Furman is a great school. I hope she seriously looks at it.
Berry is gorgeous! Thanks for this suggestion. I think our spring break trip with be in the southeast with Texas maybe in the summer. I have Elon, Furman, Berry, Samford and Sewanee for spring break. And then Baylor, Trinity, Southwestern, TCU, maybe Austin College, and maybe SMU for the summer.
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Berry and Furman remind me a lot of each other. I have personal knowledge of both schools, and I really like them both. I am sad my youngest won’t look at smaller schools.
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Davidson and College of Charleston are also worth a look. I know UT Austin may be too big but it is rated in the top college town in the US and you can’t beat Austin’s arts scene. You will be driving through Austin anyway so you should check it out. Some of the majors like Plan ii are wonderful (less than 200 students) so it makes a large school feel small. And acreage-wise it’s tiny!
One of schools on your list was my DD’s strong first choice for a long time until we toured the campus. She immediately moved it into the “no-way” category, so these visits will hopefully help you out! Sounds fun!
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Agree with everything you said, only thing though is that Grand Canyon University is for-profit, which is pretty schemey. Just something to think about, as usually that is not ideal. They aren’t as bad as other for-profit schools however.
If you are looking at Samford and Furman, you might want to look at Wofford.
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As I read through the suggestions of all these fine schools but I’m focused more on the comm/PR so I think Miami (reach), UGA and UF which admittedly miss a lot of what you seek but not the PR part but you need a test for both so that will be an issue, Bama which is top notch in PR and cheap but again is big, sports, social etc although my son goes and is neither into sports or social so you’ll always find your crowd and you’ll be half under budget. U of SC is another but again it’s that SEC school you think might be too hard core. Bit it fits ‘pr’ wise.
Not the Southeast but Drake, Miami Ohio and American may work although merit not easy at AU.
I think those that mentioned SMU and TCU hot right on and Elon too as well as the many other fine suggestions
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They just changed to nonprofit.
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oh! GCU in phoenix is NOT for profit any more. It is NonProfit. It was; it changed a few years ago.
We know lots of kids who go there and LOVE it.
We are in the midwest - close to creighton - and we know of 4 kids from the local catholic school who chose GCU over creighton! It’s also a big feeder from my daughter’s private school. i guess there’s just something about going out of state and warm weather and good prices.
creighton is pretty similar to gonzaga (yes; im familiar with gonzaga having lived in spokane for a bit). I get the feeling that creighton’s not too political either way. In fact, the midwest is rather a-political from what we see. not too polar. Some incredibly polar cali relatives have their daughter at Kansas; she loves it and they are happy with the political climate. We have friends with a kid at TCU; it seems to be quite a wealthy/party school from their perspective. Have an atheist relative who went there; no problems. College roomate’s son is at Baylor and LOVES it there.
when we were looking for schools for our S20, we liked University of Tulsa; and Florida State and Arizona. My D23 will look at FSU as well as GCU amongst other schools. (we are on a much more limited budget than yours). Good luck! it’s an exciting time.
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Yeah, GCU has kind of a sketchy history. (Wiki has some details.) It’s popular in my area of the PNW, though.
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just reading through this thread has me now interested in Baylor for my D23. Glad you started this thread, Izzy74. What makes it #1 for you D? have you visited before?
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As a Texan, it’s a really good list. Samford is like Baylor but smaller, not Div I sports and bit easier to get into. Sewanee has a cool, preppy vibe. Probably get admitted. TCU is preppier than Baylor. Gonzaga and Wazzu are solid targets. Trinity is a different vibe than Baylor, Samford or Sewanee. More academic, independent. Solid Div III sports. It’s not as religious as Baylor or Samford.
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My bad, that’s nice to know! That’s good they changed to non-profit.
i really meant to reply to the whole thread. sorry!
but yeah, something off about for-profit colleges. i’d like to hear the history on it all with GCU
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Universities in Canada will not care at all about her freshman year of high school. With a 4.0 for sophomore and junior years her chances would be very good at any university in Canada.
For schools near Washington State, you could of course consider UBC. However, Simon Fraser and the U of Victoria are also very good. If you daughter wants smaller schools, there are not as many in Canada. The University of Northern BC is good but way to the north. Lethbridge is also very good, and there are some very good universities way to the east of you in eastern Canada (let me know if you want suggestions, we have looked at these more closely). Cost wise you would pay as a citizen of Canada, which is very economical for those of us who are dual citizens living in the USA and who are used to US prices. Keep the exchange rate in mind. You would be way under a target of US$50k per year (quite likely less than half this).
I am assuming that “Washington” means “Washington State”. Thus puts you into a WUE state. My understanding is that this puts the various WUE universities under your stated budget. This does not go all the way to Texas unfortunately.
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My son is a senior and Baylor is in his top 3. He’ll go for another visit in a couple weeks. We also visited SMU (felt it was overwhelmingly Greek and, honestly, we had a terrible tour guide) and texas A&M on that visit (loved tamu and it is also in the top 3). We are from TN and are pretty familiar with sewanee. It is a beautiful campus and has strong academics. There is a pretty strong drinking and drug culture there. Our neighbors went to furman and enjoyed it, but do say it felt a bit like high school at times. Another acquaintance said something similar, but all are doing very well professionally, so furman must’ve done a good job preparing them for post-college life. Enjoy your Baylor tour - they do an excellent job!
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Florida State. They have an advertising major in the Communications school. S21 is there now and enjoying himself. S20 visited him in the fall. He goes to Georgia Tech. His first comment to us was “everyone seems so happy here”.
Wofford, South Carolina and NC State came to mind. Furman is a beautiful campus but used to attract more conservative students. Nothing wrong with that just something to look into.
Does she have an SAT score yet? Some schools still require test scores. Might give us an idea for more suggestions.
FSU is also definitely worth looking into. Furman does have conservatives but liberals
can also find a place there.
Let me second College of Charleston. And it’s in a great town! For a reach, I might take a flier on William & Mary.
I think I might also look at Loyola of New Orleans. It sits immediately adjacent to Tulane and has cross registration privileges with Tulane. So both academics and the social scene are bigger than just what a student might get at Loyola by itself. And then there’s New Orleans! Great city to attend college. The trolley makes everything very convenient and runs right in front of campus.
Another interesting College would be Virginia Commonwealth in Richmond. Very artsy and in a great city with easy access to DC.
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These non-profits have people making 7 figure and high six figure salaries.
It’s a tax status - they’re large corporations - no doubt about it.