<p>Mini makes some interesting points.<br>
If you have 6 or 8 strong criteria (as the OP’s or my own kid) you will need to prioritize and possibly compromise to come up with 5-10 choices. </p>
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<p>Wesleyan - definitely not rural
(Right. Personally I did not like the campus very much. I would not recommend it strongly to the OP’s D though it’s considered an excellent college.)</p>
<p>Once you narrow down your list, you need to visit. Many schools my kid considered had some negative stereotype or other attached to them. In one case, the visit confirmed the stereotype. In other cases it did not, or it did and he decided he could live with that negative.</p>
<p>OP, Your D sounds like mine. If you can look farther away you might consider Reed or Lewis and Clark in Portland. Both are more suburban than rural but it’s very close to great hiking country. Both schools have many opportunities for students to do things in the area. Reed is FA only while L&C has some merit aid as well.</p>
It has a higher % of Pell Grant students than UVA and a high level of economic diversity. The student body is probably close to the College average in terms of political leanings, although the Board of Visitors and the State Government used to be more conservative. Located on a large lake (there’s a nice dock with canoes and kayaks for faculty, staff, and students) with a large forest with running trails, many athletic clubs (like Judo, sailing, running, rock climbing, frisbee, that kind of thing), numerous student sponsored 5ks or walk-a-thons, indoor rock climbing wall, a great rec center, a couple olympic size swimming pools, high participation in IM sports, departmental field trips nearly every weekend between kiniseology and geology to go rock climbing or hiking or camping in the Appalachians, located close between (just a few miles from) two major rivers (the James and the York), many biology sponsored trips to go canoeing and do research in the Chesapeake (there are other active outdoors research opportunities with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a graduate program of the College which has its own campus on the York River Estuary overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, too), various classes like the geology labs or some of the kiniseology classes go on field trips to go camping or hiking or rock climbing or boating, many world class golf courses nearby, biking trails, Virginia beach is just a short drive away, the Yorktown or Jamestown beaches are even closer, and many national battlefields and parks are nearby.</p>
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I had the same thing happen on my college search too. Definitely good advice!</p>
<p>Define “extreme outdoor sports”. If it’s skiing, snowboarding, lacrosse, or, field hockey, she’s going to have to compromise on the non-preppy aspect. If she means, Ultimate Frisbee, that opens things up a bit, IMO.</p>
<p>extreme/outdoor sports includes kayak, rock climbing, back packing weeks at a time, likes to ski but not good enough to be referred to as ‘extreme’ probably, as we don’t get much snow in our area.</p>
<p>I am overwhelmed and very grateful for the great advice by everyone. Some of the schools were on the radar, but several were not.</p>
A valid but irrelevant point. The College of Charleston is considered a university by the Carnegie Classification system, the Department of Education, and its own website.</p>
<p>Wesleyan, despite its “downtown” location, is within walking distance from the Connecticut River. And, the adjacent brownstone quarries in Portland are pretty accessible. There have been redtail hawk sightings on campus, and reportedly there are nests underneath the nearby Portland Bridge. </p>
<p>The quarries have attracted generations of bathers and rock climbers. According to the website:</p>
<p>“The park has planned uses such as scuba diving, climbing and rappelling, swimming, canoing and kayaking, hiking, mountain biking, and camping. All activities are currently available except for the campground - which is currently under construction - and rappelling activities which will start in the summer 2007.”
[Portland</a> Brownstone Quarries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Brownstone_Quarries]Portland”>Portland Brownstone Quarries - Wikipedia). </p>
<p>And, there’s Wadsworth Falls, just a few miles from campus.</p>
<p>Sorry to bring back an old thread, but your daughter needs to look at Earlham college in Richmond Indiana.
Liberal student body in uberly-conservative region? check.
Small LAC? check.
Region specified? No, but only 1 hour from KY.
Merit Aid? check.
Not preppy? check.
Asian influences? check.
Well-respected? check, may even be in CTCL (although I’m not sure)
Outdoorsy? check, many recreational opportunities such as bike trails, kayaking, lakes, rugged, KY style hills all within a 20 minute drive, many of those within a 5-minute walk.</p>
<p>Other Benefits:</p>
<p>Only 1 hour from Indy and 1/2 hour from Dayton, Ohio.
Located in an extremely safe, moderately sized community (50,000) with a sizable movie theater, mall, and other amenties
Strong feeling of a campus community
Again, asian is their thing. I don’t know why. It’s kind of like heaven for an anime lover, like living in the comics.</p>
<p>So, good luck, and also I should mention that the style of school your daughter is looking for is really just your typical midwestern LAC. Earlham just happens to be tailor made for her, IMO.</p>
<p>Berry College gets my vote! I just spent the weekend in the castle-like historic Ford buildings at one end of campus while my daughter attended a leadership conference at the other. The place is gorgeous. The 14,000+ acre campus is within a 26,000 acre managed wildlife area with miles and miles of hiking, biking, and horse trails. No sororities/fraternities. I’m not sure of the school’s stats, but while there I heard of a new program they’re offering, the Opportunity Scholarship, where a student can work on campus to pay the cost of attendance. Berry is located in Rome, Georgia - an hour northeast of Atlanta. It’s worth taking a look.</p>