Are there any schools that have a community/family feel (like Notre Dame) with a better acceptance rate for
A- students? Older daughter is at ND. Younger sister would like the same community feel to the dorms/school but doesn’t have the stats for ND.
Lehigh?
Perhaps Lafayette, Bucknell, Case Western?
In general, liberal arts colleges are noted for strong community/family feel. However, LACs are usually much smaller than ND, and lack engineering and Division I sports.
But take a look at some Patriot League schools, specifically Lehigh, Lafayette, and Bucknell. All are noted for a strong sense of community, and they have engineering and DI sports. Note, though, that their DI sports are more like the Ivy League; i.e. not usually nationally ranked (except maybe for Lehigh wrestling).
Lafayette and Bucknell are basically largish LACs with engineering; they are much smaller than ND. Lehigh is closer to ND in size and has a strong engineering tradition; in fact Lehigh’s engineering program may be slightly larger than ND’s.
We know several kids who were not accepted to ND but very very happy at Dayton and Marquette.
UDayton
If looking at/visiting Marquette, look at Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) - it is now a broader school, but very good engineering reputation.
I would look at SLU. Also what about the 3:2 program at Saint Mary’s? As a proud Saint Mary’s Alum, I highly recommend it and then your kids would be together.
We love Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). We visited dozens of schools with our several kids (we have fun doing it), and we all think WPI had the best or one of the best campus vibes of all the schools. It’s a beautiful New England campus in a nice area of Worcester, the second or third largest city in New England, with a couple of parks right around campus. Worcester is undergoing a major downtown renovation and has improved a lot in recent years. The school has about 5000 undergrads.
The curriculum is unique and may or not be right for your D. It’s very hands-on and project-oriented. Students take 3 classes at a time and most of them are done as group or individual projects. There are lots of coops/internships. School is much more highly ranked than most outside of New England realize. Student starting salaries are some of the highest of any school (mostly scientists and engineers after all).
A friend in MA has a female neighbor who went to an Ivy, did not like it, transferred to WPI, loved it, and got a great job after school. It is pretty competitive these days, though not as much so as ND. Good luck!
D2 applied to ND for engineering. She had borderline stats for ND, and was waitlisted and eventually rejected.
Her final two candidate schools where she was admitted to were Lehigh and Case Western. She is now a sophomore engineer at Lehigh.