Visit Report by Papa Chicken (Member since March 25 2005 with 1788 posts) Visit Date - January 2006
Visit to Davidson College in January 2006 by Papa Chicken (Parent of Student, HS Class of 2006)
Visit Activities:
Information Session:
Yes - see below....important insights on how Davidson views SAT 2's Campus Tour:
Yes - see below
Davidson College Campus:
Friendliness/Courtesy of Students: 5 - Excellent Friendliness/Courtesy of Staff: 5 - Excellent Appearance of Campus: 4 - Very Good Building/Facilities Maintenance/Cleanliness: 5 - Excellent -
out of the 20+ colleges I have visited recently, Davidson was the only one with an included student laundry service.....that is, one where you just drop the laundry off, and it is cleaned & folded for you. Wow.
Dormitories: 3 - Good Security/Safety: 4 - Very Good Overall Campus Impression: 4 - Very Good
Off-Campus:
Area Immediately Around Campus: 4 - Very Good City/Town/Community: 3 - Good -
think Mayberry, but with the big city nearby
Campus Visit Notes for Davidson College:
Visit Description:
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Note: I wrote the summary below in 2/06, and my initial views on diversity changed somewhat over the life my original trip report thread:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=149545
S and I attended “A Day for Juniors” Feb 2006. This program was billed to “jump-start your college search with this one-day program that gives you the scoop – and introduces you to one college that may top your list – Davidson.” http://www2.davidson.edu/admission/visit_opps-jrday.asp The program was laid-out to first give one a detailed tour, then allow you to sit in on several sessions about the college search and selection process, as well as hear about Davidson itself. Altogether, I thought the day was extremely well run, especially considering the >330 HS junior students they entertained, plus attendant families, numbers-wise, being probably something a little short of half their student body size.
We lucked out on weather....atypically cold, but sunny & clear. The herds of students and families assembled in the student union around noon, & broke into tour groups of 10 to 12 students w/ tagalongs for the tour. Out of our group, we were the only mid-atlantic representation, one from Ct, and the rest from the eastern southeast ranging from Virginia to Florida. As one of my pet peeves is diversity, I’ll make several comments about this through this report.....all lily white in our group...Of the other groups we kept crossing, perhaps I saw 2 families of color, I'm sure there were more, but a noticable dearth of people of color. The facilities at Davidson are very well kept....the place looked very nice, and fulfilled the college look & feel. Lots of stately buildings, particularly ones with big southern-style columns, distributed throughout the park-like campus. Definitely feels like college. Lots & lots of boxwoods, further bolstering the southern gentile ambiance. The buildings inside were all very well maintained, from the more modern science facilities (I learned that Davidson has a fairly strong natural sciences program.....something the tour guides stressed due to the perception that many people believe natural sciences and the liberal arts are mutually exclusive.) Many nice small auditorium spaces, and the architecture was varied enough throughout the buildings to make me think that it wouldn’t get boring over 4 years.
One other Davidson tidbit that I learned while touring a dorm.....when asked about rooming satisfaction, our tour guide noted that roomates are coupled by arranging good matches from Myers-Briggs personality tests. Although I have never delved much into the roomate match subject, this sounded like a rationale approach to me, & seemed a bit more progressive than what I presume many other schools do...perhaps nothing or simple interest matching.
I won’t bore you with too many other physical details, other than my take-away that Davidson definitely feels like a campus-centric college and is very well maintained with loads of great infrastructure.
After the tours, the program started in the main auditorium in the union, with Christopher Gruber, the admissions dean, introducing the program & the colleges president, “Bobby” Vagt. Both very impressive leaders. (During the tour, our guide mentioned that Pres Vagt got upset if he wasn’t addressed as “Bobby”....apparently, he knows everyone’s name, and is very personable, a quality which came through during his short intro to Davidson.) Bobby apologized for having a horse voice as he had quite a bit of self-expression at the prior day’s two varsity events. (I heard much pride through the day about Davidson’s traditional commitment to D1 sports...”always trying to achieve the best in academics and athletics” or something like that.) He seemed like a very straight shooter to me, with his speech entitled “why not to come to Davidson.” The primary message I heard reinforced what I already believed: that Davidson is first & foremost committed to strong academics. I also liked his discussion of Davidson’s deep commitment to their honor policy, which sounds like it goes well beyond most I have heard about elsewhere.
Next stop, they split the entire student-family group into 2 contingents for panel discussions. In our session, we had 3 students and 2 professors, all very articulate (as one would expect). The messages that rang clear were Davidson’s flexibility in creating learning experiences or custom majors to suit just about any interest, and the variety of such experiences for such a small college, including extensive travel abroad opportunities & research opportunities. Can’t remember when I heard this tidbit too, Davidson has a great track record with graduate school placement, with a med school acceptance rate of >90%.....that seemed pretty impressive to me. My biggest complaint was what appeared to me, the diversity skeptic, as a somewhat contrived group of 3 students: 2 were students of color, not exactly representative of the student body. My skepticism has rubbed off on my S, as his comment was something like “what would expect them to do?...they need to try to show their commitment to diversity.” Immediately after this session, we were entertained by a dance troop in the union, which furthered my contrived impression....2 of the troop were African Americans & type of dance was rap/rhythm....while I certainly appreciated the effort to show that Davidson embraces many forms of expression, it still seemed contrived. [Final note on the diversity thing....all that I have heard about Davidson’s diversity challenge here on CC rang true....they are definitely less diverse that other esteemed institutions and attempted to show their institutional commitment to diversity, but I still have a nagging feeling that it is less of a priority than other institutional commitments....doesn’t mean its “off the list”. Just a concern.]
Final stop was one of 4 sessions, ranging from financial aid ins&outs to getting the most out of campus visits. We chose to attend the “selective college admissions” session, led by Christopher Gruber. It was geared to give the audience a broad understanding of the selective college admissions process, with Davidson’s emphasis included. Very good session, and although I didn’t learn too much due to my wonderful prior grounding here on CC, this was a wonderful session for my S to hear. I think the lightbulb is finally going off! That is, his interest & understanding of what this major life decision is all about definitely took a turn for the better. Went through the standard laundry list (speaking of laundry....Davidson does the laundry for all of its students....S DEFINITELY liked this perk) of competitive admissions criteria: grades & courses, standardized tests, and “PQ’s”....personal qualities. On courses, I learned that Davidson likes to see 4 HS years in the basics: English, math, lab sciences, language, and history. Not 3, but 4. On SATs, I did learn something new, with regard to Davidson’s approach. As their Common Data Set (latest on posted below) notes, SATs are only in the “considered” category, not “very important” or “important”....this is true, as Gruber noted that Davidson looks at SAT 1’s a little differently than many other colleges, with grades & courses greatly dominating the standardized testing. However, he noted that they like to look at SAT 2’s (achievement, subject tests) as these tests are reinforcement for what a student learned in their courses. Finally, he spent quite a bit of time discussing PQ’s. Here’s his list in Davidson’s priority I believe:
1. Essays
2. Recommendations (including a peer rec...make sure your “friend” is realy your friend!)
3. EC’s
4. honors & awards
5. relationships (e.g., legacy)
6. Interviews
Davidson’s commitment & value on community service and volunteerism rang through in this session, as well as throughout the day.
OK, we had to leave before the session was over to catch a plane.....altogether a great visit. My impressions were not altered, but reinforced, good & bad. S definitely liked the place, but wonders if its too small. I would recommend to any parent with child not yet totally engaged to seek out such a “junior day” experience. S & I chatted for a good hour or 2 about pros & cons and general college selection process following our Davidson experience. Biggest regret was not planning in more college visits while we were on the road.....Wake & others, if for no other reason than for comparison purposes.
Here’s Davidson’s latest Common Data Set (05-06): http://www2.davidson.edu/administrat.../ir/ir_cds.asp
