Davidson: a bust?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We enjoyed our tour of Davidson. It felt more “northern” culturally than most schools in the South, except for Emory.

When selecting schools with which to compare itself, Davidson tends to choose Northern colleges, as in this group of "peer institutions":

Amherst
Bates
Bowdoin
Carleton
Claremont McKenna
Colby
Colgate
Furman
Grinnell
Hamilton
Haverford
Macalester
Middlebury
Oberlin
Pomona
Swarthmore
Vassar
Washington and Lee
Wesleyan
Williams

https://www.davidson.edu/offices-and-services/institutional-effectiveness/peer-institutions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:no skin in this game, just coming to say our Davidson tour was one of the top 5 of the 18 we did. There were 2 students and they were wonderful. In the end wanted a little bigger and super rigorous, but make no mistake Davidson gets a great cohort of bright kids. They are more intellectual on ave than the ones who end up at Wake or W&L and to a lesser degree Uva.
Davidson admits 5-7 kids from the private each year and 3-4 attend. The students who attend have picked it over Vandy, Gtown, UVA, swat, middlebury. The ones who get in RD and go elsewhere have picked Dartmouth, Penn, Stanford, Amherst, and UVA. In other words students who consider it enough to apply often are considering and admitted to highly academic schools.

Great school, but takes about 80 percent of kids who applies from our private (a few in top 20 percent in class, but most just in top half). Definitely way easier admit than any other school you named.

It’s a perfectly good school but I think this comment and OP’s observations get at the heart of the kind of place it is. It attracts pretty basic kids. Inoffensive, nice, not dumb, but basic.

Adding that it pretty much tracks W&L from our school in terms of selectivity or somewhere like Grinnell.

This seems to comport with broader statistical analysis. In this site, for example, W&L placed 44th nationally by Selectivity Rank, and Davidson placed similarly, at 49th:

https://wallethub.com/edu/e/college-rankings/40750

[Anonymous]

Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is hilarious to me. I grew up in Davidson as a faculty brat.

Davidson is not Lake Norman Nascar types; those folks live in Cornelius and Mooresville, both of which are cheaper and have much better lakefronts.

It's a small town that has gotten enveloped by the Charlotte suburbs over the past few decades. Lots of transplants because it's one of the only areas in the North Charlotte suburban sprawl that has a walkable downtown. Lots of doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. People still go down to Charlotte for anything particularly interesting in terms of arts, beyond what's directly on campus. The campus is there, and is an amenity, but it's not a place where the college runs the town. Maybe that's what OP is talking about--the town isn't set up primarily to cater to college students, it's set up for the UMC/wealthy residents who live there.

Seems nice tbh. A nice college downtown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

[Anonymous]

Durham is a mid-size city with some very nice sections. Lots of gentrification over last 25 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

HACK are the top lacs. Been around for a long time, surprised if you haven’t heard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

HACK has been used as an acronym for four, presumably prominent, LACs on DCUM. Because of this prominence, we're expected to recognize the schools without further definition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

Yes, Davidson has an impressive endowmwnt of over $1.3 billion. (I've never heard of HACK either.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

Yes, Davidson has an impressive endowmwnt of over $1.3 billion. (I've never heard of HACK either.)

Amherst has 3.5 billion, nothing impressive about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

HACK are the top lacs. Been around for a long time, surprised if you haven’t heard.

So what colleges are those? I think if this was a real thing you'd just tell us.

Hamilton (Harvey Mudd?)
Amherst
Carlton
Kenyon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

HACK are the top lacs. Been around for a long time, surprised if you haven’t heard.

So what colleges are those? I think if this was a real thing you'd just tell us.

Hamilton (Harvey Mudd?)
Amherst
Carlton
Kenyon?

Why are you so hostile? Haverford Amherst Colby and Kenyon. If you don’t know something, have you considered not bludgeoning someone before they even get a chance to speak?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

HACK are the top lacs. Been around for a long time, surprised if you haven’t heard.

However, it's debatable as to whether or not these are uniformly the best LACs in the nation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Davidson needs to increase the endowment and visibility of the college to be recognized as a HACK peer

What the heck is HACK?

btw doesn't davidson have a great endowment?

Yes, Davidson has an impressive endowmwnt of over $1.3 billion. (I've never heard of HACK either.)

Amherst has 3.5 billion, nothing impressive about it.

PP here. Amherst's endowment is even more impressive--congrats! Nonetheless, $1.3 billion is indeed an impressive endowment for a college the size of Davidson.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure that HACK existed before this thread