If you are interested in southern LACs close to (or in) a city, you might also consider the University of Richmond and Rhodes College in Memphis. They are a bit less selective than S/H/D but still very good. They increase your chances of getting into a high-quality school in the environment you seek.
Washington & Lee is another southern LAC with strong academics, but it is pretty rural.
Urban or suburban private universities in the South include Emory (Atlanta), Rice (Houston), Vanderbilt (Nashville), Tulane (New Orleans), U of Miami(FL), SMU (Dallas), TCU (Fort Worth), and Baylor (Waco).
These are pretty much all of the colleges that I will probably apply to:
Davidson(ED), Penn State(rolling), Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Wustl, Georegetown(maybe), Boston College, Brandeis, Emory(maybe), William and Mary, Middlebury, Vassar(maybe), Wesleyan, Colby, Richmond, and F&M.
Run the NPC for each school to make (reasonably) sure that they are affordable – there’s no sense in applying if you can’t afford it.
A few things:
That's 17 apps if you include all the "maybe" schools. That many will require a lot of time and money. You can do it, you just have to be prepared to put in the work and cash.
The list is reach-heavy. There are a handful of match-range schools, mostly high matches at that. In terms of safeties, PSU might be considered a safety if you are a Pennsylvania resident. If you would be happy at PSU or F&M, I think it's a decent list. (you'll likely have more acceptances, but there are no guarantees).
Finally, make sure you complete all the app requirements. For instance, Georgetown requires three SAT subject tests, so if you want to apply there, you'll need to take two more.
@prezbucky Thank you. I took the math level 2 test in October and I’m still waiting for my score. In that case, I’m probably gunna remove Georgetown since it accepts very few international students anyways.
If I got accepted by Davidson, would I be able to save the money for RD application fees? I guess I still need to send the scores to those schools nevertheless.
Since you list F&M, you might look at Lafayette. Comparably hard/easy to get into but everyone in my family liked it more than F&M and they still offer generous merit scholarships in addition to or even for those not qualified for financial aid. My son didn’t apply for aid and still was offered merit award that would have covered more than half his total costs.
The only advantage to ED is statistically higher likelihood of acceptance and the ability to know where you are going (if accepted) before all the other RD apps are due, both reducing the application work load and not suffering the months of uncertainty your RD classmates are. Downsides are you are locked in if accepted, it means you’ll never know if you could have been accepted to any of your more reach schools and it means you should be very comfortable you that you’ll be happy there.
@jackwang0703 I’m not familiar with the school-by-school benefits to international applicants so F&M may be better for that, I have no idea. Both schools are liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania. Neither are that close to Philadelphia but Lafayette is closer – and closer to NYC as well (probably 90 minutes in good traffic). They both are about comparably hard to get into; Lafayette may be slightly harder.
The reasons we liked Lafayette better were: 1) They offered huge merit scholarships and F&M doesn’t do merit aid; 2) We thought the campus and area was prettier, though F&M has the whole Amish community thing going for it; 3) Lafayette has a particular reputation for being very good for getting students internships, externships and having excellent career placement and connections with alumni who help current or recent students.
@jackwang0703, I graduated from Davidson a while back and was accepted into several Ivy League and top-10 graduate programs. If you do well at Davidson, you won’t have any problems moving forward.
To answer your question, the advantage of ED is that it’s easier to get in. The disadvantage is that you’re stuck with your decision. Don’t apply ED unless you are sure that Davidson is your top choice. If you have the chance, it would be good to visit.
The humanities at Davidson are very strong. What is best about Davidson (and many LACs) is the personal interaction with professors and other students in the small classes. There is a real sense of a welcoming, happy community at Davidson.
Finally, I have to correct a previous poster: as any American knows, Brownies are young GIRL Scouts.
@wstrav Thank you for your valuable information! The only thing that I’m worried about right now is the grade deflation and the extremely rigorous academic workload.
I visited Davidson with my parents in August and we loved the campus and the town’s hospitality. I only wanna ED an LAC because I don’t know what I wanna major in and I am not that fond of STEM. I also prefer smaller size so it’s not a problem.
So what I’m thinking is, no matter what school you choose, as long as it’s a top one, academic life is going to be pretty tough. Is that right? I find myself so contradictory when I want the reputation of a top 10 school but only wanna do the work of a top 40 school…
Also, is one actually better than the other? Being an average student at a top college or being a top student in a decent college? (For example Davidson or Duke compared to BC or Brandeis) That’s what I’m really confused about.
@jackwang0703, I believe you are making bad assumptions. Too many people think that they can slack off at an average school and still be at the top of their class. What happens at all schools is that the students who don’t want to work hard don’t do well. There are capable students at all schools. If you take it easy at any school, you’ll probably end up as an average student or worse. What is different among schools is that a top school, with professors dedicated to undergraduate teaching, will stretch you intellectually.
The real question is which school is the best fit for you. Only you can answer this. I will say, though, if you find a good fit, and have engaging professors and interesting classmates, you should enjoy the academic work. And still have time for fun and extracurriculars.
@wstrav I see what you are saying. It’s true. I will ED Davidson very soon. Hopefully I will be able to experience the undergraduate education they provide.
I went to an Ivy League grad school after Davidson, and some of my classmates went to the same Ivy university (including the same school there) as I did, so it can certainly be done. I found Davidson challenging.
I submitted my application. Honestly I just wanna know the decision as soon as possible but it’s not gunna be released till 12/15. Is it always just on that day not before?
jackwang0703, good luck with the application. To answer your other questions about the desirability of going to a great school or being a great student:
What do you plan to do after college? If you plan to go straight to the working world, it’s probably best to have a degree from the fanciest school you can; if you plan to go to grad school, it’s probably best to have the best grades you can (assuming that you’ll attend a grad school that weights grades heavily in the application process).
The good thing about Davidson is that it is a top-10 LAC, but if you look at student selectivity (measured by SAT scores), it’s not in the top 10–so it is more highly ranked than its student body SAT scores would indicate–meaning that you can get a top-10 LAC degree without having the level of competition among your peers than you would have at some other schools–meaning that you can both be a top student and get a top degree there, to a greater extent than you could at some other schools.
The list of schools ranked by SAT scores is somewhere on College Confidential, and it’s also on the Internet. I forget the exact search terms for it, though.
@HappyAlumnus Thank you! To be honest I don’t really know what I wanna do yet but very likely to go to grad school.
That’s one of the reasons I chose Davidson because my test scores are decent but not competitive enough for some top schools. When I visited Davidson, the AO listed five important factors that are considered during an application evaluation. Standardized test scores was the last one.