If the OP has said his daughter wasn’t interested in Bates or Lafayatte for example, no one would have paid heed. But because it was a state school, people really get worked up over nothing. It seems pretty clear that the OPs daughter is most interested in LACs. No matter how good or what rank TCNJ or Bing has, it’s just not what she wants and it is okay for her to have that preference
Let me weigh my 2¢ in on this matter of avoiding high school classmates in college.
I am from New Jersey, but attend UNC Wilmington where I am currently a freshman. I had lived in NJ the previous 18 years of my life, and my town the previous 13 or so. Honestly, I grew to detest it all. I’ve gone to public school my entire life, but you could say that I went to a try hard private HS. My hometown is considered one of the snobbiest towns in the nation’s most hated state; top 10, in fact. On the flip side, my HS was ranked top 30 nationally in the schoolyear of my graduation.
Despite the fact that I mostly applied to northern universities, one factor in making my final choice was that I had only wanted a maximum of two HS classmates attending school with me. Here at UNCW, I have none (although I do have two older kids who I went to HS with). At my second choice school, I would have gone with three HS classmates. At #s 3 and 4, I would have been the only kid from my HS currently there, period. In fact, at my third choice school (small school in Florida), I would have been the first kid to ever attend. I was happy with how it worked out because I was not very fond of my HS classmates.
Seeing as I go to a high-rising, medium-sized public university where its state mandates that no more than 18% of its freshmen can come from OOS, there are numerous people here who are from the same high school. In fact, in my UNI and English classes alone, there are six people who were high school classmates, a group of four and then a couple. Most people went home for Fall Break a few weeks ago. While it’s certainly nice to not have to see any of those jerks I went to high school with ever again, it’s instances like Fall Break or Labor Day Weekend where I wish that I could at least see one familiar face. And I don’t mean the older HS alumni at my school.
If you’re someone who’s comfortable with going to college with a sea of your high school classmates, then by all means go for it. I just personally would never want that for myself. I prefer the excitement of being the only one of my high school’s class at my university. Starting with a clean slate is great 
@lookingforward @stones3 @twogirls just wondering, what would you rate Rutgers and Binghamton out of 5 stars? Half stars can be used. And how does UNCW compare?
I do not know anything about UNCW, and I am not very familiar with Rutgers. What would you like me to rate about Bing? I agree with wisteria100.
Like your post LBad, especially since I watched your thread about the journey. But I can’t rate the three, for your purposes. The right opps depend on what one seeks. (That was one of the most important lessons we learned.)
For D1, DH refused to consider Rutgers, though it has a strong dept in her major and we know lots of top level profs who worked there, in that dept and arts related. (And despite that DH watched their football religiously.) His father taught there, for a while. DH just had the same Jersey attitude. Rutgers is tops in some programs. For some, the proximity to NYC is a real plus. It’s why it’s so odd that so many dismiss it. Best wishes.
I think it’s funny that someone who wants to be out of NJ likes Lehigh and Lafayette. Since Laf is on the PA/NJ border and Lehigh is 20 minutes away. But hey that’s ok ;).
D went to Lehigh and her boyfriend went to Lafayette. We were on Lafayette’s campus last weekend and were very impressed with the beauty of the campus and everyone was very nice. And it’s flat lol!
@Wisteria100, I would agree totally with what you said had I not read post #14 where OP responds to posters who tell him what a great school TCNJ is and he replies:
" No offense to the above, but a child in the 97th percentile and no grades below an A in the last two years can do better than a NJ teachers college." And in the same post he says:
“The family meeting went well. Some selected comments, " TCNJ is for losers”, “Muhlenberg is for theater geeks”, “If I don’t get into Lehigh I’m finished” and “Who’s fault is this, not mine”.
Now substitute Bates or Lafayette for TCNJ (or a NJ teachers college) in the context of these same remarks and I bet posters would have come out of the woodwork defending those schools as well.
I agree with you that it appears OP and his daughter prefer the LACs and that is where they should concentrate their efforts. Come May 2016, she will most likely be accepted at one of these schools. But no need to bash a perfectly good school, that it appears is still on their list, while doing so.
@Peachy267 - I see what you are saying. But I also think that the OP was quoting his daughter, who I am going to assume is very stressed, tired, overwhelmed and overworked right now. I may be giving OP and his daughter the benefit of the doubt, but I’m going to assume that she was venting her frustration for having achieved so much and then getting to the point where the gc bursts the bubble saying it may not be good enough, If she is looking at admission data, of course she is going to think that being in the top 3% of test takers is going to make her a viable candidate for many of these schools. Having a daughter myself, with similar stats to the OP’s I know why she is frustrated and probably a bit scared. I know next to nothing about TCNJ - I take your word that it is a great school, but just as a kid who gets a perfect 2400 on the SATS would think he could do better than BC (no offense - great school), a girl who scores a 31 would logically think she could do better than a school with an avg act of 27. I think that is reality, versus knocking other schools.
I have nothing but good things to say about TCNJ. I was just commenting on the mood and its “lack of pedigree”.
My suggestions were already adopted at the bottom of page 1 :
In the intervening 16 pages, any mention of Bucknell? When we lived in NJ we ruled out Rutgers because at the time they were cutting academic and athletic programs in what seemed like a random and unpredictable fashion and it was a huge turnoff.
Bucknell has been discussed on and off. In her case she prefers Lehigh and Lafayette.
OP, yeah, many of us were shocked when the GC told our kids to expand the lists. It covers their hide but it costs us a mint! They live in fear of good students failing to get into good schools so the low ball kids. As a result, many students add a bunch of schools. What a waste!
Just one data point here. When my child’s ACT score moved from 27 to 31, she did not change her list. She certainly didn’t think, all of a sudden, she was "too good"for the schools on her list. I felt the higher score just made her a stronger candidate, not move her to a “higher” tier but I guess it depends on your end goal. We valued merit aid over USNWR rank #.
@LBad96 Regarding Rutgers - I’d give it 4 stars, maybe 4.5 I attended quite a while ago but participated in the Honors Program. Got into Cornell, JHU, and UC-Berkeley for grad school with full funding for the first two. At RU, I had great professors, made lifelong friends, and class size was manageable. While some of my HS classmates went there, I almost never saw them.
I was valedictorian and NMS. I didn’t feel deprived or feel that my state university was beneath me. Rutgers served me well and I graduated debt free.
I understand that it’s not for everybody and I know that it’s not what the OP is seeking. But it worked for me and I think it’s worth keeping an open mind about state universities, regardless of one’s state of residence.
As long as you have some admission (and financial) safeties that the D would be happy to go to, the list wouldn’t have to be too long. Pick the school of best personal fit from the acceptances.
" Have you considered Lafayette? Many boarding school students go there and seem to love it. About a 33% acceptance rate overall. "
Another NJ parent here. I agree with this recommendation. Out of all of my daughter’s friends who are now freshmen at a wide variety of schools , some of whom were in the top ten of the class, her friend at Lafayette is the happiest and absolutely LOVES her school…and her parents thought she would get into all the Ivies she applied to , which didn’t happen
@lostaccount It’s always better to have too many than too few. Things can change drastically over a short period of time. One example is GA Tech. They got 3200 more EA applications this year than they did last year. Nothing really changed and that is a huge difference.
sorry fact is an ACT of 31 is decent but come on it does NOT make anyone a certainty for high caliber schools, and
depending on majors it may not be enough a TCNJ regardless of average of 28 ACT , there are in fact many other factors as well. In know for fact the pre-med program has much higher standards, same with Chem , and Bus/finace. at TCNJ.
Being one of the top public colleges in the nation is far cry from what I would call a lack of pedigree.
dcplanner Re:It’s always better to have too many than too few.
That’s true to a point-then there are diminished returns, at best, or consequences when the list is too long. GCs were often overly pessimistic which elevated costs for students with outstanding credentials who ended up getting into the original list of schools.
Are you still looking for nice safety schools, in nice locations? What about Stonehill? Or Wheaton…both in Massachusetts…sort of on the way to Cape Cod.
Stonehill is a Catholic college, I believe…and it is really nice.