<p>you guys throw out all these statistics, but obivously the OP has already visited and done his/her own research. he loves these two schools EQUALLY. so why not choose Duke?</p>
<p>Same logic says, "Why not choose Davidson?"</p>
<p>I would rather be around Davidson students than Duke students and I'd rather not be in Durham for 4 years.</p>
<p>i definitely agree with warbler- both are great schools and it really depends on what you want- prestigee should not be a factor in the decision
also, duke is in durham but the campus is overall nice as is davidsons-
and asian dictator- if u have never heard of davidson and u were being serious u should get off this board</p>
<p>Duke wins academically.
-Ranked 8th feeding undergrads into top 10 law, biz, and med schools, Davidson is ranked outside the top 15
-Ranked 7th highest SAT scores in the country...Davidson is not anywhere close
-Duke has the highest proportion of National Merit Scholars outside of HYPSM</p>
<p>Socially, that depends on the person, but if you are looking for the school that will put you with the smartest people, and open up the most doors for you, obviously Duke is the choice.</p>
<p>Davidson is a very legit safety school for people who get into Duke. Also, why even mention Durham? Duke is so superior academically that even if the surrounding town was bad, it shouldn't even be an issue.</p>
<p>Did you just call Davidson a safety school? With an admission rate under 20% and average SATs from 680-740 per section (as published by their school paper) it's a far cry from a safety for anyone.</p>
<p>"Same logic says, "Why not choose Davidson?"</p>
<p>I would rather be around Davidson students than Duke students and I'd rather not be in Durham for 4 years."</p>
<p>Does it? The logic was that since the OP liked both schools equally, he should go with prestige. If he says he loves Duke, then he must not have a problem with Durham.</p>
<p>.....................................lol</p>
<p>Wel, if he goes to Duke and doesn't like it, he can easily transfer to Davidson...not so easy vice-versa, if he does not like Davidson...</p>
<p>
<em>blinks</em> Did you actually try to back up that claim with a ranking difference of two points? Considering that the US has over 4000 colleges, I really don't think that's very significant. You might as well compare PhD production at Duke and Davidson (8.5% and 7.5%, respectively).</p>
<p>I do believe that Duke is the better institution (however biased I may be), but I really don't think it's enough to make a difference in education.</p>
<p> [quote=ninja.of.love] Same logic says, "Why not choose Davidson?"
Agreed. People choose colleges like Middlebury and Swarthmore all the time, although most people have never heard of these schools. </p>
<p>My U Chicago interviewer teaches German at Davidson. Although his job was to quiz me about my interests and Chicago, he did his best to convince me to come to Davidson! He said that, in his opinion, Davidson provides an equally good education.</p>
<p>
Um...you DO know that Charlotte is the #2</a> banking center after NYC, right? And that Davidson students usually get jobs there?</p>
<p>I'm equally annoyed/amused by the comment about "Ivy League" Duke. Duke >>> Ivies. ;)</p>
<p>I never said that I loved the schools equally, as the OP did. I do not love these schools equally for personal reasons.</p>
<p>I believe Warblers has a good point about professors. I've known three Duke professors and all three attempted to convince me NOT to attend Duke and not because they thought I couldn't get in and were sparing me the disappointment.</p>
<p>As for my comments about Durham, I stand by them. Durham is not a nice place to live and much of the local community has disdain for the school and its students. I spent almost a year in Durham and we moved because a woman was raped and murdered in our apartment complex. This may not spill over onto campus but there is crime and poverty in the city itself. Consider this: on the TPR town-gown relations are good list, Davidson is #6; on the TPR town-gown relations are strained list, Duke is #4. There is animosity in the largely poor and black city of Durham about the behavior of the students and there are frequently newspaper articles that have local residents complaining about the behavior of some Duke students (ie - loud parties, public urination, extreme intoxication).</p>
<p>I would rather advocate the use of the town and the character of the student body as criteria for a decision than prestige.</p>
<p>I really believe the academic argument depends on what the OP wants to study and the relative strength of those deptartments, rather than arbitrary USNWR statistics about the relative strength of Davidson as a LAC and Duke as a University.</p>
<p>Is there still even a debate going on? I have never EVEN HEARD OF Davidson in my whole life. Do you really want to go to a school that has no prestige and whose name will only bring about puzzled faces and laughs from others for the rest of your life?</p>
<p>and we wonder why asians get sterotyped......</p>
<p>A school no one has heard of? You mean the way Bowdoin does among most people? Or Williams, which one has to explain to almost everyone is in the northwest corner of Massachsetts, just a few miles from the Vermont border? Most people just have not heard of most LACs, and that is okay. Different strokes... </p>
<p>But, and this is an aside to HG, you used to make such great and cosntructive comments about Davidson, please don't fall into negative stereotyping trashtalking even when or if provoked. You and Davidson are better than that (at least I know Davidson is:))</p>
<p>Anyone who says Davidson is as good as Duke academically is not looking out for your best interest or your future. Duke is CLEARLY superior academically, its not even a competition.</p>
<p>Mattmom, no offense, but Williams is much better than Davidson. Davidson is a safety school for most people who get into Duke. This shouldn't be a surprise if you look at the caliber of students who go to Duke and then the caliber of students who go to Davidson. </p>
<p>I like Davidson and think its very pretty, but Duke is definitely the better choice if your looking for the most opportunities and want to be around the smartest people.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and in case the pro-Davidson folk on this thread keep trying to deceive everyone about how Davidson actually stacks up to Duke...</p>
<p>Average SATs:
Duke: 1360 - 1540
Davidson: 1240 - 1430 </p>
<p>Duke students score much better</p>
<p>Feeder rankings (% students going to top 10 law/biz/med schools)
Duke: Ranked top 10, sending 8.6% of students, slightly better than Columbia or Penn
Davidson: Not in the top 25, which is the lowest rank the survey goes to </p>
<p>Duke obviously wins again</p>
<p>Student HS Class Rank:
Duke: 87% in top 10%
Davidson: 78% in top 10%</p>
<p>This one is close, but again Duke takes it</p>
<p>If you take the time to look up other things, like Rhodes/Truman/Marshall scholars, or National Merit Scholars, or ratings from global businesses on how much they like students from certain colleges, Duke clearly wins in all categories</p>
<p>So, as I said before and now have displayed with facts, Duke is totally superior to Davidson academically, and those who are pretending Davidson is as good as Duke are not being straightforward with you</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess: In my earlier post I was not saying OP should choose one or the other, simply mildly making fun of the later poster who had never heard of the school I think of as Little D. I do feel that LACs and universities are two separate kettles of fish and offer quite different experiences; some people might thrive in one setting and not another. Being the parent of a Williams alum and a longtime New England vacationer, I can assure you that I have known about Williams since I was a little girl a very long time ago and that when I was a Williams parent, not quite as long ago, I often had to explain to people where it was. I make no claims about one school's superiority over another. I do find, however, that when people feel it is necessary to say "no offense" they generally suspect they are being offensive to the person they are addressing. (And never having had a child apply to Duke I would not know what students who apply to Duke use as a safety school but certainly admire students whose credentials are strong enough for them to use Davidson as their safety.)</p>
<p>Incidentally, "its very pretty" in post 34 is incorrect; it should be "it's very pretty" the usage is the contraction for "it is." I am usually very sympathetic about typos because I make so many myself, but...superior people should be aware of such details. No offense intended of course.</p>
<p>I think that anyone who has seriously researched colleges recently has heard of Davidson. Kaplan had it listed as a "hot" school in 2002. I think it has since gotten "hotter". </p>
<p>A more recent article (2007) refers to Davidson as one of the 25 New Ivies. ;)</p>
<p>In case you can't open the 2007 new ivy article.</p>
<p>"Davidson College
Davidson, N.C.
This private liberal-arts college of 1,600 has benefited from a recent surge in interest. Last year, 3,900 students applied for the class of 2010; only 30 percent were accepted. A decade earlier, admissions officers were sifting through about 2,800 applications. "We look, feel, sound like a New England liberal-arts college—but we're in North Carolina," says Christopher Gruber, dean of admission and financial aid. About a third of students are from the Southeast. The most popular majors are biology, economics, English, history and political science. Students can also concentrate in a particular area within a major—for example, biology with a concentration in medical humanities. Overlap schools: University of North Carolina, Duke, University of Virginia, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Rice, Boston College, Pomona, Stanford and the Ivies."</p>
<p>I guess some of y'all don't read Time magazine. Davidson was featured on the cover for a story called, "Who Needs Harvard?" Maybe some folks want to attend a school based on the campus feel and the personality of the students. Consider the recent business school cheating scandal for instance. It never would have happened at Davidson because all students believe in the Honor Code. The schools are different and it's ridiculous to say that one school is a better match for a student based on the other students' past performances and standardized test scores.</p>
<p>"It never would have happened at Davidson because all students believe in the Honor Code." </p>
<p>Naive.</p>
<p>I have never met or heard of a single Davidson student who would actively or passively allow cheating. 30 some students? Definitely not.</p>