Greater Name Recognition: Denison, Dickinson or F&M?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never heard of any of them until I started reading DCUM college.

I still get confused between Denison Dickinson and Davidson…

Some people are easily confused.

I'm sorry if I hurt you by not recognizing the name of your obscure fourth-rate alma mater.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in NoVa (graduated from HS in ‘96) and heard of both the PA liberal arts colleges. I don’t think I ever heard about Denison until a year or two ago. I see it as a regional thing with these schools.

[Anonymous]

All 3 are regional schools.

[Anonymous]

Dickinson and F&M are regional Atlantic. None of the 3 has a better reputation than the others.

[Anonymous]

Denison will be less known to DCUMers. Dickinson and F&M are a little more known to those living in the mid Atlantic region.

Many in the US will not have heard of any of these colleges.

[Anonymous]

My personal ranking based more on familiarizing myself with these schools is that Denison has the edge based on endowment and a number of other things that impress me. To be fair, it is the only one I have visited. The strong merit aid means that they are able to reel in a lot of high quality students. F&M seems more similar by reputation with Dickinson less pre professional

[Anonymous]

When I moved to D.C. from Texas, I had never heard of any of them.

[Anonymous]

Denison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My personal ranking based more on familiarizing myself with these schools is that Denison has the edge based on endowment and a number of other things that impress me. To be fair, it is the only one I have visited. The strong merit aid means that they are able to reel in a lot of high quality students. F&M seems more similar by reputation with Dickinson less pre professional

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This makes me think they in terms of ROI plus getting a job and networking it’s better to go to a second tier state school.

And you would be wrong. Look at career outcomes of LACs--they are typically very strong.

[Anonymous]

Denison but it was a total safety school when I was in college.

[Anonymous]

F&M has the most name recognition. I don't see how that matters, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This makes me think they in terms of ROI plus getting a job and networking it’s better to go to a second tier state school.

And you would be wrong. Look at career outcomes of LACs--they are typically very strong.

Depends on the major. There are absolutely tier 2 state schools with majors that have higher ROI than LACs.

[Anonymous]

I think F&M is the only one of the three with an undergrad business degree and has a strong pipeline to NYC finance jobs.

[Anonymous]

I think your average person will not have heard of any of these. But your average person has not heard of Williams or Hamilton or any SLAC for that matter. For those in the know, typically highly educated and wealthy families, they’ve likely heard of all. I still think FM and Dickinson are regional. Denison seems to be gaining more out of region prominence.

As with all LACs, the alumni networks for all 3 are very strong. Neighbor kid got an internship at the height of COVID through Denison parent (kids were teammates), and our HR Dickinson alum goes out of her way to land Dickinson alums, at the expense of many VPs and their top 10 schools, LoL.