<p>I think Mombot's concern is legitimate, but I don't think it would apply to Macalester, the school that the OP's daughter is considering. Mac is pretty selective as far as LAC's go and also very actively recruits NSM's, so I am pretty sure it is full of extremely capable and highly motivated students.</p>
<p>I know what Mombot means though -- the reason my daughter dropped some safety-level colleges from her list is that after visiting, she felt the level of academic discourse was not what the level she wanted, and that she would feel bored and constrained in such an environment. (This led in turn to a reach-heavy college lists and much angst on my part, but fortunately it turned out well in the end).</p>
<p>Now that I understand, CalMom. The conventional CC wisdom says to "love thy safety" but in my D's case "tolerate thy safety" was the best she could come up with and "Whew, I don't have to go to X" was the second thing she said after getting a "likely" letter from one of her other choices.</p>
<p>TheDad: Your earlier comment, that your " . . . D was towards the top of the admissions class at her LAC . . . " suggests that the LAC she ultimately chose would have been considered a "safety" for her. So, she did, in fact, "fall in love" with it. Glad it worked out, and she "hasn't had a problem finding her academic peers."</p>
<p>Actually, TheDad, what ended up happening is that for the most part, my d. simply used the UC system as her "safety" -- and I am sure that every UC Campus is large enough for a bright kid to find her level of challenge -- especially as the UC's have fairly generous policies about AP credits. Now she certainly didn't "love" them... but she would have found her niche there. I would say that is one area where the LAC/ university distinction does favor the university. It was the smaller colleges that looked like their offerings would be sparse, with nowhere to go for more challenge.</p>
<p>But keeping these factors in mind, there is often good reasoning behind an application strategy that includes only elite LACs, with a large in-state public as the safety.</p>