<p>What I think it’s going to come down to for you is a trade off: if you must have urban/suburban you may have to expand beyond the top 15-20 LACs. If you want top 15-20 LACs you may have to expand beyond urban/suburban. As I said, it’s difficult to grasp the personalities of LACs without visiting, but from your description of yourself I would think that you would find what you’re looking for at many of the rural/small top LACs and increase your admission chances as well.</p>
<p>Meant to write “rural/small town LACs.”</p>
<p>I think I shall have to think about this for some time… Thank you all for your comments and advice - I think I’ll have to spend the next few days researching before I’m completely sure of what I want to do.</p>
<p>With respect to Davidson, be aware that the vast majority of posters are only vaguely aware of LACs outside the Northeast and Midwest. Davidson in particular receives very little attention; note that it has fewer posts on its forum than all 30 of the "[CC</a> Top Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cc-top-liberal-arts-colleges/]CC">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cc-top-liberal-arts-colleges/)" except Whitman and Trinity. </p>
<p>I grew up about 15 minutes from Davidson. Although I chose not to attend primarily for that reason, I’m very familiar with the school and have worked closely with some of the undergraduates there on a chemistry research project in recent summers. </p>
<p>The Good:</p>
<p>Davidson has a beautiful campus, highly intelligent students, friendly people, and decent D1 athletics (most notably basketball). It places a lot of emphasis on the arts (especially theatre) and community service/outreach. The town of Davidson is small but nice; it’s a good blend of upscale and homey. Town-gown relations are excellent (e.g. people in the town bake students cookies during finals). There’s a huge emphasis on the honor code, as you’ll note from the application, allowing for freedom like self-scheduled exams. Almost uniquely (only Dartmouth does this as well, as far as I know), Davison asks for a peer recommendation for admissions, an indicator of the interest it has in building a cohesive student body. The student center and other facilities are mostly very nice, especially the science labs. The nearby lake campus lets students participate in sports like water skiing. If I had to guess the leanings of the student body, I’d say about 40% liberal, 45% moderate, and 15% conservative – a pretty good blend as top colleges go. Among the elite LACs, I’d say Haverford and Bowdoin are the most similar; Rhodes, though less selective and somewhat more moderate and preppy, also has a similar feel. </p>
<p>An anecdote I’ve often told…when I was in high school, I arranged for an alum interview for my Chicago application. My Chicago interviewer turned out to be a professor at Davidson, who spent about 45 minutes of the hour long interview trying to convince me to attend Davidson instead. In his view, it combined top-notch academics with a laidback but active social scene. He also pushed Swarthmore quite heavily, as I recall.</p>
<p>The Meh:</p>
<p>Though solid academically, Davidson does have a few weaknesses; the lack of a geology program and its limited language offerings (only 6 modern languages) are the most significant. On an unrelated note, the vast majority of students are aiming for medical/law/business school rather than PhD programs. People disagree on the significance of this, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. </p>
<p>The Bad:</p>
<p>Davidson still struggles with diversity, both socioeconomic and racial/ethnic. Its Asian population in particular is quite small for a top college, as momrath pointed out. Its LGB population is also small (more on that below). </p>
<p>Your original post noted that you founded the GSA at your high school. If you’re L/B, you’ll find the largest dating pools at unusually large LACs (e.g. Wesleyan), single-sex colleges, LACs in corsortia, and LACs in urban areas. Unfortunately, though most LACs are very supportive of their LGB students, the dating pools are disappointingly small at all too many, especially the smaller and/or rural LACs. (When you take a relatively small number of LGB students and remove those who are either closeted or already in relationships…) As someone who wanted a large and diverse gay community, that knocked most LACs out of the running for me, and I would hesitate to recommend Davidson to a LGB student for that reason. That said, a prospective applicant should always check with current students through a college’s GSA to get firsthand information, as the size and visibility of a college’s LGBT population can change rapidly. </p>
<p>If you’re rejected or deferred from Wellesley, take a look at Agnes Scott for RD. Your stats would place you in the running for a good merit scholarship, and I think it might be a pretty decent fit. </p>
<p>OP, I don’t know what I can say after that great post from @warblersrule, but I wanted to add this about DC colleges since you mentioned your desire for suburban: There’s a real spectrum of urban in DC’s three colleges. GW is very urban and has little campus, with students crossing from one building to another across busy DC streets. Georgetown has very little of this as most of the campus is enclosed and there’s ample green space. It’s actually quite pretty, but there’s no doubt that it’s situated in a city. The neighborhood is very wealthy, prime real estate and a shopping/entertainment district an easy walk away. American is much more like a suburban campus with huge green spaces and very little of “city” on the campus. Everything’s rather spread out, and the campus is near the edge of the city limits. Again, very prime real estate, although not an enclosed campus. I like Georgetown’s campus the best and American’s second, because Georgetown’s architecture can be quite pretty. There’s actually a new lovely but old-style brick dormitory with a dining hall several floors up. It has a large picture window where you can watch airliners come in over the Potomac river and land at nearby National airport. The planes appear to be at the same height as you are. It’s stunning. Well, pay more attention to what the warbler tweeted, but keep DC (and Tufts) in mind.</p>