<p>"Texas' sports at a school with Pomona's focus on small classes, Northwestern's programs, Northwestern's campus beauty, Williams or Midd's setting(rural, seeing the stars, etc. = +'s), Williams' study abroad(10% to Oxford every year = drool), the Claremont Consortium's size, access to a city like Northwestern, an Honor Code like Haverford and so on."</p>
<p>did you ever look at Rice? They play Texas in football, have a great student-faculty ratio of 6-1, surprisingly good breadth of programs for a school of 3000 students, beautiful campus, study abroad, access to a major city and a respected honor code. </p>
<p>FWIW, I also think that Northwestern and Vanderbilt and Davidson meet nearly all of your criteria. As was said before, if you get into several of these schools, figuring out which to attend will be a high quality problem. :) Good luck. </p>
<p>P.S. Davidson's school year and exams end before the middle of May. I suspect you would find the temps (avg high in mid/hi 70s) and humidity in May to be appealing. The problem might be in the beginning of the school year (very end of August) and September (avg hi/low of 82-63).</p>
<p>And on visiting the southern schools - I can't wait, however their distance from eachother makes it very difficult, so I'm waiting to hear responses. With my eastern schools, I was able to do a nice loop(with many others that fell off my list). And in Cali, I was able to tag along when my dad had business in LA. Nashville, Houston, and Charlotte are pretty far apart.</p>
<p>And yes, the plan is to get into a bunch and visit as many as I can then.</p>
<p>Again - Thanks for all the advice.</p>
<p>And to the OP - sorry about hijacking your thread.</p>
<p>DSC: Davidson is the most conservative school on your list. Claremont McKenna, probably the second most conservative school on your list, is substantially more liberal than is Davidson. I am familiar with all of your targeted schools, and I understand your posted desire to be near a city like Evanston, Illinois while studying at a school with programs like Northwestern's. Emory is quite liberal, Duke moderately so, and Vanderbilt is close to Rhodes College regarding a moderate conservative/ conservative liberal atmosphere, in my opinion. Davidson, a school which I consistently praise and have visited several times, is more conservative than all of the other schools listed in this thread. Davidson also has its own lakefront beach on a beautiful, and very large, lake just about ten or fifteen minutes from the main campus. And Kelsmom is right that religion is a very important part of Southern culture.</p>
<p>Being around conservatism isn't really a big deal for me, Oakland County is very conservative. My family is registered republican, as 2/3 of seats go unchallenged(by the way we are pretty liberal, well my parents are, I lean left, but not quite as far). However, overwhelming religiousness could very much get on my nerves. I think religion can be good, but I really haven't found mine at this point, and want to do some comparitive religion courses in college due to that. And people who ignore actual facts due to doctrine, and screw up people's lives because of it I very much disagree with(I'm looking at you 'Abstinence-only' sex ed people). So the 'every word of the bible is true' structure could be a problem. However, I do like to think of myself as open-minded, and that requires an open mind towards those I disagree with in addition to those I agree with.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your input at my thread, and everyone's advice here will be considered. A distant cousin of mine went to University of Virginia and she said it was moderately conservative down there, but she didn't care as she was apolitical. The thing I love about the South is its wonderful warm weather, and here in upstate New York the winter is awful. And of course, I would not say all Southern people are intolerant. My concern originated from the fact that Davidson's state, North Carolina, elected some stubborn conservatives like Helms and Faircloth (I have no problem at all with fiscal conservatism, but social conservatism, like the abstinence-only ed, war on drugs, and "dry"ness really stifles all fun). Anyhow, the top factor of my family ppl's decision on college is academics, so I guess Davidson as long as it's not Bob Jones it would be ok for us.</p>
<p>Davidson is a jewel in the crown of Greater Charlotte, which is a thriving boom town in the South, the fastest growing city on the East Coast and one of the only places in the USA where housing values just rose..check out today's NYTs...so my only quibble is that you need to understand that Davidson is part of Charlotte. It is true that Davidson students work constantly so they do wander around the growing upscale Davidson village quiet soda shops and all the nouveau Lake developments, strip malls and coffee shops and delis right there on the northern cusp of the city. But Davidson is not in any way as pristine and rural as Middlebury in its true small town setting.
A friend of mine who is a novelist grad from Furman, George Singleton, calls the expressway exits and the societies and settlements from north of Charlotte to north of Atlanta..the Slaburbs..and you may indeed find that those exit ramp communities on the expressway do not resemble New England at all. Anyhoo...please keep in mind that Davidson has great name recognition....(another quibble sorry, but from DC to Florida where I travel everyone knows Davidson is a top tier academic challenge school) and it is highly selective. I hope no one will take offense when I tell you that in Atlanta and Charlotte, Middlebury does not enjoy great name recognition nor does the wonderful Williams...and people thought we were insane to even look at the New England LACs, which we spent a full week visiting. It gets to be rather hilarious really how different regions view each other. In the southeast, they tend to pity people going north on purpose to college, and to feel that the nation is on the move best in the south, notwithstanding Jesse Helms and some other scary people. I am a military brat so I have heard it all. I live in Virginia now and people insult me all the time by expressing to me that they hope their children won't have the misfortune to marry a Yankee or to have to hang around with anyone from New Jersey. (My husband is from Long Island and New Jersey and we managed to still get the most out of our four years at Furman...great experience..ditto at Vandy) I also have people say insulting things to me about Duke all the time...like "How many Northerners are there?" TONS!! ha. Duke is not considered a truly southern school where I live.</p>
<p>Davidson is a ten-15 minute interstate ride south to downtown Charlotte, a major US financial market, but compared to Middlebury (we also visited and respected it)...Davidson must be understood to be a part of the population surge and the megalopolis of the Eastern New South...that is where 1-77 and 1-85 collide, Charlotte, Greenville-Spartanburg (hugely chic and fun downtown in Greenville) and then of course Atlanta...began to take up the speed in the 1970s in our economy and they continue to grow diversify and astound. I barely recognize Greenville. Spent a lot of time there working on a project for Furman as an alum recently and there were still a few bible thumpers shouting on the street corners and some BJU kids around but otherwise...downtown was transformed. Michelin and BMW are there and you can hear French and German spoken anywhere...amazing.</p>
<p>I will be at Davidson next year (deferred my enrollment for a year), and I had the same concerns. I am extremely liberal (I've lived in Seattle my whole life) and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to connect with people because our beliefs would be so different, but when I visited I found that completely false. Most of the students I met were actually liberal, and ALL of them were incredibly nice and genuine, more so than a lot of other schools I visited, including Haverford (which had been my first choice, until I visited Davidson).
I spoke to a student at Davidson who had graduated from an inner city public school in Seattle, like me. She told me about a gender studies class she had been in where she was one of two girls, and where she was the one with the most liberal ideals. She said that it was so different from any moral debate she'd had in Seattle because, for the first time, she was the voice of her opinion and the only one with it, versus being surrounded by a crowd of like-minded people. She said that she was able to better express her opinions and understand them because she had to defend them to some of her peers so often. That's not to say that she never had people who agreed with her - it was just in that particular class.
I thought that her story was really interesting, and it made me realize that it could actually be way more politically stimulating to be around people with such diverse views, instead of being in a place with a conservative population of less than 10%.</p>
<p>In terms of location, a school not on DSC's list actually seems more similar to Davidson than the more purely rural settings of either Williams or Middlebury--Bowdoin. Brunswick, Maine, is a fairly small town in a fairly booming area, with proximity to a major regional city (Portland). I suspect that DSC may have visited on a northeastern trip and perhaps and not liked it as much as others, but to me it has an appealing mix of self-containment and accessibility to a much larger community. My children were less enamored of it than I was but I always have liked it and find the setting very appealing.</p>
<p>I guess I have not looked at the Williams Web site in a few years--my older child graduated several years ago and although two of his friends did the Oxcford program junior year I always had the sense that it was very difficult to get into, since several other friends who applied were not accepted and studied elsewhere abroad. It sounds a little less daunting if it is indeed ten percent of the class at that one program, and it is, as you'd expect, a memorable experience. (And proud as I am of my Williams alum and however admiring I am of his very bright and amusing friends, I don't know how many of them would even get into Williams now--the acceptance rate has gotten markedly lower than it was even in their recent day.)</p>
<p>Deadline note: The Davidson app dealine is January 2, so if contemplating submitting an application, time is getting short. Good luck at all the excellent schools.</p>
<p>A small political note: I think North Carolina is a much more politically and culturally diverse place than you (the OP) are giving it credit for. Sure, NC elected Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth. But it also elected John Hunt and Terry Sandford. It has major research operations in the "Research Triangle" area that attract scientists from all over the world and excellent universities. At a recent high-end craft show, I was bowled over by the sophistication and ambition of a number of artists from the artsy area around Asheville -- I had no idea what they were doing in a craft show, because they were very much engaged in high-art aesthetics, using high-art techniques. And there were lots of them.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am a life-long northeastern liberal snob, and I wouldn't turn up my nose at North Carolina at all.</p>
<p>As for Davidson, I know several alums, one of whom has a daughter there now. Your basic urban left-wing do-gooders. No cause for concern.</p>
<p>Davidson is an excellent school with a terrific reputation, and some very good and valid points have been made here. The OP should also be aware, though, that Davidson is not all that diverse, on any level; it is primarily a school filled with wealthy white students. I'm sure they are working on that diversity, but as excellent as the school is, I do think the OP shouldn't be misled into thinking otherwise. Try to make a visit if you can. If diversity, on many levels, is of value to you, Davidson may not be a great choice.</p>
<p>JHS: Good points--NC is very diverse, but I don't know that Davidson reflects that diversity. By the way, that would be Terry Sanford (not Sandford). ;)</p>
<p>Also, Asheville is NOT indicative of the rest of the state (it's not even indicative of the rest of Buncombe County.) And it's James Hunt, I think!</p>
<p>You have failed to mention UNC-Chapel Hill. Located in Chapel Hill which just might be collegiate Nirvana, it combines great academics with top notch athletics,research opportunities and a very beautiful campus.</p>
<p>It is a very liberal school but also a very accommodating/tolerant place. Often now referred to as the blue island in a red sea, Jesse Helms once said (when the state was trying to raise money to build a zoo) "why not just out a fence around Chapel Hill?"</p>
<p>My S is a senior there and turned down Yale among others to attend. With the AP credits he brought with him he was able to skip all but two large classes, has developed very close relationships with professors and in fact was a TA last year for one, helping to lead a discussion group for what was already a relatively small class.</p>
<p>This past semester he had classes that ranged from 6 students to 15 with the other two having between 8 and 10 students. </p>
<p>"Stack" magazine recently ranked UNC, Stanford and U Texas as the top schools to combine academics with athletics with UNC leading the pack. Please refer to this link:</p>
<p>Based on what the OP said were his criteria, UNC could be a perfect fit but be cautioned that admission to UNC is a tough ticket to punch due to the state's 18% cap on OOS students.</p>
<p>As a graduate of UNC-CH, I am familiar with Davidson and can vouch for its quality of education. However, to be fair to the OP, Davidson's student body tends to be more conservative and preppy than a NorthEastern LAC. For example, until 2005, only Christians could serve on the Davidson College Board of Trustees. Then this change was made, after much controversy:</p>
<p>From Wickipedia:
In early 2005, the College's Board of Trustees voted in a 31-5 decision to allow 20% of the board to be non-Christian. John Belk, the former mayor of Charlotte and one of the heirs of Belk Department Store, was a casualty of this decision, resigning in protest after more than six decades of affiliation with the college. Stephen Smith also resigned. </p>
<p>It is hard to imagine a top NE LAC, even a religious-based one, having a quota of non-Christians on their Board.</p>
<p>Re the previous post: Not an officially and publicly known quota, anyway.</p>
<p>I don't think Davidson especially needs me to defend its diversity, social conscience, and so on. It's probably doing fine in terms of applicants, its minority enrollment is increasing, and it has taken another step toward economic diversity by being the first of the top LACs to eliminate loans as part of the FA packages this year. I do, however, think that students and their families from the Northeast and Midwest who are concerned that it may not be sifficiently diverse or intellectually challenging or socially progressive or just plain good enough may be missing a great opportunity to find yet another school that's right for them.</p>
<p>I agree with Mattmom that Davidson and Williams have a lot in common. I would add that those schools are not only academic, but very into sports. Davidson, for reasons unknown, thrusts its 1750 students into Division 1A in all sports. Williams is not so advanced, but takes its athletics seriously and the percentage of students who participates rivals Notre Dame and other schools renowned for sports on campus.</p>
<p>Davidson is called the Princeton of the South -- I would claim the Williams of the South would be a better description. But, give Davidson its due, it is truly unique and it is hard to compare it to the others on your list.</p>
<p>
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. . . students and their families from the Northeast and Midwest who are concerned that it may not be sifficiently diverse or intellectually challenging or socially progressive or just plain good enough may be missing a great opportunity to find yet another school that's right for them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>From what I've read on this thread, everyone agrees that there is no question about Davidson having great academics and providing intellectual challenge--no argument there--as it is a great school in that regard. It is <em>not</em> a diverse school, though, by any stretch of the imagination, although I agree that eliminating loans (which they just announced a few months ago) is a definite step in the right direction, certainly for economic diversity.</p>
<p>As an aside, I have NEVER heard Davidson referred to as "the Princeton of the South." That has certainly been stated about Duke (especially since Duke's campus was patterned after Princeton's), but I have <em>never</em> heard that phrase uttered in connection with Davidson-- ever. It's an excellent school, but most definitely not on a par with either Duke or UNC-CH, on many levels.</p>