I’m going to paraphrase what a NESCAC adcom told me recently: that for their school, they could divide its overlaps (the colleges that share the most applications and cross-admits consistently, year after year) into “three different buckets”, 1) Athletic competitors, 2) Other colleges that share its particular academic approach, and 3) “Regional Powerhouses” (basically, the Ivies.)
Of those three buckets, I would have to say that for Hamilton, the most important would probably be the first. They are among the NESCACs with the highest % of athletes. Other NESCACs within Hamilton’s range include Bates, Williams and Bowdoin:
NESCAC Spoken Here: - #2162 by cquin85