Your daughter has excellent available choices (including some that do not appear in the site below) with respect to her goal of fluency in a foreign language:
Really, truly, you should not make this call. IF your daughter wants to call the college(s), thatâs fine. The parent, no.
I get asking questions to get more info to help your daughter make her decision, but at the end of the day, as the parent you get to set the choices (which of the schools that have accepted her you are willing to pay for), and she has to make her choice.
Itâs easy to get sucked down rabbit holes in this process- there are endless opinions and so many variables nobody can sort them all out. None of these are bad choices, and all of them will be enough to get her wherever she wants to go. At some point in the next 10 days your daughter, armed only with incomplete and contradictory information and her own sense of herself, will have to say âthis is my choiceâ.
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I understand. My D was a big advocate for Mental Health in part because of her own struggles and seeing it on the streets here in our city. Sheâd plan on doing research to help but then she fell in love with the universe. All you can do is let them know youâll support them in whatever they decide and itâs their decision. Itâll all work out in the end.
Have her go to the campus tours pages â almost all schools offer specialized Zooms with student panels on various topics. Iâve also seen some where you can schedule a short Zoom session with a single current student. Also, she could contact various academic departments and see if they would set her up on a Zoom with a student in that major.
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As others have recommended, have your child (not you) write to her regional admissions officer and ask to connect to a current student, perhaps one in her major. Or ask if she could be connected to a professor. Through email or text, she can then set up a time that will work. It might even be possible to contact a current student directly through her portal. Good luck!
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No offense but I feel like there is some parental anxiety going on, not only about the decision, but about transitions and future changes that might happen with your daughter. Believe me, we have all been there.
Hoping your daughter finds a way to explore these choices. Our kids missed not only classes but days of classes to make the post-acceptance visits. I hope your daughter can make the time to do whatever she can do.
My kids did various things: overnight, or attending classes, or Facebook etc. etc. With both distance and COVID, there have to be adjustments. Perhaps your daughter can get advice from admissions on ways to âvisitâ in whatever way works. There are Facebook pages and yes, CC forums for particular schools.
As a parent, as long as money issues werenât involved, I stayed out of it. It is hard. But this is the start of your daughter living her own life.
p.s. I live in a town of 2.500 on the coast but donât consider it rural, though some coastal towns are. I donât understand your connection of landlocked and âruralâ and your area sounds urban to me! It is probably true though that geographic diversity helped with admissions.
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I also let our kids be in the driverâs seat, as it was the decision theyâd have to live with. Your D sounds extremely capable and I would trust her to make a good choice among these amazing options.
My S never stepped foot on the campus he attended until move in week and he knew heâd love the U he attended. Truly, it worked for him and D liked his campus so much it was the only U she applied to.
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OP- your D needs to bite the bullet and recognize that sheâs going to be late for school, or have to leave early, or find someone to sub in for her for one of her commitments if sheâs going to try and connect with folks who work 8-6 in various timezones.
Or make a decision by what âfeelsâ right, and move on. This is a good time for her to learn that a perfect attendance record, or never being tardy, or whatever is nowhere near as important as whatever other âthingâ is going on her life, i.e. being available to speak to adcomâs or alumni.
I know college seniors (not this year which is atypical, for sure) who end up with no job, no plan, no resume come graduation. Iâm always happy to help a kid who is transitioning- but the stories I hear of why they couldnât jump on the Career Services bandwagon at their college are usually astounding (and funny). Kid wanted to do Teach For America; the interviewing conflicted with a frat ski trip, ski trip won. By the time Kid was available, all the slots were taken. Kid wanted to attend one of the presentations on campus "Hereâs how you get a job with the CIA (or NSA or fill in the blanks). Kid couldnât miss a review session for one of kidâs classes. When I point out that the TA would likely have been happy to schedule another time for the review session- Kid concedes âyeah, I guess I should have askedâ.
Your D is either going to flip a coin (a fine decision making mechanism here, since all the choices are terrific) or get more info. But the time zone difference, her being busy, etc. is all noise. She needs to make this happen.
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YES- if she actually wants that input. We only know the concerns from you- for all we know she has a favorite but isnât saying it out loud!
But, she may also be anxious about trying to make the ârightâ or âbestâ choice, about not making a mistake and choosing the âwrongâ one. This happens a lot when high achievers get down to the stress of actually choosing a college.
For years your high achieving kid - under pressure from herself and/or her environment- has had this big goal, this big expectation: getting into a top college. And she did it! she got into lots of top colleges! but⊠with literally no objectively âbadâ choices, she has to pick one. Just one. With incomplete and contradictory information.
The thing is, even if she had visited all of them multiple times it would still be incomplete and contradictory information, same as with so many other choices in adult life. She will have to own this choice, which is frankly scary. So, what many students (and parents) do is come to CC looking for objective metrics that will say 'oh this college is the best for me b/câŠ
- grad school acceptance rates are higher
- it is better ranked in X field
- the student body has a higher average SAT so they are probably smarter
etc., etc.
Note that each of those points came directly from posts in the last 2 weeks by other CCâers who also currently choosing between schools at functionally the same level.
The thing is, there are no âwrongâ choices here. If her first choice doesnât work out she can always transfer. I know that several of the schools on her list will reply to her âthank you but no thank youâ with âwe will keep her application on file for a year just in caseâ- itâs not a guarantee, but itâs a strong head start.
Separate your anxiety from hers, and put your energy into affirming her: your girl has done all the training, and now itâs time for her to jump off the high dive by herself. Your confidence in her matters.
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She will be fine at any of these schools. âVibeâ is important in decisions like this and unfortunately she cannot assess in person so she needs to find substitutes. I think you can withdraw and stop thinking about it, honestly. With my first I actually saw a counselor a few months before he left, to help me adjust. Then I got used to them all leaving 
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when my kids were looking at colleges, I had a ton of questions. so yes, i contacted the admissions reps. When my kids had questions, they contacted. We had different questions for sure.
Many kids leave their landlocked areas and do fine. There are so many landlocked rural cities in flyover country - think Lincoln, NE; Sioux Falls, SD, Des Moines, IA; Wichita KS; Tulsa, OK; Springfield, MO. We are from this area and never once have I thought of that as a hindrance. I guess Iâm trying to encourage you that your daughter is not alone - and lots and lots learn to navigate the move and their original landlocked location has nothing to do with their successes or mis-steps.
Your daughter sounds sharp and determined; well done to her.
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You could visit all of them, do overnights, speak to all and sundry, and yet your Dâs experience of college can so easily be rocked by all of any of the following (all of which are completely out of your and her control):-
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despite looking good on paper, room mate turns out to be a mad partier/ have an active and loud physical love life / goes home every weekend / is in an intense club and only hangs out with those people / is incredibly messy/neat freak/ pot smoker⊠etc etc
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you donât get into first choice club, team, group or sorority and all your friends do
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you donât get into your first choice classes or sections of classes, or get a dud professor
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the dorm room is a forced triple with closet in hallway, bathroom is communal, gender neutral and messy
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RA is useless at arranging social events or arbitrating with room mates
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class is full of uber competitive grade grubbers
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class has way too much group collaborative work
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food is awful/ gets boring / doesnât have enough vegan (etc) options
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your best friend from first semester falls in love and then you hardly see her
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the dorm which was meant to be the quiet dorm, has an about face in reputation, and everyone is into noisy dorm parties
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all the people you met in orientation who said they hated parties, all change their minds and are mad into kegs and beer pong by thanksgiving
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you donât make any close friends in your first semester, or even first year
and so on, and so on⊠and guess what? it will all be negotiable and end up just fineâŠand if it isnât, things can be dealt with when they arise.
Strength and courage at this difficult but exciting time
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Your daughter has many great choices and will likely thrive at any of them. Like everything else in life, however, there are no guarantees. Iâll add - as a former language major (was actually a double major since I knew I wasnât going to be a language teacher/translator etc) your daughter should plan to spend at least a semester abroad if she really wants to become fluent in a second language. There is no substitute for that in my experience (I studied French for 7 years before living there and didnât know how little I really knew until I did - this is a common experience). You may want to make sure this will be possible for her at whatever school she chooses if it is really important to her.
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The choice is hard, for parents and the student. @collegemom3717 said this better than I ever could. I also wonder if she (and maybe you) may be paralyzed because she fears making the wrong decision. There are abundant resources available for undecided students. She needs to take advantage of them. What is holding her back?
I would set aside the rural social values/flyover state concerns. Focus on what your child wants - low stress, collaborative. Yes, thereâs a bit of âwhat will my classmates and community think if I attend a school nobody has ever heard of?â That will fade, probably the day after she graduates, if not before.
I also have a D21. We also live in an urban/suburban area in a largely rural landlocked state. With the pandemic, my daughter was not able to visit any of the schools where she applied. She was able to connect to current students, attend classes via Zoom, do virtual tours, sometimes with a student walking around with a camera on, etc. There are lots of videos on YouTube - both produced by colleges and student âvloggersâ who talk about what itâs like to be a student at their college. You can often tell a lot about whatâs happening in the background (more in pre-COVID videos). How are the kids dressed? Whoâs interacting with whom? Etc.
At this point, she needs to do that work. At the very least, have her devote the weekend to it.
As I mentioned before, I think Vassar or perhaps Hamilton might be her happy place. Prestige differences among the schools on her short list are not significant, IMO.
Finally, I know of some kids who have managed to visit campuses before or during the pandemic. And they are still having trouble deciding. Visits also can be misleading - you have a dud tour guide, or obnoxious parents, or itâs pouring rain, or the campus feels dead because itâs midterms week. They are only one data point.
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For 4 year graduation rates, itâs also important to have few students who pursue co-ops, co-terminal masters, and similar that might extend degree length. For example, GeorgiaTech only has a 4-year graduation rate of ~40%. The low graduation rate is not because of poor satisfaction with the school or poor admissions selectivity. Lack of money problems probably also has only a minor contribution to the low 40%. Far more significant is that most students do a co-op, which is expected to extend graduation to 5 years. The colleges that do best by this metric are often selective privates with a large portion liberal arts majors, few tech majors, and a small portion D1 athletes (redshirt). However, there are also some others that do not fit this description. A list is below. I find UVAâs 89% particularly surprising.
Highest 4 Year Graduation Rates (latest IPEDS)
Juliard â 93%
Washington and Lee â 92%
Georgetown/Notre Dame â 91%
Babson/BC/Chicago/Navy â 90%
Bowdoin/Coast Guard/Hamilton/Pomona/Virginia/WUSTL â 89%
If you instead look at 6 year graduation rates, the list is very different and seems more clearly correlated with selectivity + top grant based financial aid. Hamilton no longer appears among the top 20.
Highest 6 Year Graduation Rates (latest IPEDS)
Princeton â 98%
Harvard/Yale â 97%
Brown/Olin/Juliard/Notre Dame/Olin/Penn â 96%
Other Ivies/Amherst/Bowdoin/Chicago/Duke/Georgetown/MIT/Virginia/Williams/WUSTL â 95%
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I have known kids who were âcountry bumpkinsâ who chose schools like (and including) Columbia and who thrived. Every one of them had spent their high school years dreaming of being in a big city and finally getting to be the person theyâd always felt they were (and generally could not be where they lived.) I have also known tons of people who moved to NYC for work or school and who hated pretty much everything about it â the cost, the noise, the bustle, etc. Some toughed it out, others left. I think your D needs to consider this when thinking about Columbia.
The rural schools tend to create bubbles and they are great if you like the vibe in that bubble. From what you have described, it sounds like your D might enjoy Amherstâs bubble the best.
Womenâs schools tend to create more room for different kinds of women. I think I would pick Wellesley of that bunch.
Thereâs always a leap of faith involved in making a decision like this. And thereâs the serendipity of the roommate, the dorm, finding your tribe, etc. Your D will have some role in making her own luck but odds are that if she wants to be happy, she can be at any of these schools. She may want to request substance free housing if that really matters to her and in finding her friends.
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U.S. News adjusts for the entering aspects you and @ucbalumnus referenced with information specific to 6-year graduation rate over-performance or under-performance. Of the National Universities you mentioned, for example, only Princeton compares to Hamilton, at +5 percentage points in this column.
Many students in recovery will choose substance free housing. I donât think social life needs to be restricted. One of mine canât drink due to a much needed medication and she goes to parties and hangs out with people who are drinking. You miss a lot of great people if you insist on being in only substance-free environments. Not everyone drinks to get drunk.
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Many times the substance-free housing simply means that there canât be any use of substances in the dorm, but doesnât necessarily mean those students donât partake elsewhere (meaning itâs not a vow to be substance free outside the dorm)âŠsomething to ask each college.
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In their rankings, âgraduation rate performanceâ that adjusts for entering student aspects is weighted much less (8%) than raw (6-year) graduation rate (17.6%): https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings