re#1: "My newspaper just published the information about my region’s valedictorians and salutatorians. I couldn’t help but notice that, out of about 300 students, only one or two plan to attend LACs. "
I bet if you look at just these 300 vals & sals, most private universities, including very “good” ones, are similarly absent, not just LACs. At the schools my kids attended, also in the Northeast like OP, the vals & sals generally gravitated to the sub-10% admissions rate places. (Whereas, when we were in the Midwest, while most of them did likewise, a fair chunk of them went to the state U).
But if you go down just a little bit, say to the top 3% of the classes, you will likely find that LACs have decent representation. Taking into account the small numbers of students they have the capacity to enroll.
"Very few students from my daughter’s high school apply to LACs, let alone attend them. My guess is less than 10 kids - maybe even less than 5 - out of the 160 or so graduating this year will be attending LACs. "
I think popularity may depend partly on the specifics of your school- relative demographics, etc. At the NE school my kids attended, LACs were reasonably well represented. Again,. taking into account the relatively small # seats these schools have to fill.