The College placed 20th overall according to the ranking, which takes into account a variety of statistics in order to determine which schools' athletes best balance athletic and academic success.
The NCSA intends to help high school recruits identify prospective universities where athletic competition that will not force them to sacrifice academic achievement.
Williams College topped the rankings across all three divisions, followed by Amherst, Middlebury, Duke and Stanford.
Academic scores came from the latest U.S. News and World Report ranking, while the college athletic departments were evaluated by the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup. Student-athlete graduation rates were also included in the formula.
A number of Dartmouth coaches agreed that the result only reinforces the message the College already presents to applicants.
"We sell the athletic-academic combination here pretty effectively," men's hockey head coach Bob Gaudet '81 said.
Gaudet said that recruited players at Dartmouth have the chance to become professional athletes, but also manage to meet high academic standards.
Women's head basketball coach Christina Wielgus said that Dartmouth is in a good place right now when it comes to the balance between academic and athletic excellence, and that she doesn't expect the ranking to change much in terms of prospective students' college choices.
"People aren't all of a sudden going to decide to come here" as a result of the ranking, she said.
Wielgus said that prospective students don't need the NCSA report to recognize the balance between athletics and academics at the College.
Her squad exemplifies the ideal the ranking sought to reward -- the women's basketball team not only won their Ivy League Championship last season, but they also topped the league in combined grade point average.
Men's basketball head coach Terry Dunn credited much of that sort of success to the admissions office's efforts to select a well balanced student body.
"The results speak directly to the leadership of the College," Dunn said. "We get the most out of what we have to work with."
While the rankings publicly identified the work student-athletes and coaches do to handle the responsibilities they take on at the College, few thought that type of success was most important in appealing to incoming students.
Gaudet said he has found alumni testimonials particularly effective in conveying a sense of life at Dartmouth.
"I think you're hard pressed to find anyone who went to this school and didn't absolutely love it," Gaudet said, remembering his time here as a student.
"We have the cohesiveness of a small town, and the amenities and professors of a large city university," Wielgus said.
