Thank you! Will check some of these out! Much appreciated!
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Agree with many of the suggestions here. Would also recommend looking at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Sarah Lawrence College (NY), and Goucher College (MD)
With relatively limited CS and French offerings, SLC may not be that good an academic fit.
Washington college in Maryland. While there is a Greek life, it is unlike Greek at other schools so it wonāt have that typical feel on campus.
Whitman came to mind first for me, too.
If you visit Willamette and Whitman, you might consider adding visits to Lewis & Clark and University of Puget Sound as part of your Pacific Northwest tour.
All of the schools meet your requirements (except for the existence of a subdued Greek life at some), but they each have a unique vibe and it could be helpful to see which ones resonate.
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Occidental has a 3 year living requirement. Greek life is small.
St Maryās of Maryland is a public honors LAC. No Greek. Has upper class housing (not required) and is a relatively easy in.
Please note that Willamette states that it currently offers a minor (only) in French and Francophone studies:
This suggests less extensive course offerings than those of colleges that offer a major in this field.
As a general recommendation to the OP regarding French studies, colleges that maintain their own abroad programs in France may be stronger for French studies than colleges that rely on the abroad programs of other schools.
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Since you asked for higher acceptance rate options, I just wanted to give another recommendation in favor of checking out Kalamazoo College. They have a French and Francophone major, and dedicated study abroad programs in Strasbourg (in partnership with the Institute International dāEtudes Francaise) and Dakar (in partnership with the University of Minnesota and the West African Research Center). I note study abroad is a big deal at Kalamazoo generally (also true of other good LACs, but it is one of those).
No Greek life, about an 80% acceptance rate, and some kids get nice merit offers. Despite the high acceptance rate, it is very much an academicky sort of college, and I would suggest the acceptance rate is high because most of the people who apply know what they are looking for and are a good fit. In fact, if you search for āKalamazooā in these PhD feeder lists compiled by Swarthmore, you will see them popping up on lots of lists, typically alongside much more selective colleges. It is that sort of place (along with others, of courseālike forum-favorite St Olaf is also over those lists):
I note they are well-known for what they call their K-Plan, individualized curriculum plans which make use of minimal core requirements, a quarter (aka trimester) calendar, and a lot of interdisciplinary combinations. So I am sure CS and French would be easy to combine. They also do a capstone āsenior integrated project,ā which could be fun with diverse interests.
A possible negative is some people do live off campus, but usually it is very closeāthey say usually within four blocks. Kalamazoo, Michigan, is a nice town which Kalamazoo College shares with the much larger Western Michigan University, and the College is in a nice local area with a lot of pleasant, inexpensive, easily walkable housing. So it has a strong (very strong) sense of community notwithstanding the relative popularity of nearby off campus housing.
Anyway, definitely one of my personal favorites to recommend to people looking for this sort of LAC experience but with a higher acceptance rate. There are plenty of others but at least in my circles, a kid who liked, say, Carleton and Macalester but who wanted a very likely college along the same lines would potentially have Kalamazoo in that sort of slot.
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As a research tool for comparing the popularity of French studies as a major, IPEDS can be helpful. For example, this is the information for Middlebury (which shows 4 āfirst majorsā in āFrench Language and Literatureā): College Navigator - Middlebury College. Note that French studies courses can be popular with students with majors in other fields, however. Also, year-to-year variations can be significant. Therefore, a low figure for actual French majors should not necessarily represent a cause for concern when comparing colleges. Nonetheless, a comparatively high figure may indicate an especially robust program and associated student community.
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Perhaps a check of upper level course offerings and their frequency of offering may be more useful than indirect measures like number of students in the program. For example, for French at Willamette and Middlebury:
Note that subarea emphasis may vary among the upper level course offerings.
A similar check can be done for CS at the various colleges.
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Warren Wilson ticks some of your boxes like no Greek life at all and on campus housing all 4 years, but itās smaller than her wants and the CS and French majors are not its strengths. Itās great at environmental studies, et al, and super outdoorsy and liberal but NC is a purple state at best. Asheville is blue in the city though. Itās a really unique school and is great for the right students. Very chill and welcoming. Beautiful setting. Very hands on. They have a farm that the students run. Blacksmithing is also really big there.
Might be worth checking out Knox College. That was on my D22ās early list, which also included Cornell College Iowa, Earlham College, Wheaton College Massachusetts, and Coe College. She was looking for Creative Writing/English so not sure of the French and CS offerings at any of these.
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Thank you so much, to everyone who has replied so thoughtfully and without judgment. You have given us so many new schools to consider, as well as websites to check out data. We will look at all of it! Just for clarification, my daughter would like to focus on CS but study French as a minor or just enough to go abroad for a semester. She is a great student at a rigorous private high school, but wonāt play college sports and doesnāt offer any diversity of any sort. So while she may have a chance at some competitive SLACs, we want to make sure she has some other options with higher acceptance rates. She is a legacy at Middlebury and would be able to attend without aid, but still is a reach. Thank you all again!
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So my two cents is that combination of academic interestsāCS major with a French minor and some study abroadāis going to be satisfiable by a very long list of desirable LACs. Even adding your other criteria.
This of course is inherently good news, but I think it means you may be looking for other reasons for your daughter to get particularly excited about specific schools, perhaps for reasons that really only emerge from visits.
In cases like this, I think sometimes just the convenience of putting together efficient trips can make a difference in outcomes. Like, where can you visit a reasonable mix of likely, target, and reach colleges without wasting a lot of travel time between?
Iād personally make it a goal to visit some different regions, but there are clusters all over.
And then maybe a few more one-off visits. Like, we did a trip to the Minneapolis cluster, I liked St Olaf, any more like that? Sure, and then you can hit a couple of those. Or not, if St Olaf is enough.
And in the end, this doesnāt have to be hard! However you can fill out a reasonable application list with affordable colleges that all excite your daughter will make its own sense.
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Love this! Thank you! Planning a trip to MN and maybe NY/CT/PA in the spring. We visited MA/VT/ME this summer and this is how she narrowed down her parameters a bit. Appreciate the insight!!
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D24 is interested in CS as a major, and when considering SLACs we found it helpful to look in-depth at the CS offerings, how frequently the courses are offered, faculty, how long the CS program had been established, etc. There are some very helpful threads on CC if you search LAC and Computer Science majors. Some schools came off of our list as not as extensive in the major or not having enough course offerings for OUR preferences (YMMV of course). For example, Whitman was one of those colleges that we liked in theory, but had other SLACs with options we felt were better for CS. Any of the Five Consortium colleges may be good options, as UMASS Amherst is a potential option for classes (of course you have to consider how popular the major may be at UMass Amherst, etc.). Good luck!
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Iām going to echo others here for Whitman and St. Olaf - two places that we visited that were full of smart and kind kids.
My son wanted to avoid schools with a greek system, not wanting the culture that can exist around them, nor how they can dominate a social landscape. So while Whitman does have a tiny bit of a greek system, we were careful to scope out its influence on campus for those reasons.
My S23 could have happily seen himself at either school and decided to ED at Whitman; Iām here right now for family weekend, and he couldnāt be happier! (The initial assessment that the tiny greek system here didnāt influence the social climate has been true in his experience, too.) 
Heās also taking a CS class right now and is leaning towards it as a major; his RA is a CS major and has had lots of positive things to say about the professors that he works with, too.
There is also terrific merit money available at both schools, and Olaf awards an automatic minimum $20,000 St. Olaf Scholarship to all students who apply and are admitted Early Decision.
Whitman also does their pre-read program that opens each July (before 12th grade), where a student submits their transcript, slate of upcoming classes, optional test scores, and CSS if seeking need based aid. Within a few weeks theyāll respond with a package of need and merit based aid, which is the minimum amount they would award if accepted. So you can know before applying how the numbers would pencil out for your family.
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Love your handle, BTW!
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Amazing! Thank you so much for this insight. Whitman and St. Olaf both sound wonderful. We will add them both to the list! And thank you for the comments on the Greek system and CS. Both super helpful!
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Iām biased as an alum but St Olaf is an absolutely beautiful school with smart, kind kids and no Greek system. My daughter just did her second visit there yesterday.
If your daughter has decent GPA/test scores they also offer pretty robust automatic merit scholarships as well.
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Also, I want to add that Whitman is planning to build a new Junior/ Senior quad. Iām not sure what the time frame will be, but it is possible that Whitman will be moving towards providing four years of housing to students.
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