We are going to Davidson.....
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Anonymous
| If you like W&L, you will love Davidson. Confederate flag and all! Mint juleps. Seersucker. Madras plaid. Muffy moms. Golfing dads. Just the facts. |
Anonymous
| Our neighbor's daughter attends Davidson. She is very poised, intelligent, genuine and nice, and she loves it there. |
Anonymous
The Davidson graduates whom I've met don't fit that profile at all. |
Anonymous
| I think of it more like the PA/NY liberal arts colleges (Muhlenberg, Dickenson, F&M, Gettysburg, Lafayette, Skidmore, Hamilton etc.) for someone who doesn't want to be up north. Good school, not quite top tier but attracts strong students and has an excellent reputation more regionally (Southeast U.S.) |
Anonymous
+1 Davidson grads I know are respected professionals - very impressive. Though some might question the divinity of our current president, which those here on DCUM make them a nutjob. |
Anonymous
+1 -- and I'd say the same about current students; there's actually a slightly crunchy vibe at Davidson these days |
Anonymous
| I am from the area and attended Davidson's sister school. It has a great reputation in the South. |
Anonymous
| Save your money and go to a state university. Davidson is not even as good as UVA. |
Anonymous
UVA is one of three Top 25 schools that is a state university (Cal +UCLA) |
Anonymous
Other than Hamilton, which is only ranked slightly lower on most lists than Davidson & is probably just a bit less competitive in terms of admissions, none of the schools you mentioned are in the same category, either academically or in terms of competiveness, as Davidson. This should be obvious by looking at USN&WR rankings, among others yet until quite recently I, too, was unaware of just how highly ranked Davidson is & how competitive it's admissions standards are. It seems I may not have underestimated Davidson, however, if I worked in a profession that typically attracts a lot of people who attended Davidson (or any of the other schools frequently mentioned on DCUM, for that matter). My DH,a lawyer, says all of of his colleagues & old friends from law school seem to be well aware of what a great school it is; both my cardiologist brother & our neighbor who has a high-level policy job have told me the same thing in regards to Davidson's reputation among those in their respective fields. But as I'm a freelance artist/illustrator & my career doesn't typically involve much interaction with, well, anybody  & those I do meet through work rarely talk about where they attended college (unless, of course, they went to RISD, in which case they may never shut up about it :wink , when we first started talking to my DS about colleges, I was admittedly stuck in a time warp of sorts when it came to many schools, Davidson included. A lot has changed since my high school classmates & I were talking about colleges back in early 80s!
My DH, who has a "very bright, articulate & driven" young co-worker at his law firm who attended Davidson for undergrad & went on to do extremely well at Harvard Law school prior to joining the firm, had been telling me we should encourage our oldest, who just started his senior in high school, to look there, as he has told us since he started high school that he wants to attend college in the south because he's "sick of ridiculously cold winters" lol. I assumed he meant it would be a good "safety school" for DS. I was rather surprised when DH told me Davidson would probably end up being be more of a "target" school for DS, as it tends to be a bit more competitive than Wake Forest, Emory, or perhaps even Vanderbilt & that, while he definitely thinks that DS has a better shot of getting into Davidson than Duke, its admissions standards are not really all that much lower. The next time I was in Barnes & Noble with some time to kill, I checked out the rankings & other data in the latest college guides & found out DH was absolutely right (I hate when that happens :wink & DS's guidance counselor further confirmed this when we met with her & she told us that Davidson is most definitely considered a first-tier college among the guidance counselors in the DC area & that she's had students with excellent GPAs & test scores (including a couple of National Merit semi-finalists!) who were either waitlisted or outright denied admission.
Thanks to my DD, who's a junior in high school & starting to look at colleges (but, in keeping with her & DS's 16 year trend of being polar opposites, only wants to go to a school in New England because she "hates how disgustingly hot & humid it gets here!"  ) , as well as my niece, who's a freshman at Wake Forest & only applied to liberal arts colleges & smaller universities on the east coast (FWIW, she applied to Davidson, was waitlisted & told my DS that she would have chosen to go there in a heartbeat had she gotten in off the WL), my knowledge of schools in the northeast also no longer dates back to 1982 .Vassar, Barnard, Middlebury, Tufts, Boston College, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Colby & Wesleyan all immediately come to mind as being far more similar to Davidson in terms of competitiveness & recent rankings than are Muhlenburg, Dickenson, F&M, Lafayette or Skidmore, which really aren't even in the same category.
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Anonymous
^This. And the schools you mentioned starting with Muhlenberg are all very good schools. They simply are not as hard to get into or as academically rigorous as Davidson. |
Anonymous
| What does it take to get significant merit aid at Davidson for an unhooked student, does anyone know? Is it possible to get the cost down near in state public range if you are not an Ivy contender? DC has 4.0 unweighted and +2100 SAT from non big 3. Loved Davidson but can't justify price compared to UVA or W&M. |
Anonymous
| Wear seersucker and whale belts for men. Lilly for girls. You will be fine! |
Anonymous
| Muhlenberg ? Really? Do many well known SLAC schools mentioned - why mention Muhlenberg? Not competitive. |
Anonymous
So like Gettysburg or F & M? |