that Dartmouth has anything quite like that). </p>
<p>People seem either to really get what Dartmouth is and love or dislike that, or they have no clue whatsoever. People who are looking for the lac experience may completely over-look Dartmouth on the assumption that it provides the kind of larger university experience. [I don't know how it is that they are able to understand that schools like Brown and Princeton and Northwestern can offer a focused undergrad experience and not also Dartmouth.] It just seems like the kind of school you have to take a second look at before you see beyond what you expect to see and add it to your list. </p>
<p>I don't know what I am concluding here other than that, for much of the country, Dartmouth has insufficient recognition, and as you conclude, that is a shame because it might be a great fit for many students who are applying to comparable schools.</p>