While Centre compares favorably to schools like Dickinson or Gettysburg by most ranking metrics, it gets far fewer applications. The discrepancy remains even after adjusting for Centre’s smaller size.
My guess is that this difference primarily reflects geography. LAC awareness and interest is disproportionately concentrated in the northeastern US, which makes the LACs in that part of the country particularly competitive.
The bottom line is that Centre had a 76% acceptance rate for Fall 2017, which is an amazingly generous level for a Top 50 National LAC.