Just re-read your original post and, for the midwest colleges, combining the atmosphere you seek and the availability of merit aid, I’d recommend Grinnell, Earlham, Beloit, and Oberlin in that order. Can’t hurt to visit and apply to them all.
Best of luck!
The OP mentioned mid-Atlantic, New England, and perhaps upper midwest. To me, upper midwest reads as MN, WI, and MI.
MN: Macalaster
MI: Kalamazoo? (liberal, but not sure if it’s too mainstream in its culture)
WI: Beloit
Mid-Atlantic:
PA: Allegheny (ditto about what was said re: K-Zoo)
MD: Goucher (very liberal school). McDaniel? (ditto)
It’s true that if the OP’s D would look at the rest of the country, a lot more schools are in play. Grinnell seems like the obvious fit, with Knox (full disclosure: I’m a Knox grad) as a sort of poor man’s stand-in for Grinnell. There’s Lewis & Clark in Portland (very “crunchy” school). Too many to mention.
So many great suggestions so far! I really appreciate them. Some of them are schools that I’ve heard of and others were not on my radar screen, but sound promising and are hitting the mark with the vibe we are looking for.
@Hapworth - Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, we’re pretty set with the geographic parameters: mid-Atlantic, New England, mid-west, and (perhaps) upper mid-west (as you noted: MN, MI, WI was what I was thinking)
@NEPatsGirl - 19 schools - wow! I was preparing my daughter to prepare to apply to about 12 schools (and that sounded like a lot to me). But, I may increase that now as we chase merit, too. 
Maybe I missed these two unthread, but Smith and Wesleyan (CT) come to mind.
Smith has been mentioned. I agree that it and Wesleyan have the right vibe but Wesleyan doesn’t offer merit aid.
@time4adventure I caution your D to apply only to those schools she would happily attend. Admittedly, my D had a half dozen that I’m not sure she would have attended even if they turned out to be free. Of course, I didn’t realize this until the acceptances starting coming in or I would not have allowed it (paid for it lol).
@Hapworth – Kalamazoo never struck us as particularly mainstream, for what it’s worth. I put it in the same spectrum as Grinnell, Knox, Lawrence and Earlham – everything from blue hair and men in skirts to Vineyard Vines, and everyone seemed to get along/cross “boundaries.”
College of Wooster
Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina.
Earlham is a great school - one of my favorites to recommend - and fits your search perfectly.
Others could include Beloit,Wooster, Kalamazoo, Guilford, Hampshire, and Knox.
Berea is farther south, but meets some of the other requirements.
There are others that meet the description but who dont give merit money, such as Amherst, Haverford, etc…
Does Oberlin give merit money? It isn’t significant, if they do. Also, Grinnell is a great school, but they decided a few years ago to begin limiting merit money, and ai am not sure where that stands at this time.
I think if your daughter liked Oberlin and is interested in merit, Lawrence is a great suggestion. We visited both schools back to back and saw many similarities. There seems to be no pretense or artifice about Lawrence and there was something about how friendly they were and how much of an effort they made to welcome us to campus that I found refreshing. Lawrence is generous with merit.
Macalester also seems like a possibility for a kid that likes Oberlin and Kenyon. Maybe a little less liberal than Oberlin but they seem to want their students to really explore and with the proximity to the Twin Cities, it seems like they have a lot of opportunities to do so. Nice facilities and when we were visiting, they were expanding a portion of their performing arts building and seem to encourage the arts. I don’t know the specifics about merit money, but they talked a lot about making sure students aren’t held back from attending because of finances.
We liked Grinnell and Carleton a lot but limited merit is my understanding.
Okay here are some merit stats (all LACS) from this year for mine (4.0. 4.8 1550 SAT)
Grinnell 20K-They say to apply early for best merit outcome.
Macalester 20K
Lawrence 28K Did EA
St Olaf 28K (this included a music scholarship as well)
Smith 10K
Oberlin 29K
Kenyon 15K
Mt Holyoke Full tuition (attending)
The merit is out there! You can also look at collegedata.com and use admission tracker to see kids who post stats and merit awards. We found it helpful to predict what merit might be forthcoming.
@Veryapparent Thank you so much for sharing your merit and your child’s stats! I was getting worried when I read the people were saying that Oberlin and Grinnell were limiting merit - I had seen them both on lists of schools that give good merit aid. I will keep an eye on that though. These are all schools that are on our radar. Really helpful post!
I forgot MacAlester.
@Veryapparent Wow, great pick with MoHo ! Looks like Oberlin was a nice package as well. Good information for those chasing merit.
Another thing to consider as you go through are questions like internships and study abroad. If your student wants to do those things, it is worth looking into which schools have extra program charges, and/or which schools are willing to apply scholarships to those type of programs. Sometimes a school that looks more affordable upfront will cost more in the long run for students who want that kind of experience.
Yes this is true. Lots of colleges love study abroad programs because they are big money maker for then. Also too sometimes merit isn’t applicable to study abroad. Where my D is attending for example you don’t pay tuition to the school the semester you are abroad…you only pay for the study abroad program which is significantly cheaper than tuition. A few of the schools she looked at merit did not travel with study abroad.
@BB I’m sort of unclear about your take on the Oberlin merit. When I look at the Common Data Set for Oberlin, it looks like they give a decent amount of merit - an average of $16K to about 335 students. Do you know differently? Am I overlooking something?
When we filled out the NPC for Oberlin in fall of senior year it has a predictor that is separate from FA for merit. We plugged in stats and it came out with 15K. It was a frontrunner for my D so she applied. We were pretty surprised by the 29K. Oberlin was a contender right down to the final minutes.