There are many excellent Midwest LACs, and due to their Midwest location they are easier to get into and less expensive than schools of the same quality on the East coast. So Midwest schools are probably going to be your best bets. That said, another type of school that tends to be a bit easier to get into and less expensive are the historically womens’ colleges. Mount Holyoke is a great example – prestigious, beautiful, great education, but more affordable and easier for admission.
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You probably mean “highly selective” rather than “selective”, since many moderately or minimally selective schools use primarily stats-based admission. The highly selective schools with an overflow of applicants near the stats ceiling are the ones where other criteria become more important.
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No, I meant selective which many/probably most who work in the industry define as schools under a 50% admit rate (that’s the definition I also use). The majority of these schools (which is a subset of all schools) have holistic admissions.
Big picture, most colleges still admit most applicants. Relatively fewer of the >50% admit schools are holistic admissions.
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Just want to throw in a third vote (at least) for College of Wooster.
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You should also consider Centre College. It’s a 6 hr drive from Chicago (you said you’re in the Midwest, so no idea which metro area you’re in, nor do you need to specify).
Holistic application. Applying with test scores not required. A lot of really great scholarships → Scholarships & Fellowships | Centre College.
Info about pre-law there → Pre-Law | Centre College
It’s in Danville, KY. Small town (I think about 18,000 people?), but there’s an adorable downtown area that’s a super close walk to campus. Very active campus community. >90% of students live on campus all 4 years. From what I can tell, Greek life is there, but it’s not necessarily a major thing (i.e., it’s a ‘participate if you want to, but you’ll still have a social life w/o it if you don’t want to do Greek life’).
1 hr drive from Lexington, KY or ~1.5 hr to the Louisville airport (if you’re going to fly home).
Like other LACs, it has small class sizes, so good opportunities for professors to get to know you…helpful later on if applying to grad school.
Admissions requirements info → Admission Requirements | Centre College
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Right, and they consider demonstrated interest strongly, I believe.
As chance would have it, I visited many of these schools last summer (all except Georgetown and Carleton) with prospective applicants.
My favorite three schools:
- Middlebury
- Williams
- Colgate
All 3 of these schools are breathtakingly beautiful.
Middlebury has an outstanding English department; both Middlebury and Williams are great pre-law feeder schools.
You might need to get your SAT up to 1450, but my son has a good friend (ranked 2/160) who was deferred ED2 at Midd and later accepted RD with a 1400. (He did have great WE + XC.)
You seem incredibly well organized and write exceptionally well for a high school senior, so don’t sell yourself short!
You got this!
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Miami of Ohio. Allegheny College.
St Olaf is a target, not a safety. Their acceptance rate is 47%.
You should have some Illinois public schools on your list. Their cost will be predictably lower than any of the privates.
I agree that running the NPCs should be the first step. When I ran them for S23’s list, it eliminated about 60% of the schools.
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Thank you so much!
Have you been able to run NPCs?
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Update:
Thank you so far to everyone who has responded. I have taken in all of this advice and ran many npc’s with my parents for the schools im looking for, and the cost seems really really manageable for me as it is def more financial aid than I originally thought I would be getting, so I’m not too worried about costs.
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That’s good - it means you can look at all “meet need” colleges. Do note that colleges often calculate your need in idiosyncratic ways (ie., unique to themselves) though there are big commonalities.
Most importantly, only about 85 colleges “meet need” - That’s out of thousands that don’t and offer loans instead.
As a result, always always run the NPC before you add a college to your list, looking at “net cost”.
All in all, you should have some FINE, affordable choices. 
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And remember….the NPCs are currently set for students starting this fall 2023 and that is not you. There are some significant changes to the FAFSA which will impact NPCs. The new FAFSA is not going to be available until sometime in December. So…please view these results you are getting now as an estimate only.
@Mwfan1921 did I miss anything?
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That is correct. In addition to the coming FAFSA changes, the NPC COAs aren’t set to 2024-25 school year, so OP should increase 2023-24 COA by 4% or so.
Also we don’t know OP’s situation and if that might also impact NPC accuracy, e.g., divorced parents, business ownership, or real estate ownership beyond a primary home. Are any of those the case for you OP?
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Gustavus Adolphus (about 2100 undergrads in MN) is another school you may want to check out, and if the NPC works out, is likely to be a safety for you. Also up in MN is U. of Minnesota-Morris, the state’s public liberal arts college with a 9:1 student/faculty ratio.
If you’re looking for a reach that’s closer to home, Grinnell in Iowa could be a very strong contender.
For something that might be more akin to a “target” in the northeast you might want to consider Skidmore in New York.
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No, none of those are the case for me.
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