That’s really encouraging to hear! The schools I’ve heard from so far haven’t really been places I’m interested in, so it’s nice to hear that being an athlete is a solid extracurricular without being recruited.
You are definitely describing the liberal arts and sciences tradition. Interestingly, I think a few tech schools, including MIT, still really embrace that notion (in fact, if you poke around MIT’s admissions materials, a lot of it could be described as desperately trying to make clear to potential applicants that MIT very much sees itself as part of the liberal arts and sciences tradition). But I agree it can sometimes feel a little lost at some “good for STEM” schools.
I guess I am just suggesting if possible, you should really stick to this being a pretty hard requirement for you, including that this tradition include the STEM kids, and that it be a real value of the college and not just a box to check.
But the good news is there are colleges like that at all selectivity levels. Will they check every single box for you as well as Middlebury does? Can’t promise that, there are reasons people end up with clear favorites sometimes. But many of the colleges suggested here will definitely have that as part of their core values, and then you can decide which among those would still be really exciting for you even if Middlebury doesn’t work out.
Wow, those mountains look like home! Coming from a very liberal part of a very liberal state has definitely impacted my view of the south. I know it isn’t fair to form opinions from the stereotypes, but they have caused me to not really consider moving down there.
Additionally, a lot depends on how everything shakes out with Nordic skiing. I would LOVE to be able to ski at least in a club, but if that ends up being unrealistic, that weather graph looks pretty manageable 
Michigan is in no sense rural.
I note this makes sense because at most of these colleges, athletics is a big activity even outside of the teams which recruit. There are all sorts of club sports, intramural sports, non-competitive outdoor activity clubs, and on and on. I think sometimes in the heat of the admissions battle, some people forget these colleges are trying to put together a thriving college community with those sorts of activities available. And so applicants who are likely to be contributing to their college community in those ways have a very clear case for how they will fit in and help that college keep thriving in non-academic ways.
Of course this is not unique to athletics, we could be talking about many of the classic school activities. Debate. Student government. Student publications. Student theater. Music. And so on. I think in certain social media circles, everyone seems to be focused on non-school competitions and awards and achievements and such. But the applicants who have actually been thriving in high school activities are very likely to do it all again in college, and colleges logically want that.
To the extent that you will be considering further reach schools, look into Hamilton. Recreationally, Hamilton offers nordic ski trails on campus for daily activity:
It also happens to be the snowiest NESCAC.
Academically, Hamilton offers an open curriculum, in which students are encouraged to explore a wide range of interests, including interdisciplinary pursuits (e.g., geoarchaeology, data science).
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My D23 is about to start at Bates and is not an athlete. Comparable stats to yours (slightly lower UW, higher W because she had the ability to take more honors and APs). In fact, most of the students I know at these schools (relatives, friends’ kids, kids’ friends) are not recruited athletes.
That’s hmmmm - either marketing or a good tour guide who knows how to sell it. A lot of those tours are scripted.
Aply ED to Middlebury. I think you will get in. You have stellar grades, and do not need fin aid.
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Carleton offers trails through a beautiful arboretum adjacent to campus. They are popular with cross-country skiers and you will see many dorm rooms containing Nordic skis (which I have not encountered elsewhere).
Whitman has a Nordic ski club, I believe. Lots of students head to do outdoorsy things in the Blue Mountains (from which the Whitman Blues sports teams derive their name).
Purely a guess without researching, but University of Puget Sound will probably have a bus that heads to the mountain in the winter; I am guessing the focus is more Alpine skiing.
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Yeah, I would go so far as to say virtually all our non-recruited student-athletes who don’t need a lot of aid and have very strong academics will, if they want to, end up at a very good LAC.
Can they pick a specific one and know for sure they will be admitted? Often not, and of course recruited athletes can end up with something like that sort of certainty.
But as long as they are at least a little open-minded and thoughtful about the whole likely/target/reach framework, kids like that virtually always get into one of the LACs to which they applied, and actually usually more than one if they applied to a decent number.
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This all sounds really interesting! We were already planning on checking it out when we visit some more schools in NY, but this all makes me even more excited! Does anyone have any suggestions for similar universities with a LAC feel? The arts and sciences college at UVM gave me a similar feeling but was too close to home. The AP Chem program at my school has a bit of a reputation for turning kids who know how to read the periodic table into ones thinking “Next step: chemical engineering degree.” While I’m not totally sure that’s the route I’ll go down, I think it’s good to find a couple of universities with LAC feelings that I like, just in case.
Agreed. My D certainly didn’t get into all of the LACs she applied to, but in the end, she had several fantastic colleges to choose from.
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Oooh! That’s a big plus in my mind! I have thought about MN, but not much about going all the way to the west coat, but Whitman is now on the list 
I’ve heard about the arboretum at Carleton. Is that open to St. Olaf students as well? From what I’ve read it sounds like St. Olaf has a pretty great trail set up too, but access to even more trails would be great. People have warned me that I might feel trapped at a rural school, but I tend to feel trapped in the city when there aren’t places to get out into the woods. Sometimes I think of it as “liking when the mountains scrape the sky, not the buildings,” if that makes sense 
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Would you say Bowdoin/Bates/Colby/Hamilton are all reasonable reaches? I know they’re a reach for everyone, so I’m curious if you think it’s worth it to spend time thinking about them or if there’s really no chance.
If you’re open to the Midwest, take a look at Oberlin and Kenyon. I know that Ohio is a red state, but these are progressive schools on beautiful campuses, so they might check some boxes for you. Probably soft targets for someone with your stats.
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Others might have different experiences, but what we found on the West Coast was that the universities most likely to provide a true LAC-type learning experience were public R1 research universities that were less selective for admissions.
If the public university or many of its majors were harder to get into, like the University of California system or University of Washington, that made it a lot harder for a student to pursue different interests. It is harder to switch majors, harder to get into classes in high-demand majors, harder to take a class “just to learn” when it is treated as a highly intense “weed-out” class for certain majors.
Our kids gained a huge appreciation for the Honors Colleges at less selective schools, like Oregon State (where my child now attends), Washington State, and University of Oregon. At those kind of places, you find students combining all kinds of diverse majors and minors and coming up with unique or interdisciplinary research projects and theses. The student body as a whole is not very LAC-like, but the Honors College group generally is.
So my recommendation would be to visit the Honors Colleges some research universities and state flagships that are a bit less selective in locations that appeal to you and see what you think. For my kid, schools that looked a lot alike on paper/screen felt very different in person. She knew almost right away when the vibe was right.
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So there are a lot of names, not least because this was sort of the traditional model at most of the “elite” (or at least old) colleges in the Northeast, and that model was consciously spread first South and then West. Some of those colleges ended up big publics, and there you can sometimes get a similar feel if you are in something like their honors college. But there are still a variety of mid-size private research universities with this sort of “DNA”, enough in fact that you can look for ones where it is even MORE central to their self-conception.
And of course a lot of the famous ones are very selective, but for someone with really strong academics, it is not hard to get into at least the “target” range with some really excellent universities.
So, Rochester, Wake Forest, and William & Mary are common options for people in our HS with this sort of vision. Pitt is actually a really popular “likely” for high-numbers kids with this vision. UMass-Amherst (actually in a consortium with some LACs). Elon and the University of Denver–you have experienced that last, of course.
I feel like I am missing some, but those are the ones that leap to mind that are not at the top in terms of selectivity.
So true. A well-done Honors College can be a great route to an affordable and attainable “LAC-type” experience.
I don’t think anyone is excluded from the arboretum, but it is in Carleton’s literal backyard. A place to go for a daily run or ski, depending on the season.
A St. Olaf student would have to make their way across town and over the river to get there, which might be tricky to do on a routine basis for a student without a car and with skis.