(MENTAL FLOSS) -- College admissions are competitive, and not just from the student's side. Sure, sometimes it's hard to get into the college of your choice, but the schools are fighting just as hard to lure in top applicants.



Davidson college students don't have to visit laundromats because they enjoy the luxury of a free laundry service.



While some colleges boast about class sizes, graduate fellowships, and endowment growth rates, this sort of info is likely to bore the 17-year-old students they're wooing. Instead, some schools try to come up with unique perks that appeal to students, often in the form of free services.



While the cost of these "free" perks is undoubtedly built back into tuition bills, when a family's spending upwards of $40,000 a year for school, it can't hurt to help them feel like they're getting something for nothing. Here are a few you might be jealous of:



1. Free laundry



Nothing's more maddening for a college student than wanting to study, party, or sleep, only to be confronted with a massive mound of laundry. Most of us know that if left unchecked, these piles of dirty clothes can grow until they're on the brink of becoming sentient beings, but students at Davidson, an elite liberal arts college in North Carolina, don't have to worry about it. Their college does the laundry for them.



Since 1919, Davidson has been operating a laundry facility that allows students to drop off their laundry and pick it up once its clean and smelling of dryer sheets. At the Lula Bell Houston Laundry, students' dress shirts and blouses are even pressed and put on hangers for them.



The laundry clears about six tons' worth of dirty clothes and linens a week, but if students prefer to keep their filthy T-shirts to themselves, the school also offers free self-service washers and dryers in the dorms.



As if that's not enough, Davidson was even more generous when its basketball team made a miraculous run to the NCAA's Sweet 16 last March. The school shelled out the cash for free bus transport to the venue in Detroit, two nights' lodging, and a free ticket to the game for any student who wanted to go cheer on their Cinderella in person. Mental Floss: 8 tuition-free colleges



2. Free skiing



Michigan Technological University offers a pretty standard slate of majors for its students, but it also has a real estate holding that might lure in applicants. The school owns Mont Ripley, a ski slope on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While normal lift-ticket prices run at around $35 a day, Michigan Tech students can hit the slopes without dropping a dime.



3. Free computers



At my undergrad alma mater, Wake Forest, one of the chief perks is that when you showed up for freshman orientation, the school gives you a fully loaded IBM Thinkpad and a printer. Students keep this laptop for two years, then trade it in for a new model before their junior year. Students then take this one with them when they graduate.



While there was a downside to the system (if profs know everyone has a laptop, they're not the least bit shy about making you tote it to class), it really upped the on-campus computing efficiency. Any program you needed for a class was already loaded on the laptop, and since everyone on campus was operating one of only two types of machines, tech support could diagnose problems and fix them really quickly. Mental Floss: 12 college classes we wish our schools offered



4. Free theater tickets



Nothing irks actors and theater owners quite so much as playing to an empty house, so if tickets are moving slowly, why not fill the seats with college students? NYU's Ticket Central can wrangle Broadway and Off-Broadway tickets for up to 75 percent off their face values, but sometimes, the school can get lucky students into theaters for free to help fill otherwise thin crowds.



Ticket Central also boasts that it can get students into Knicks games for as
What is used to lure students? Do students at Davidson College pay for laundry? What is given out for free at some colleges? Which ones have free laundry? What lures students to colleges? Where can I get a free computer?
free services. don't have to visit laundromats because they enjoy the luxury of a free laundry service. Davidson college students free services. Wake Forest,
question: What is used to lure students?, answer: free services. | question: Do students at Davidson College pay for laundry?, answer: don't have to visit laundromats because they enjoy the luxury of a free | question: What is given out for free at some colleges?, answer: laundry service. | question: Which ones have free laundry?, answer: Davidson college students | question: What lures students to colleges?, answer: free services. | question: Where can I get a free computer?, answer: Wake Forest,