My daughter just graduated from Miami University of Ohio - it’s a public R2 university with about 17K undergrads and a small graduate program. It’s considered a strong university academically (it claims to be a “public ivy”) and has what has appeared on multiple lists as one of the prettiest campuses in the US. My daughter double majored in biochemistry and psychology and got a co-major in neuroscience. Neuroscience is not a standalone major there, only a co-major, and is usually combined with biology or psychology. But a co major means there are more classes than a minor would have – it’s basically a major, but one where you have to double major with something else.
Anyway, she had a great experience. She was in the honors program and the marching band but there are also tons of music groups to get involved in (none of which require you to be a music major). She started doing research her second year in a behavioral neuroscience lab, was able to conduct her own independent thesis project for which she received a bunch of funding through various programs at the university, and ultimately ended up winning a Goldwater Scholarship (very prestigious national stem award). This summer she is submitting that research project for publication, and in the fall she will be starting at one of the top ranked Neuroscience PhD programs in the country.
While out of state tuition is pricey, Miami is incredibly generous with merit aid - my daughter did not win their top amount and still ended up with a COA of about 28K per year. After the first two years where dorm living and a meal plan is required, your child can move off campus which saved us a TON of money. We were probably closer to 23K at that point. Oh, and they have the “tuition promise” which means that the tuition/fees you pay the first year are guaranteed to not go up for 8 full semesters - we paid the exact same amount of tuition for my daughter’s final semester as we did the first. Now that her brother is at a different university where tuition goes up 5-8% a year and every July brings another ugly surprise, I really appreciate what an amazing gift that tuition promise was.
Miami really prioritizes their undergrads (almost all classes are taught by professors etc) and, unlike schools with large grad programs where undergrads are rarely allowed to do anything cool in the labs, at Miami, undergrads were trained to do all sorts of research stuff that grad students normally do. My daughter designed her own project from scratch, wrote grant applications for funding, conducted the entire project independently, wrote up the results and presented them at several conferences that the university paid for her to attend. I feel like she got all the incredible teaching and personal attention that small liberal arts colleges are known for combined with all the benefits of a larger research university (more professors/bigger selection of courses/better funded labs etc.)
Miami is not exactly on the east coast and I guess it would be a bit of a drive drive from NC (it was 9+hours for us outside of Philly) but it meets everything else on your list - campus is drop dead gorgeous, the town is a picture perfect quaint little college town, there are tons of music opportunities and clubs, there’s 4 definite seasons but it never gets insanely cold and snowy, and there’s a lot of religious/bible groups available as many of the students come from a midwestern conservative background. The school has a reputation as “preppy” and “greek” but my daughter is the complete opposite of preppy sorority girl (think purple hair and doc martens) and found her people, so don’t let the reputation turn you off. The last several years Miami has been test optional and has not looked at test scores for merit - I don’t know if that will change for next year or not. They are also generous with awarding AP credit, although anything in your major they strongly recommend retaking no matter what your AP score - my daughter had a 5 in AP Chem and still retook the chemistry intro sequence (and was glad she did because she learned a lot that wasn’t covered in high school.)
If your daughter wants to pursue a higher degree in neuroscience, know that admission to PhD programs is incredibly competitive (most programs have a 5-8% admit rate) and the main thing that makes or breaks your application is the research experience obtained in undergrad. The research opportunities my daughter had at Miami were phenomenal and I can’t recommend it highly enough.