These schools are quite different. As a rule a smaller private school, particularly a top 25 LAC is going to offer you a far more intimate and personal education than a giant state university. Do you want to go to a college with a 20-1 student to faculty ratio or one that has an 8-1 ratio? One with an average class size of 16 students or one that will put you in a lecture hall with 300? As an aside, the reason that largess state U’s have “honors colleges” is to try to mimic the environment at small private schools. The other thing you have to ask yourself is do you want to go to a school where a third of the students are from one state vs a school that has students from a variety of places. As you can imagine culturally these two schools will be quite different for this reason alone. Lastly - you have to think of after college - Richmond has a much more east coast orientation which offers the prospect of those connections and opportunities. Alabama has a Deep South orientation. Do you see yourself living / working on the east coast or in Alabama? I think Richmond is a much better school and would offer a much better learning experience & better opportunities going forward.