Thank you! I don’t know much at all about Rochester but this sounds like a great potential option for her!
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Love this idea!
Even though it doesn’t technically hit the non-religious Mark, Loyola really is a good call. My kiddos will get free tuition at my spouse’s host institution (another Jesuit U) and there are free tuition exchanges for us between the other Jesuit schools (other than Georgetown) so we’re kinda hoping we can send ours up there in a couple years…and we’re liberal atheists.
Beautiful campus on the lake in an interesting neighborhood. Good psychology program. I much prefer it to DePaul, which lacks the closed campus feel. Given the stats/criteria posted by the OP, IMO, this is by far the best choice in Chicago. UChicago and NU aren’t realistic options and UIC is depressing.
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@JustVisiting76 I’m in the same boat. Except my junior says no to Loyola because, well, it’s “too close to mom”.
I would not call Belmont “non denominational” nor “liberal”.
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A close friend’s son attends. He loves it and isn’t religious or conservative at all.
Students from our school (in PA) who want urban often love George Washington, Temple, Drexel, Case Western, or Pittsburgh. CMU is next to Pitt, but higher stats to get in. Those are all built into the city. Kids who don’t care for cities come away looking for something else. U Rochester is in a city, but has a campus bubble. Collegetown is there, but downtown is further afield (quick bus ride). One of my guys went there and loved it, but he preferred it over Pitt because of the campus.
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Clark university is excellent for Psych and liberwl; it’s in a city but probably not what she would get excited about.
Macalester in the Twin Cities meets most requirements.
Case Western Reserve University? Bryn Mawr? Agnes Scott?
Hunter is 97% commuter so I wouldn’t recommend it to an 18 year moving to a big city 3,000 miles away, on their own.
NYU and Fordham are two possibilities with a better sense of community.
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If your D were to expand her criteria a bit at some point, here are the Midwest/western PA/NY schools that are the best fits. Urban in this case is a walkable part of a decent sized metro or its inner suburbs. I kept schools with religious affiliations that are decidedly liberal, but removed the more moderate (Marquette and Butler) or conservative schools like Wheaton (which isn’t urban anyway). I also eliminated those that would be bigger longshots like CMU, WashU, Northwestern, etc. The best 8 I came up with:
Macalester
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Loyola
Ohio State
Case Western
Pitt
URochester
These are a mix of matches and reasonable reaches. Wisconsin might surprise some folks, but Madison is larger and more urban than most people realize. The city center sits on an isthmus between two large lakes. It’s an incredible setting that kind of straddles the definition of “major university college town” and “urban”.
Having been to all of those schools and others in the region, this is the part of the country I know best.
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U of Arizona. Great merit. Business abounds and it’s a short street car ride to downtown. It’s the heart of a metro area with more than a million people. University Ave is a great street bustling with business. The Honors College is fine and the Honors diem spectacular. Tucson on leans decidedly left. It’s a nice choice for the OP if they are looking for a flagship. Better than ASU for their needs.
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Barnard us a reach but it’s good to reach!!
Lots of good mentions here. As a city lover, I would highlight the following as good options for city lovers (not just “does this have people around” but “is this an urban area with public transit and diverse cultures, easy access to downtown, etc”. Super reaches in parentheses:
Boston: BU, Northeastern (MIT, Harvard). Tufts is a bit far out but a potential option, Brandeis is a stretch
NYC: NYU, Hunter, (Columbia, Barnard). Fordham is also a bit too far out a la Tufts IMO.
DC: American, GWU
Chicago: Loyola (UChicago, Northwestern)
Cities not mentioned but worth a look:
Philly: Drexel, Temple (UPenn)
Pittsburg: Pitt, CMU
Canada: U of Toronto, McGill
Schools not in “top” cities but qualify otherwise:
Case Western (Cleveland)
U of Rochester (Rochester)
Cities were a main part of my college search and my postgrad life (School in Boston, live in NYC) so happy to give more opinions/details as desired 
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Thank you for all these! NYU is actually her top choice but given a 9% acceptance for college there to which she’d be applying and a median 1540 SAT for last year, that seems like a reach for anybody so was hoping to get other ideas as matches and safeties!
Fordham has a Lincoln Center Campus located in the heart of Manhattan (West 60th Street literally across the street from Lincoln Center). This is the campus I recommended to the OP primarily because it has a more liberal/progressive vibe due to the fact that the LC campus houses the university’s theater and dance programs.
For those wanting a more traditional college expereince Manhattan is fairly accessible from the Fordham Rose Hill campus via subway, Metro-North and Ram Van (van service run by Fordham which goes between the two campuses). FWIW my S attended Fordham - Rose Hill and often went into Manhattan for fun as well as for an internship. Plus the area around Rose Hill includes Arthur Avenue which offers many food/bar options.
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I don’t know a lot about it but you could research The New School in NYC as well.
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The OP asked for no religious affiliation. Fordham (either campus), Georgetown, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Loyola, Duquesne, Marquette, Santa Clara, Belmont all have religious affiliations.
It is fine if the student doesn’t belong to the same religion as the school, or doesn’t want to participate, but SOME things just won’t change. The schools have religious symbols and have some course requirements associated with the curriculum. Their health plans will not cover birth control (and that bothers some people). There will be religious events held on campus. The Jesuit schools have Jesuits in charge of the administration and there are religious messages on the school catalogs and mission statements. Some students will be very religious and will have chosen the school because it is a religious school. Last year a parent on CC posted that her child was not happy that a nun was the greeter the BC admin office, the first face you see on campus.
It’s one thing for a student to say they don’t mind if there is a religion associated with the school as long as they aren’t expected to convert but another thing if they say they ‘no religious affiliation.’
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Agreed. My niece went for a year and hated it. Very disconnected undergrad living situation. She was in a dorm in another part of NYC with undergrads & grads from many NYC colleges.
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I may use your post as a template to start a thread for my S22. Is your post structure the common format on this site? I haven’t checked out others yet.
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I agree that students may interpret the level of religion and acceptance differently.
But Belmont has required professors to be Christian and for some, that is a negative. After a Backlash, Nashville’s Belmont University Says It Will Let Non-Christian Art Professors Teach After All
Some think Jesuits are too religious. But I’m not baptized and work there. My department has Jewish, Muslim, gay, and transgender professors. Yes there is verbiage about God in the mission but the focus truly is about service to others and looking at social justice.
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I agree with looking at some of the Big Ten flagships. Although the city may not be large , the campus is so big that they feel urban and the campus has lots of thing a that a non university city of the same size would not have. Madison is a great example of this. Ohio State, UMD, UMinn would be other good options. The benefit is that you also get the full college experience. IMO, NYC is better as a first job out of college experience.
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