Tell this west coaster: how well-known is Davidson?

MYOS1634
Fri, 08 Apr 2016 16:42:49 +0000

Basically, people know
1° schools everyone knows: Harvard, MIT, Stanford
2° schools located in the region where they live (ie., people in the Northeast know RPI, but not people in the South. reverse this for Clemson or Emory).
3° schools that have D1 football/basketball/that are on TV

And that’s it. In other words, general opinion about an elite college that’s out of these categories is going to be “unknown”.
However, if your target group is employers, grad schools, government contractors, prestigious fellowships and foundations, the answer you get is very different.

In short, people who know little about colleges won’t really know Davidson - or Swarthmore, or Wellesley, or Amherst, or Reed, or Carleton or Washington&Lee. Even educated people in the general public.
Apply to grad school or to a big-deal job in DC? That’s a whole other story.

So, are you going to impress your uncle and your high school classmates? No. When you’re a graduating senior, is that who you’ll try to impress, though?