As a different option, you could also check out the Blount Liberal Arts initiative at Alabama: a residential ,LAC-ish experience open to all majors, but within a large state flagship. Over 50% of students are OOS, and many from the midwest, NE and CA. You would get merit to bring it within budget.
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Colorado College would be worth looking into for a smaller LAC in an urban setting (they meet 100% of need but not sure how that works in your case especially with a twin in college at the same time); University of Denver is bigger but not huge… they are generous with merit aid. Might stack on top of need based aid? Worth looking into!
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What kind of vibe are you looking for at the school? Preppy/Greek? Outdoorsy? Hippie? Edgy? Urban?
Maybe College of Charleston?
UNC-Wilmington?
Emory is mid-sized, but in Atlanta, but suburban Atlanta if that matters.
A LAC might work better for you than you think. Try to go see one in person if you can. My D22 is really super excited about Warren Wilson right now. It’s about 15 minutes from Asheville NC tucked in a mountain setting. She did a camp this summer at another small LAC and prior to that thought she had to have a town with a main college street where she could feed her boba tea addiction, but her thinking shifted after camp and seeing all the different places on campus that she could go chill out and study/write. We live in Chapel Hill and while she has no desire to go to UNC she does avail herself of all that Franklin Street offers and early on thought she wanted that in her college too, but when we visited Warren-Wilson in person all that flew out the window. She felt like she had found her people there and her camp experience helped her feel like it was no big deal to be 15 minutes from town. It doesn’t hurt that Asheville is such a cool town. My D22 is not into sports or Greek life or anything like that so her experience might not be super relevant to you if you want a school with that kind of scene, but I would urge you to go visit in person and see what you think.
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It sounds like me and your daughter are very similar. I had warren wilson on my list for a long time but decided the work-study deal was a little too weird for me, as well as how tiny it is, amount of undergrads-wise.
I am definitely looking for an outdoorsy, liberal, edgy kind of place. That is nice to hear that your daughter felt great about the small-town life after visiting. I feel as thought that might happen for me as well. I am visiting Oberlin pretty soon and hope that will give me a sense of whether or not I like the small college-small town combo. edit- I am also not super into greek life!
The work study thing is unique, but I would not say it is weird. The students we talked with seemed to really embrace it and enjoy it. I would urge you to visit if you can. It will be pretty apparent right away if it’s a good fit. While you’re in the area you can visit UNC-Asheville and App State and if WWC is not for you one of those might be. WWC is definitely an outdoorsy, liberal place. I think seeing the students on campus is what clicked for my daughter. I think it just really felt like home for her.
Prior to our visit I thought she might like a more urban environment with a coffee shop or boba shop on every corner like we have here in Chapel Hill. I actually thought she might want a bigger city school, but one look at Warren Wilson was all it took for her. Asheville being nearby makes a big difference too since it’s such a cool city and has pretty much everything you’d need.
We do have a few more college visits scheduled so we’ll see if they make a difference or not, but right now I fully expect she will be enrolling in WWC, but who knows. Still early.
I know some kids that go/went to Oberlin and enjoyed their experiences there too. I think it is a little more intense than WWC which is pretty chill, which suits my D.
I think some of the flagships or state colleges in the west would be a match. Many have 15000 or so students, have good environmental or agriculture schools, and are in smaller cities - Montana, Montana State, Wyoming, Idaho. Some also have some pretty good merit or financial aid awards.
UVM used to be on a Top 10 list no one wants to be on - top 10 most expensive colleges for OOS students. UVM didn’t change anything (except tuition has gone up) but it is no longer on the list only because the California schools stopped giving FA to OOS students so now most (all?) schools on that list are California schools. UVM does have some merit aid and some school FA, but there are gpa requirements to keep the award, and someone recently had a thread about how expensive housing is in Burlington. Unless lightening strikes, it’s probably going to be too expensive for you.
I would also suggest taking a look at Kalamazoo College. One issue could be even though they do offer significant merit aid but still might not fit the budget.
They do have strong programs in both Bio and Environment. It’s a small school a little over 1500. Kalamazoo however does appear on lists of the best college towns in America. Western Michigan is a good size state university within walking distance. One out of four residents of Kalamazoo is enrolled in college, the average age is 26, and there are over 300 restaurants and bars in a town with under 80k people.
Do you have at least one and preferably two solid safeties?
From the list that you gave in your original post, I do not see anything that I think is both a safety for admission and a safety for affordability (UVM being a safety for admission with a 4.0 but highly unlikely if not impossible for affordability with a $30,000 budget OOS). I do not however, know Macalester at all.
If you wanted to consider it, there are some small universities in Canada that would be safeties for both affordability and admissions with a 4.0 unweighted GPA plus a US$30,000 budget. Let me know if you want any suggestions.
I do have an absolute safety! I didn’t list it but the flagship university in my state is cheap for in-state and I am positive I’ll get in, probably with some nice scholarships as well. I do feel like I should probably get one more safety in there, but I feel okay w mostly hard targets because my state school is such a reliable backup.
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Maybe look at Denison? In a small town, but 20 minutes from Columbus.
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I would second Denison. My daughter who is now beginning her junior year in pre-med had similar requirements. Being near Columbus (~30 minute drive), also means you have access to Ohio State for large school social activities. Finally Denison is know for being generous with merit aid which might make it affordable. My daughter couldn’t be happier with her college decision.
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Recommend you check out Tufts, mid sized school on outskirts of Boston.