Give her a semester and chances are good that she’ll find it difficult to imagine being anywhere else. Back in the day I took the free ride to the honors college of my state school over the top ranked LAC of my dreams because that’s how the finances worked out. Looking back, I think that it worked out for the best, and not just for my parents’ bank account.
My D21 is also following the money (to an excellent LAC that is also a good fit and about which she is very excited). Even so, May was not an easy month when the inevitable comparisons with classmates were in full swing. The feelings of disappointment should ease over time and that bitter pill might be sweetened with perks that otherwise not might be affordable, like study abroad.
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Agree, I tried to get my son interested in some of the Southern schools. I remember that one of the very first things I did when we started thinking about colleges was googling “urban schools with beautiful campuses” and up popped Rhodes, which I had never heard of (but thought "Hey, college in Memphis, how cool is that!), and then I found Sewanee and Elon and all of other lovely Southern LACs My son wasn’t a “no” - he had never lived in the US, so it was mostly a mystery to him apart from places he’d visited - but he also wasn’t sure about the South, as he’d only been to Florida, and then his advisor, a staunch Californian, really poisoned the well, so in the end he didn’t apply to any Southern schools. He ended up in the Midwest, which was like a foreign country to me (I’m from the East Coast) but is another great region that is just teeming with wonderful LACs. He is very happy there. Lesson learned - both parents and kids should be open-minded. Edited to add - sorry, I realize I edited out the parts of my message that were relevant to the OP’s question - point being that people looking for great LACs with good merit should not overlook either the South or the Midwest.
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3 posts were split to a new thread: LAC with Merit - update