I’m going to throw out a few more options for your family to consider:
- Truman State (about 3600 undergrads in Missouri)
- Trinity (about 2500 undergrads in Texas)
- Butler (about 4400 undergrads in Indiana)
- SUNY Geneseo (already mentioned several times in this thread, about 4100 undergrads in NY)
- Xavier (about 4900 undergrads in Ohio)
- Ithaca (about 4600 undergrads in New York)
- College of Charleston (about 10k undergrads in South Carolina)
- James Madison (about 20k undergrads in Virginia)
Why did I list all these? Because I think most of these stand a pretty good shot of getting into budget, they seem to be about the size your D is interested in, and they seem to do well in having students earn doctorates in biology, chemistry, or psychology, which (per the commentary from @ColdWombat) would all be key fields with your daughter’s current areas of interest.
Using the data from this site (Baccalaureate origins of doctoral recipients) I only looked at doctorates received between 2000-2018 (the latest year of data available on the site). I included the # of doctorates in each respective field and then divided that number by the total number of undergrads to come up with a rough ratio to get a sense of how prevalent students going to for doctorates in these fields are.
This ratio is not the be-all-end-all data point. But I included the schools that are already on your list so that you can see how the schools I’m mentioning compare. I would not say that any school should be eliminated just because of these ratios, but perhaps it might give you comfort in taking a closer look at schools you may not have been thinking of before to see that they really are producing results. The list is ordered by the chemistry ratio (highest ratio to lowest).
| School | # Undergrads | # Chem Doctorates | Chem Ratio | # Bio Doctorates | Bio Ratio | # Psych Doctorates | Psych Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Truman State (MO) | 3622 | 112 | 0.031 | 187 | 0.052 | 113 | 0.031 |
| Trinity (TX) | 2512 | 51 | 0.020 | 125 | 0.050 | 102 | 0.041 |
| Lafayette | 2729 | 41 | 0.015 | 120 | 0.044 | 62 | 0.023 |
| Butler (IN) | 4427 | 54 | 0.012 | 61 | 0.014 | 57 | 0.013 |
| SUNY Geneseo | 4110 | 50 | 0.012 | 189 | 0.046 | 96 | 0.023 |
| Case Western | 6017 | 72 | 0.012 | 286 | 0.048 | 78 | 0.013 |
| The College of New Jersey | 7039 | 64 | 0.009 | 152 | 0.022 | 114 | 0.016 |
| Xavier (OH) | 4852 | 40 | 0.008 | 68 | 0.014 | 39 | 0.008 |
| Ithaca (NY) | 4619 | 38 | 0.008 | 115 | 0.025 | 68 | 0.015 |
| College of Charleston (SC) | 9972 | 53 | 0.005 | 121 | 0.012 | 73 | 0.007 |
| St. Louis U. | 10662 | 56 | 0.005 | 126 | 0.012 | 109 | 0.010 |
| Pittsburgh | 24420 | 126 | 0.005 | 401 | 0.016 | 169 | 0.007 |
| Georgia Tech | 18415 | 83 | 0.005 | 250 | 0.014 | 41 | 0.002 |
| UMBC | 10625 | 46 | 0.004 | 316 | 0.030 | 72 | 0.007 |
| Boston U. | 18459 | 75 | 0.004 | 536 | 0.029 | 289 | 0.016 |
| James Madison | 20346 | 81 | 0.004 | 209 | 0.010 | 153 | 0.008 |
| Lehigh | 5624 | 21 | 0.004 | 144 | 0.026 | 72 | 0.013 |
| Tulane | 8785 | 32 | 0.004 | 225 | 0.026 | 143 | 0.016 |
| U. Mass-Amherst | 24391 | 85 | 0.003 | 455 | 0.019 | 176 | 0.007 |
| Loyola Chicago | 11703 | 34 | 0.003 | 177 | 0.015 | 147 | 0.013 |
| U. of Arizona | 38751 | 107 | 0.003 | 651 | 0.017 | 287 | 0.007 |
| U. of South Carolina | 27343 | 74 | 0.003 | 174 | 0.006 | 107 | 0.004 |
| Seton Hall | 6012 | 15 | 0.002 | 33 | 0.005 | 36 | 0.006 |
| U. Alabama-Birmingham | 13032 | 28 | 0.002 | 113 | 0.009 | 59 | 0.005 |
| Northeastern | 16302 | 24 | 0.001 | 142 | 0.009 | 79 | 0.005 |