What does Davidson look for in an application for admission?
What kind of SAT / ACT scores does Davidson expect from applicants?
How many students applied last year? How many were admitted?
How should I apply? When will I hear?
Is there a selectivity advantage to applying Early Decision?

  What does Davidson look for in an application for admission?

Davidson admission officers engage in a holistic review of each applicant.  Applications are examined thoroughly by individual readers and are then discussed in committee settings, sometimes at great length.  These discussions are meant to give a better sense for each applicant as an individual and as a potential member of the Davidson student body:

• what sort of student will the applicant make at the college?
• what sort of classmate or hallmate?
• what sort of community servant?

To arrive at their decisions, admission officers emphasize certain factors in the review of an application.  To oversimplify, those factors are (in order of their importance):

0. Rigor - the difficulty of high school course selections
0. Success - grades received in an applicant's particular course of study
0. Writing ability and personal impact - an evaluation of essays and recommendations
0. Involvement, leadership, and service - the depth and breadth of extracurricular pursuits
0. Testing - scores on the SAT and/or ACT

Notes on the Applicant Selection Process

Notes on minimum Admission Requirements

  What kind of SAT / ACT scores does Davidson expect from applicants?

It's important to remember that, while standardized test scores  play a role in admission, they play a small role.  Admission decisions are based on much more than just the information you'll find below.

Middle-50% score ranges for students enrolling in the class of 2012:

SAT CR	SAT Math	SAT WR	SAT Combined	ACT Composite
630 - 730	630 - 710	640 - 720	1900 - 2160	29 - 32

Class of 2013 Student Profile

  How many students applied last year? How many were admitted?

Davidson received 4493 applications for the class of 2013.  We admitted 1183 students for an overall acceptance rate of 26.3%.

Davidson's Class of 2013
(July 2009)

***	MALE	FEMALE	TOTAL
Applicants	2098	2395	4493
Accepted	585	598	1183
Enrolled	239	257	496

Acceptance Rate	26.3%
Enrollment Yield	41.9%

Early Decision:	Applicants	497
***	Enrolled	213

Class of 2013 Student Profile

  How should I apply? When will I hear?

Application Methods
Important Dates
Apply to Davidson online

  Is there a selectivity advantage to applying Early Decision?

Statstically speaking, yes.  A higher percentage of Davidson applicants are admitted under an Early Decision plan than under Regular Decision.

But Early Decision is a binding process and, as such, should not be undertaken lightly.  By applying Early Decision, you are affirming the following statements: