Looks/sounds intriguing; has anyone looked visited or attend? Biggest question I have is whether it’s too much of a local school, drawing only from a few surrounding counties.
Longwood draws from all over Virginia and even surrounding states. My D attends and has really enjoyed it. Pros: Administration, nice community feeling, small classes/involved professors, advisors (who actually emailed my daughter unexpectedly this summer with new information about something they had discussed this spring), absolutely lovely campus, investment in buildings/renovations - they are achieving their five-year plan and have encouraged investment in the town, great options for housing (dorms thru apartments owned by the university), nice school traditions. Possible cons: lesser known, smaller school, rural area (about 45 minutes from both Richmond and Lynchburg), not a big sports spirit school, heavy female/male ratio. I would encourage you to go check it out and see if they have a program you want - it’s a low key gem.
Thanks @QBeeMom. Many of those cons are actually pros in my D’s book, specifically small and rural. Are you from Va? What other schools did you look at? Va is a target area for us.
Yes, we are from Northern Virginia. D specifically wanted a school about 5K students, within 4 hours from home, with available housing so she could be in class in 10 minutes. The top choices were Longwood, Christopher Newport, Mary Washington and Roanoke College (smaller) - she was accepted and would have been happy at any of them. Longwood had a specific major that matched her interest. Are you in Virginia? What level are you looking at? Any specific areas of interest?
My nephew from a suburb north of Baltimore attended. I never heard any complaints and he graduated on time.
@QBeeMom
We’re in NJ, but are looking specifically at Va schools currently. So far we’ve seen:
ODU (too big)
CNU (really liked)
Wary Washington (didn’t like)
Randolph-Macon (possibly too small, but unsure)
She toured Longwood too and was interested, but something didn’t click. The tour guide was shocked we were out of state and made it sound like they draw only locals.
We’re headed to JMU and Roanoke later this week. I think she’ll believe JMU will be too big, and Roanoke too small but we’ll see. We had Radford on the list too, but a friend who works in the higher ed space in VA told us he would never send his daughter there - lol.
She’s coming from a hyper-competitive environment and would like something a little more laid back, but that’s hard to gage. She’s also an equestrian and would like to keep her options open for joining a club. Stats are 3.45 UW, 1350 SAT. She has no idea about major yet so the undeclared track is where we’re headed. Of note is that Longwood was the only school we’ve seen where counseling services are not free 
Thanks too @alooknac
That’s funny - our very first/summer Longwood tour had a mediocre tour guide, but a much better one when we visited again to do the immediate decision option in the fall. My D was looking for something outside the hyper-competitive world as well. CNU is referred to as Disneyland - built to look perfect, but it’s a popular school and we know lots of kids who are very happy there. Radford has long held the safety school reputation, but we toured nonetheless and I was pleasantly surprised - a lot of new facilities and options for majors. You may want to check out University of Lynchburg (formerly Lynchburg College) as it is one of the CTCL schools. Also, Bridgewater College is near JMU, so you might be able to swing by and I believe they have equestrian, but I know nothing about the school other than it’s small and rural! Good luck!
According to College Navigator, 94% of Longwood students are from Virginia.
@alooknac yes, but there’s a big difference between ALL of Virginia vs. only a few counties surrounding the school. For example, in my home state of NJ, there are not a lot of people from South Jersey attending Ramapo College in North Jersey. However, TCNJ in Central Jersey draws from all over the state.
Longwood has some terrific leadership now, which has created a great dynamic at the school. Longwood does attract Nova students. CNU has gotten significantly more popular with Nova students in recent years.
If she really liked CNU, check out Elon University. It is similar in some ways. Also an up-and-coming school. It’s in a nice area with lots for students to do just off campus. Your D seems right in line with the student profile. It’s not very far south of the VA line. It’s only 2 hours from Roanoke.
Good luck and enjoy the exploration together!
@TTG , Elon is actually VERY popular with kids in this area. In fact, there were 35 kids from her school this year who applied, and 5 are enrolling. On the other hand, since 2014 CNU has had 5 applications and Longwood only 1. I’m trying to figure out why they’re so under the radar, or otherwise not of interest.
Elon is private, has become more popular in general and attracts many kids outside of North Carolina. CNU and Longwood , as public schools, get most of their students from Virginia. NJ families might not have much incentive to pay OOS rates there. They (especially Longwood) don’t have the OOS draw, in general, that other Virginia publics have, such as UVA, William & Mary, and Virginia Tech.
Yes, @sevmom answered your question very well.
I do sort of put them in the same category–up-amd-coming mid-size universities. Two great choices, I think. And I really do think Longwood has some great leadership right now.
Just to add, we know a know a strong Northern Virginia student who was competitive at UVA/W&M but, in the end, did not get accepted. They went to CNU and love it. I think that is reflective of a recent trend in Nova, at least anecdotally, CNU sort of joining JMU as a top choice for high-stat students who do not get accepted to UVA/W&M, or who prefer those schools to UVA/W&M. A friend’s kid got waitlisted at Va. Tech and accepted to JMU, eventually got accepted to Tech, but still chose JMU and has a very high-paying job in their( non-STEM, non-business) field less than two years after graduating. Bottom line, Nova (and other areas of the state) produce many, many outstanding, well-qualified high school grads, many of whom end up at JMU/CNU, or Longwood, or increasingly MWU (which yours didn’t like).
And, yes, Elon, maybe more than almost any other school, has really emerged as a national university in recent years. A good friend teaches at an elite New England college. A few years ago, they asked me, “What’s up with Elon?” They remembered it as a sleepy local church-affiliated small college, which it was. They said they had spoken to 3 colleagues in recent months who were looking at it as a top choice for their kids, some of whom were also looking at Duke and Wake.
Great insights @TTG and @sevmom. I wondered if CNU would be the new (and smaller) JMU, which is also very popular around here. Great point about the lack of OOS incentive for Longwood, although I would argue the incentive for D is there would be no one from our area attending. Any insights on private schools like RMC or Roanoke?
Yes, JMU has seemed popular with kids from NJ and NY for some time and CNU seems to be increasingly on more people’s radar. The kids we know who went to JMU really enjoyed it. I have seen the campuses of Roanoke and Randolph Macon, nice campuses in cute towns (Salem and Ashland), small , private schools, but don’t know much about them beyond that. Good luck!