<p>I have to say that Davidson's football team is not very good (though highly literate, I believe), and I too continue to wonder why it plays DI (it is DIAA, so no scholarships)--perhaps a lack of potential regional DIII competition. It does play some D II teams and loses to them too, and travels great distances to play other DIAA teams, to whom it also often loses. (But I was interested to see that Williams had lost its first two football games this year, so even the mighty occasionally falter.) </p>
<p>Anyway, I wouldn't look to Davidson as a football power, but you (CousinBill et al.) can watch its basketball team play Duke on ESPN 2 the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I don't think they've beaten Duke in a couple of decades, but they gave them a good scare last year:) In fact, and I know this is not what you mean by prestigious (it isn't what I usually mean either), but Davidson has along history as a known basketball school; Lefty Dreisel (spelling?) coached there. And it has gone to the NCAA at least once, and almost went last year but lost its conference tournament after being undefeated in conference play prior to that). Oh...and they play Princeton, too, during the season...prestige by association, but on which side? :)</p>
<p>Back to the initial question:
Why does Davidson have such poor national name recognition? Is Davidson's name recognition growing? Also (important for me!) if Davidson gains more name recognition, will it become even harder to get in?</p>
<p>Many small schools have relatively poor name recognition, if you care about that sort of thing. Add the fact that it is in the south and not in the northeast where the bulk of "recognized" small LACs are, and you lose more recognition. Pomona also has poor name recognition among the general masses. If a school is small, is in less college-dense parts of the country and is not a big sports powerhouse, it won't have great name recognition.<br>
Davidson is already getting more selective. However, the location outside of Charlotte is not as big a draw for many kids as is the northeast.</p>
<p>dke, I have not been to Winston-Salem, so can't say definitively. Both schools have easy interstate (77/85) acccess. Davidson might be more convenient for those traveling by air, since it is about half an hour from Charlotte's airport, which is a USAir hub and also has decent Continental service and connections. The town of Davidson is small and pretty; stretch of I-77 going south toward Charlotte is quite suburbanized and offers a lot of shopping and movie options. I believe a light rail system is being discussed for Mecklenburg County, which would make getting into Charlotte easier for people without cars but that may be in relatively distant future. I imagine Winston-Salen has more going in because it is larger than the town of Davidson, but college tend to make their own activities anyway. I would not want to characterize one location as better. </p>
<p>CousinBill, a southern LAC will probably never have quite the name recognition or cachet as a northern one, especially in the north (where I am from). The issue of regional stereotyping and even bias has been discussed on other threads, probably at excessive length. It is also true that some of the northern schools (Williams especially) have way larger endownments than Davidson does, and having more money means you can provide more programs; that said, Davidson has a decent amount of money and has terrific facilities and outstanding faculty, but there's no doubt it is always nice to have more money. Anyway, the statements earlier on this thread pretty much sum it up. MOWC said it well. LACs in general have little name recognition among the masses. The ones in the traditional NE base have wider recognition among people in that region, who have probably been the traditional customer base for such schools. Graduate and professional schools know Davidson well, and Davidson is also part of a pretty aggressive new consortium to encourage corporate recruiting at small selective colleges. </p>
<p>To respond to your other specific quesiton, Davidson probably has gotten slightly harder to get in to the last few years; if you check the Web site you will probably find that the acceptance rate has declined (now about 25% and had been over 30% just a couple of years ago); That may be a function of increased name recognition and also I think becuase as it becomes harder for kids from the northeast and mid-Atlantic to get in to Williams etc, thier are willing to look farther from home. It is sort of rising on the radar screen of a very small and rather seelct group of people but I doubt it will ever be a major brand name. And that is fine. Really, out there in the real world, very few schools are brand names. On the positive side from your admissoins point of view, Davidson is one of those schools where the ED admission rate is mich higher than the RD rate, so if you are applying ED and are well qualified, you probably have more than a fighting chance. (And judging by the other schools you have mentioned in other threads, it sounds as though you must have pretty good credentials.)</p>
<p>As Mattmom said, regional stereotyping detrimentally affects southern colleges. Keep in mind also that it's only been about a generation or so that the population size of the southern states has become significant. In other words, fewer people lived in the south, thererfore most southern institutions did not have national reputations. Duke Univerity was only established well after the turn of the century. Until a recently, Davidson was just as unknown as Duke was in the 1950s. I always wondered why Richard Nixion matriculated at Duke Law School. Unfair perhaps, but nobody included Duke in their list of elite universities until relatively recently.</p>
<p>Speaking of Davidson athletics, don't forget basketballer Dick Snyder, one of the best shooting guards ever in the NBA. He was on the 1979 champion Seattle Supersonics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also (important for me!) if Davidson gains more name recognition, will it become even harder to get in?
[/quote]
I hate to say this, but Davidson is already very difficult to get into. I've met several North Carolinians at Duke who were rejected at Davidson. </p>
<p>As far as dke's question about Davidson vs. Winston-Salem, Davidson is a very nice pedestrian-friendly town with plenty to do, but you may get bored after a while. Charlotte's definitely not a college town, although Huntersville and the University area are developing very rapidly (check out Concord Mills, for example). Winston-Salem is much more of a college town, although also a bit like Charlotte in that it's a business/banking center. There's a ton of stuff to do in Winston-Salem, though, like Old Salem. As far as getting anywhere in North Carolina, both have good locations, although Winston-Salem probably has a slightly better location. Davidson and Winston-Salem are only about an hour to an hour-and-a-half apart.</p>
<p>Davidson definitely has athletic scholarships. 11% of their entire student body receives one. Another 15% receives merit aid, a big chunk of which ($1.2 million or so) is earmarked in a special scholarship program for non-football/basketball athletes. Philosophically, I think there's a certain honesty there. I've long believed that colleges should just stop the hypocricy and pay their football players. So, Davidson's approach is more honest than Div III.</p>
<p>Davidson spends over $4 million a year on athletics -- about three times the budget at Williams and five to ten times the typical small LAC.</p>
<p>Clearly has athletic scholarships but it does not have earmarked football scholarships the way it does basketball scholarships. I only referred to lack of football scholarships in my post; sorry for any lack of clarity.</p>
<p>I am jumping in on this thread because of something I read on the Arts Majors forum while searching for schools for my s to look into. One poster mentioned that Davidson had a strong studio art dept. Do any of you know anything about it, for example, its focus (whether it is in theory/art history/painting/sculpure, etc.)or other information to share? I have tried to find more about it online and through other sites with not much luck. Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>davidson is pretty good ...obviously there will alwasy be regional bias ...but don't worry its not liek everybody knows about carleton pomona or amherst for that matter ...just go and succeed where you are happy</p>
<p>Davidson will prepare you for entry into the top graduate schools in the USA. The kids there study many hours a day but relationships with faculty are so excellent and supportive, that they generally don't find the work oppressive. Most people who get into Davidson have superb work ethics. I find the little town it is in to be boring, but it is near a Lake with sailing for Davidson kids and there are upscale places to eat and hang out nearby. Charlotte itself is about ten to fifteen minutes south on the expressway. You can hook up with the New South energy on I 85 easily for what it is worth. Davidson students tend to enjoy each other and not mind their small town location..they are busy. They have a high ratio of scholar athletes on campus. Like many of our best LAC's, Davidson will give you the same or better results re entry to grad schools as schools with higher profiles and big sports or Ivy identities. It is not for everybody. I would say that if you value intimacy with profs and totally undergrad education atmosphere, it is a jewel.</p>
<p>It's funny that I came across this message board, because I'm a current Davidson College student and was just having a conversation on this same subject with my friends.</p>
<p>First of all, Davidson is extremely prestigious in the South and with academics throughout the country. In fact, according to some, it is by far the most intellectually prestigious school in the region. Though its prestige up north is certainly lacking, it is growing rapidly, as the school is finally taking an interest in increasing its national name recognition not only through its basketball team. For a long time, the school seemed to have rested on its laurels and was content with being a regional/LAC player, but now seems to be interested in playing with the Ivies.</p>
<p>In terms of selectivity, the difficulty in admission has increased exponentially over the past several years. Moreover, it is a lot more selective than it looks by numbers; remember that a good part of the incoming freshman class are Division 1 athletes. In the near future, I think that Davidson will continue to become more selective as its name recognition increases. Once it begins to be more of a household name up North, there will be huge increases in applicants; it's still kind of a hidden treasure up there. Also, I don't see any "limits" on its selectivity or prestige--there are aspects of Davidson that, unlike most of the Northern LACs, will attract people who otherwise would not be going for a Liberal Arts College. I would not be surprised to find Davidson as one of the few most selective schools in the nation in 10 years.</p>