Are McGill and Dartmouth good choices if I want small class sizes?

The biggest practical tradeoff is that Dartmouth is built around a small undergraduate-focused environment, while McGill is a much larger university where your experience can include more big lectures, especially early on. If small classes and easy professor access are a top priority, Dartmouth is much more likely to feel personal day to day. McGill can absolutely offer strong teaching and meaningful faculty relationships, but you often have to be more proactive about finding them.

Dartmouth is known for small discussion-based classes, close faculty interaction, and a campus culture centered heavily on undergraduates. Many students there find it easy to know their professors, speak up in class, and get individual attention, especially compared with larger research universities. That more intimate structure is one of Dartmouth’s clearest strengths.

McGill has excellent academics, but it operates on a different scale. Intro courses can be quite large, and some departments feel more lecture-driven at the beginning. As you move into upper-level courses, seminars and smaller classes become more common, but the overall atmosphere is still less intimate than Dartmouth’s.

Another difference is advising and classroom culture. Dartmouth tends to offer a more residential, close-knit academic experience where faculty contact is built into the environment. At McGill, that kind of connection is possible, but students often need to seek out office hours, smaller honors or advanced classes, research opportunities, or specific departments that are known for being more personal.

If your main goal is to avoid huge lecture halls and have regular access to professors, Dartmouth is the clearer answer.