@merc81 Thanks. Being from a flat place, that hill in the Co-op video is so pretty! I’ve heard Colgate is a beautiful campus. Not easy to get there though. That’s the other thing. When a school is an hour from the airport, it’s important to find out how kids get there - if the school has shuttles, if there’s other transportation like a bus, or if kids are on their own to get there.
If you like hills as a geological feature, it might be interesting to view settings physiographically. From this perspective, the locations of even nearby colleges can offer remarkably different physical relationships. Colgate’s hillside setting drops into the Chenango Valley, which orients north to south, with the river draining into the distant Chesapeake Bay. Closely to the north, Hamilton College overlooks a province known as the Great Valley, which includes the Oriskany, Mohawk and Hudson Valleys (with Atlantic Ocean drainage) and which also, through the geological redirection of the Hudson Highlands, comprises a recognizable feature that extends to Alabama. With respect to what you might see on a map today, features such as canals, railways and interstate highways align with these natural features.
@homerdog I grew up in upstate NY, and live in a pretty rural location now, and I would call Colgate rural, but the town is cute. Coming from NJ, up through Binghamton to get there, it was super rural - as in we lost cell service in the middle of nowhere - including the GPS that was routing us there!!! But I could still text so I texted my brother who sent me screenshots of maps until we got back in range!!!
Leaving Colgate to head to Syracuse made it feel much less rural. Lots of cute little towns along the way and not a bad drive, even at rush hour in the snow we hit! Colgate is a beautiful campus, but so it Syracuse. I would definitely hit both.
I finally took the time to figure out how to log back in to CC. I love these journey threads, so thanks @homerdog ! Packed with interesting info and different points of view.
I wanted to comment on W&M since my D19 is there now. She hasn’t felt at all like an outsider being OOS, and she doesn’t know anyone who came in with friends from high school. Virginia is a large and diverse state. She meets kids from NOVA (Northern VA), which is very similar to where we are (highly educated, high income suburbs). She has also made friends with kids from Norfolk and VA Beach where there is a large Navy presence, and kids from small towns in the Shenandoah Valley. Students definitely don’t go home a lot—in fact she went home the most out of her circles because she wanted to see her sister in the high school show one weekend, and a good friend lost a parent (expected but heartbreaking) so she came home again to be there for her.
On the issue of school spirit, D19 wanted that, but it was hard to pin her down on what she meant. She never went to games in high school except to see her friends play (mostly field hockey). It turned out she meant that she wanted a place where the students really love their school and get involved. The Niche question “What is your overall opinion of your school and the campus community?” was helpful to get some baselines and comparisons for that, and meeting kids on visits.
D19’s classes are challenging, but our high school had her well prepared, as I’m sure your D will be. Due to the classes she chose, her biggest was 20 students. Her friends prioritize school, but they don’t have to give up their other interests which are many and varied. D did not rush as she is on a club team, is helping out at a substance free indy music house, and wanted to apply to be an outdoor trip guide (she was thrilled to get that job). I think your D would like the sorority scene at W&M. There is no way moms are camping out in Williamsburg, and I think about half the girls who join rush as sophomores. The sorority houses are dry and nice places to live in a great location on campus.
Also, D19 is liberal politically, but believes in civil discourse and wanted a place that wouldn’t feel like an echo chamber. W&M has been the right balance in that way.
If you decide to go over spring break, feel free to let me know. I’m sure D19 would be happy to meet your D and give her an inside view.
@Sailaway Wow. Thanks!! What a great review and super helpful post. 
Btw I meant Bucknell and Lafayette as match. And Conn college too. Certainly not Williams, Middlebury or Wesleyan. My D did not get into those3 (despite legacy at Williams) but did get accepted to Hamilton which I loved but she didn’t get good vibe from one of the theater profs she communicated with. And Hamilton campus seemed quite separate from the village of Clinton.
And both Bucknell and Lafayette have towns that are walkable to campus for restaurants etc. Lafayette is 20 min from Allentown airport and 1 hour from Newark. My son ubers to Allentown and has taken a bus to Newark.
Most of these schools have inexpensive school-sponsored buses scheduled at the the holidays and other vacations. A lot of kids also get rides from kids with cars. What’s harder from some schools is if you have to get home off-schedule, for instance if you have to get home for a family emergency or stay on campus more than a day after the end of exams. In that case you may have to rely on Greyhound or Uber.
I found the list of rural and suburban schools curious as well. Bowdoin is right on the edge of downtown Brunswick, with its population of 20,000. Hamilton is a similarly sized LAC a mile from downtown Clinton, a town with a population of less than 2,000. Yet the Newsweek articles put Bowdoin on the rural list and Hamilton on the suburban. I guess part of the problem is that there are no agreed-upon definitions of rural and suburban.
Forgot to say that of course D19 knows OSS kids at W&M too! Also, she does drink sometimes at team parties, but she’s happy that binge drinking is not the dominant culture there. Another thing is that she did not date in high school, but is now dating a really nice young man. She likes that with the mid-sized school she doesn’t feel like their relationship is a big deal to anyone else (the way it would have been in high school). They started as friends and then began to go on actual dates, so dating is not dead?.
My S was strongly considering Colgate after acceptances but the travel logistics seemed complicated and expensive. I’m not opposed to some travel challenges (D attends Vassar and has to take trains, shuttles, planes and lyfts when going back and forth), but Colgate seemed more difficult. I definitely could be wrong but when I looked into it, it seemed that transportation to an airport near Colgate could be around $100 and then a more expensive flight than what I’m used to for D. I just couldn’t really get on board with that.
@elena13 I’m going to ask a friend of mine in our town about travel to and from Colgate. I agree that $100 to the airport is an issue. I’m sure that’s why some of these schools are heavy in NE kids because more of those families can drive to and from Colgate even if it’s 5-6 hours.
I live less than 20 miles from Dickinson and took courses there as a high school student back in the dark ages, when I lived even closer. I graduated from Bucknell (offered a National Merit Scholarship there). I agree that Dickinson should be high on your daughter’s list to visit, not only as a match/safety. Excellent liberal arts and sciences, great semester/year abroad programs, nice size and diverse college town (population ~20,000) with an alive downtown adjacent to campus with plenty of interesting restaurants, shops, and cultural events. Easy enough to get to the Harrisburg airport, about 35 minutes away; Dickinson probably has a shuttle service available. Exceptional ballet opportunities in conjunction with Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet as well as other dance opportunities on campus. Greek life if she wants that but not overwhelmingly Greek. Not southern but a much more temperate climate than upstate New York (I’ve lived there, too, and much prefer southcentral PA!). Bucknell would also be worth looking into, and has D1/Patriot League) sports (vs. D3 at Dickinson) but is more heavily Greek; the town, though very nice and next to campus, is much smaller (less than 6000); and it is farther from an airport, though I’d bet Bucknell also has shuttle services.
@homerdog I only read the first few pages of this thread, so I apologize if I’m repeating something already stated. We did info sessions/tours of Davidson, W&L, Wake and Furman. We also visited WM and Richmond, but did not do tours. Davidson and WL are very similar. We visited them 1 day apart and I actually had my daughter jot down the few differences because they were almost indistinguishable. So if she liked Davidson, she should like WL. I thought Furman was also similar and beautiful. My daughter liked it but liked the other 2 better. Furman is a little bigger. It is about 15 minutes from Greenville, so there isn’t anything walking distance, if that is important. Furman has a larger percentage of the student body from the south than the other two. I think your daughter will need an ACT of 32 to get into Davidson and WL, but your Chicago location may help you with that.
Richmond has a beautiful campus and is slightly bigger than the previous 3. It is adjacent to a country club in Richmond. It is a lovely part of Richmond. I think its 15-20 minutes to downtown Richmond. Wake has about 5000 students. My daughter loved Wake because “it looked the way she imagined a college should look”. There were a lot of questions on the tour about Wake’s nickname of Work Forest.
While WM is an excellent college, it is not known for its school spirit, if that continues to be important to your daughter.
If you are looking for warm weather, small liberal arts and merit money, you should look into Trinity TX.
I know it’s been mentioned. But while in New England, definately visit Connecticut College.
I know you are fully aware of the attributes of the Nescac group of colleges already. However, I was really surprised to learn how much role the arts play a part at the school. Especially dance. It seemed like a really nice niche and reasonable opportunity for students in the traditional NeScac universe.
Clinton, however, resides nine miles from a city of over 60,000 (Utica), which would confer it with suburban aspects by demographic considerations.
I stand corrected. We didn’t visit Utica when we saw Hamilton so I missed the proximity.
Yes, but @homerdog 's D did not like the distance (less than 2 miles) between Colby and Waterville, a town of 16,600. Colby has a beautiful dorm housing about 200 students in downtown Waterville. They, and the rest of the student body have frequent shuttle service between the campus and town and students do go into town to eat, drink, etc. It doesn’t seem to be proximity or size of town, it’s access on foot! This suggests to me than Hamilton is not what she wants – regardless of the other boxes it checks.
She wants a school where she can easily get into/ be in town on foot. Think Wesleyan, Dickinson, Bucknell, Denison.
I am not suggesting that this requirement may not fall off the list, but right now, it’s something that matters. But not to the point of making IU appealing!
Does this look suburban?
Google is your friend. 
A lot of these schools seem unlikely for a female applicant with a 3.75 gpa and sub 1400 SAT scores.
@roycroftmom this thread has gotten very long so I’ll explain again. Our school does not have grade deflation. I expect her UW GPA to go up but she’s already on the cusp of top ten percent. And the thread is called D21’s Journey because I’ve started writing it early Junior year. Plenty of time to get scores up and we have a plan to do so since she hasn’t even seen a tutor yet.
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Other than for its intimate classroom experience, I don’t think Hamilton checks many boxes for the OP’s daughter (particularly in contrast to Colgate, which checks more boxes). However, I think its area should be of interest when visiting Colgate because of its popularity with Colgate families during busy weekends (as well as with Colgate’s visiting sports teams, etc., who commonly stay in Utica). For these reasons, I think it would be more important, when seeing Colgate, to drive through Clinton, New Hartford and Utica than to visit Hamilton College itself (though Root Glen makes a nice tourist destination).
https://www.colgate.edu/about/about-hamilton-ny/hotels-accommodations