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College and University Discussion
Have you heard of Davidson College?
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Anonymous
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I was applying to colleges in the 1990s and Pomona was already seen as one of the best LACs and a direct competitor to Amherst and Williams. Knew people who turned down Swarthmore for Pomona.
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Anonymous
Their 75% SAT is a 1440; how did you get 1550? Amherst is a 1560, Pomona 1540. Source: Davidson Common Data Set '16-'17 |
Anonymous
To me, a regional school is one that draws influence almost exclusively from its home base. Pomona and Davidson are not regional schools at this day and age; some 75% of Pomona students come from outside of California- the lowest percent of in-state students of any college/university in California, and a similar ratio of Davidson students are from outside of North Carolina. I think there may have been a point in which most liberal art colleges- even the best ones- were regional, given the cost and inconvenience of air transportation, the lack of sufficient need-based aid programs, and the lack of recognition of LACs among the general public. These days, most LACs report international % of 10% or higher- so the audience is definitely getting larger. Pomona has perennially been a top ten LAC. They've never ranked below 9 by US News, and that was only the very first year ever of rankings. Ever since then they haven't ranked below 7. Davidson has ranked in the top ten since 2002. Before that, they were around 15. Here's the list of historical averages (ie. the average rank of the college from 1984-2017) Williams- 1.71 Amherst- 1.81 Swarthmore- 2.33 Wellesley- 4.68 Pomona- 5.53 Bowdoin- 6.77 Middlebury- 7.33 Carleton- 7.72 Haverford- 8.65 Wesleyan- 11.1 Davidson- 11.3 Claremont McKenna- 12.8 Smith- 13.8 Vassar- 13.9 Grinnell- 14.5 Harvey Mudd- 15.6 Top 10 (1984-2000) Swarthmore, Amherst: 1.87 Williams: 2.2 Wellesley: 4.93 Pomona: 5.8 Bowdoin: 7.57 Haverford: 8.1 Wesleyan: 9 Carleton: 9.2 Middlebury: 9.3 Top 10 (2001-2017) Williams: 1.29 Amherst: 1.76 Swarthmore: 2.76 Wellesley: 4.47 Pomona: 5.29 Middlebury: 5.82 Bowdoin: 6.11 Carleton: 6.41 Haverford: 9.11 Davidson: 9.41 Biggest Movers of top 40 LACs: Up: Scripps (+9), Hamilton (+5), Claremont (+4), Davidson (+4), Vassar (+3), Middlebury (+3), Washington and Lee (+3) Down: Bryn Mawr (-11), Oberlin (-7), Barnard (-6), Smith (-5), Holy Cross (-5), Wesleyan (-4) As you can see, not much has changed within the top 10. Davidson in, Wesleyan out. I don't believe US News is fully characteristic (for instance, Stanford is also constantly ranked 4-6 even though it is comparable to HYP; similar to Pomona with AWS), but it does give a general sense of prestige. |
Anonymous
| As far as being a regional school, 39% of students hail from the South. Similar numbers for places like Bowdoin or Haverford in terms of their respective regions. Most students at Davidson do not come from the South. Hard to see it be considered a regional school at this point even if it was years ago. |
Anonymous
https://www.davidson.edu/admission-and-financial-aid/class-of-2020-profile The difference seems to be that Davidson reports stats for accepted students vs. attending students. Looks like a safety for a lot of high-performing kids. |
Anonymous
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Yeah, admitted vs enrolled statistics reveal substantial differences. All of the SAT sections are based on the OLD SAT.
Amherst's admitted is Critical Reading 710-800; Math 700-800; Writing 700-790, ACT 31-35. Their enrolled is 680-780 on all three, and 31-34, so they're likely losing some strong applicants to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. Pomona's admitted is Critical Reasoning: 680-780, Math: 680-770, Writing: 680-780, ACT Composite: 30-34. Their enrolled is 670-770 on each section, and 31-34, so they're probably losing some strong applicants as well, but not to the same extent as Amherst. Pomona's yield is 33% higher than Amherst's as well and the highest of any peer LAC. Davidson's admitted is 650-750 CR, 650-760 M, and 640-750; ACT 30-34. Their enrolled is 630-720 CR, 620-720 M, 620-730 W, and 28-33 ACT, which is quite a difference. Davidson's yield is 46%, so if the enrolled is that much lower, it suggests that kids applying to the top LACs and universities apply to Davidson and are admitted, but ultimately decide not to enroll. |
Anonymous
When I was applying in the mid-90s both Davidson & Pomona were already seen as top schools by those "in the know". I knew people who were accepted to schools like Vassar, Middlebury, Boston College, Wake Forest & Swathmore who didn't get into Davidson &/or Pomona. |
Anonymous
| I chose between Davidson and Pomona in the 90s! |
Anonymous
My sister turned down Wesleyan (her second choice) when she got into Davidson off the wait list in 1996. |
Anonymous
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https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/669797
This document is quite illuminating about differences in yield based on test scores. Amherst's total yield: 40.5% Yield of students scoring- 750-800 CR: 28.5% 700-740 CR: 40.8% 650-690 CR: 53.6% 600-640 CR: 66.7% My guess would be that athletes who are admitted ED make up a good number of the 600-690's. |
Anonymous
| Or maybe the minorities? Or are you just stupid not bigoted? |
Anonymous
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Over half of Amherst students come in as varsity athletes. The standards for those students for test scores are not as high in ED. I know, I've experience with the admissions committees at these colleges. You can also look at results threads and you'll see students recruited for athletics have noticeably lower scores than non-athletes.
Sure minorities make up a large part of those scores too, but I never denied that in the first place. |
Anonymous
| So it's both. |
Anonymous
| Yes. Although I only heard about it recently. |
Anonymous
| No. |