Perhaps. Personally I think you oversimplify things by saying this, but I get what you mean. But this is not an American student deciding where to go for four years. It is a student coming here to study for one semester or one year, likely the latter I think (and hope).
Hardly. In fact it is a key point, especially since they expressly stated that they want to be able to visit many historical sites, especially those associated with events that happened in the Eastern USA. To ignore that stated goal seems ludicrous.
This knee-jerk reaction towards Notre Dame strikes me as a bit ridiculous. For a history student, what exactly do you think he will get at Notre Dame that is so superior to Temple or Rutgers or a number of other schools on his list? In fact, besides being in a city that was at the center of the very history he is studying and easy access to many others, in Philadelphia (or Boston or DC or NYC or even Baltimore) he would also have far greater access to primary documents and other materials at the wide variety of school libraries and historical societies he would be near. Don’t forget, even if he were at Temple he could avail himself of materials for viewing at Penn, Columbia, Harvard, and all over DC. This is in addition to the already stated argument that he would have greater access to the historical sites themselves.