@chembiodad. Yes, Hamilton and URoch are her reaches. And URoch unlikely to work financially, but she wants to apply anyway. Thanks for chancing 
CONGRATS TO @mprit4 and @amom2girls for the WCU acceptances! I’m the mom of a 2019D who loves WCU - it’s her match/safety (because of finances) and she will be thrilled if she has to “settle” for it. I lurk here for insights and will be checking back to see who ends up there, if anyone.
@labegg @1822mom Thanks! 1822mom-- you are confirming my Oxy $$$ fears. And since it’s a reach anyway, maybe we’ll skip the visit. I have thought about U of Denver. My friend’s son is just starting there and she’s impressed so far. I’m just not sure how much “exploring” we can do at this point, so only looked in SoCal. My son is still applying to east coast schools, now also west coast – the list is getting quite long and a lot of deadlines are Nov 1, which would also be DU. I was hoping to confine it to where we’d really get some benefit from being driveable. To be honest, we are trying to find something to tempt him away from Elon or American, and so far, he’s willing to look, but it hasn’t enticed him. Any thoughts about LMU? He thought it looked interesting, and since he wants to do service work, he is impressed with the Jesuit philosophy. Just not sure how much that translates to the kids – are they pretty SoCal students who have just always wanted a Catholic university? (which is my impression of Villanova and ND. Then again, I have two great friends from ND!! ) We have a weekend to visit 3. My leaning right now is Chapman, Redlands and LMU. Haven’t really heard much about Whittier. 1822mom-- good luck with your potential move!
Here’s a short article about a new partnership between Redlands and Tuskegee University: https://www.redlands.edu/bulldog-blog/2017/october/university-of-redlands-and-tuskegee-university-forge-historic-agreement/.
@eahaz I don’t know anything about LMU as my D would not consider Catholic schools. You should consider posting to the LMU board here on CC for input, it looks pretty active.
I get what you mean about not wanting to overload the list, but probably just give him options right? Well, fwiw, DUs app is super simple if he’s already on the Common App, they have no supplemental essays or questions, so it would really just require the commitment of paying the app fees and paying to send scores, which, I know is no small thing, but could be an easy way to add a closer to you school and provide options in the Spring. I know Chapman’s app is long (one reason D dropped it), and Redlands has 2 standard supplemental essays (why us, and diversity).
Whittier is on my Ds list too, but I don’t know much about it yet either, we are actually visiting next weekend for their fall preview day so I will report back.
@taverngirl - you have a great list. The only potential problem I see is a financial one. Some of those schools may not give her merit. Have her get on those interviews ASAP, especially for those EA ones. Time is running out. And some you may have to travel a bit to get to. All in all, great list and exciting times!
http://www.geneva.edu/student-financial-services/aid-types/scholarships_awards
Geneva College sent us an email about expanding their scholarships and grants. If you are not opposed to a Christian school, might be worth looking into and running their net price calculator.
@mprit4 & @amom2girls read your posts about WCU acceptances. That is one our DD applied to as well. She can do Computer Science & minor in linguistics there or switch to Education, (which I think is more likely) and it might just be affordable for us, one of the few.
When did your daughters apply? Also, are you in state for WCU?
@taverngirl, have you considered colleges in other areas of the country? Eckerd has a well regarded environmental studies program. They are also known for their writers in paradise workshop.
D has an interview with Beloit later. She has included it on the list because I suggested it. After researching the website, she cannot find anything “special” about it. Nor can I. Is there anything unique about the school or is it your typical LAC?
@eahaz D17 and I looked at LMU about 18 months ago. My husband and I are Jesuit educated (him, high school, me, college) so we both encouraged her to consider Jesuit universities. We are East Coasters but my husband is originally from California and most of his family is there so D was interested in checking out some schools there (her criteria for schools was that they had to be on either coast, not in the middle). We really liked the school, its location, its facilities, the tour was great and there was an informative information session with a panelist of professors and students from several different departments, majors, etc. Walking around campus, the student body seemed diverse. The only downfall for D17 is that she intended to be an international relations major and last year is the first year they offered that major at LMU. So she was a little worried about the strength of the program. She did apply, got in, and got offered minimal “scholarship” that someone later told us is typically given to kids who graduate from a Catholic h.s. (she got the same amount from another Jesuit university so perhaps this is true for some Catholic universities).
In the end, D17 ended up at Univ of San Diego. Though we both liked it when we toured it, it wasn’t actually at the top of her list when she was applying. However, once all of her acceptances were in and we compared costs based on the merit/scholarships she received, she narrowed it down to USD and one other school on the East Coast. She was a little worried about it being far away, but she flew out there in the spring and did some sort of accepted students day where she spent the day going to classes with a student and attended some small info sessions. Then for lunch she and a couple of other kids, were met by some other students who did an “informal tour” where she went back to their dorm where they sat and talked about things not mentioned in the formal sessions! 
Halfway through the day texted me and said “ready to put down the deposit!” She’s about 7 weeks in now and so far, seems to be loving it. She had a glitch initially with being placed in the wrong math class and had a few days struggling to get into another class, but her advisor and the professors were all very helpful. None of her classes has more than 25 kids, her professors are all pretty accessible/available for office hours, and use email to communicate quite a bit with the students. She has roommates from both northern California and NY and has met several other East Coasters. An interesting tidbit - it is NOT a popular school in our area. There are not many kids from MD there, however, there are five kids just from our suburban area, but oddly enough, all from different h.s. (3 private, 2 public). One huge benefit to us in terms of its location is that USD is 10-15 min from the airport and there are several airlines that fly direct to our airport.
Hope that helps!
@rosered55 Thanks for sharing the info on the partnership between the two schools. We are not looking at these schools but it is good to see partnerships with HBCU’s.
@1822 Yes, please let us know your impressions of your Whittier visit.
@4kids4us Very helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to respond!
@eahaz D17 is thoroughly enjoying her time at Chapman. Chapman is about 6500 undergrads, so it sounds like it is around the size you are looking for. It is not cheap, roughly $68k/year, but they are fairly generous with merit aid of varying levels ($10k/16k/22k/29k per year). Based on your son’s stats, it sounds like he would have a pretty good chance to be accepted, but not sure about merit/level. Expect the final cost to be around your EFC. AP credits can be helpful too, as they usually give credit for 4s and 5s. D started with roughly 22 credits earned via APs, plus was able to test out of two semesters of a foreign language (needing just one more semester to satisfy Chapman’s language requirement). Chapman has a beautiful campus and is located in a quaint, college town, Orange, CA. It is also 15 minutes from the Santa Ana/John Wayne Airport, making flights home easy. D does not have her own vehicle there, but has been able to uber anywhere she has needed to go. Freshmen are required to live on campus, and they are looking to make it so they have enough room for sophomores to be guaranteed housing, but that is not currently the case. D is already making plans with friends to share a house/apartment for next year. I would definitely recommend a tour. If you have any other questions, feel free to message me.
@laralei I think my daughter applied in early October. We are in-state. Is your family instate, too?
@ECmotherx2 Thank you for the recommendation. She doesn’t want to go out of the northeast. As it is, there are a few PA schools on her list that are 8 hours away, which she is not happy about, but she really likes them so is keeping them on. We are exploring airline and train schedules, lol.
@taverngirl I am surprised the NPC shows all around the same. I would expect a very nice offer from Allegheny and their Enviro program is wonderful.
He will undoubtably get into USF, it is a wonderful school for engineering. I have family members that got their Masters in Engineering from USF. I just got my acceptance letter in the mail yesterday!
@eandesmom Yes, most of the EFCs were within a couple thousand of each other, except URoch which was about 12K more than the rest. Weird. Would love to see a nice offer from Allegheny!! She REALLY liked it, as did I. Seems like a great school.
Have you or she had a chance to look at the Beloit forum here on CC? I find that reading threads like “School X vs School Y” can give me a sense of the feel of a school and what people notice about it.
This is also a good question for the interview: Interviewer, what make Beloit stand out as compared to similar schools?