Numerous colleges meet full need without loans, including Colby, Haverford, Swarthmore, Davidson, Vassar, Wesleyan, etc. Some schools have income limits.
https://studentloanhero.com/featured/colleges-no-student-loans-policy/
^^They do. It’s getting accepted to such schools that is the issue
^^
There is that. 
No matter what the poster asks we always end up at the same schools. Good lord.
Harvard accepts 380 kids per year per gender vs the world that are not somehow receiving a preference or institutional need boost.
Yes it’s a great place. Yes they offer fabulous need based aid. But what do the other 2,299,700 students out of the 2.3mm go ?
Or even more broadly, all the various great schools with under 27 percent acceptance rates aka the “rate race” have something like 60k spots. 30k per gender. Or let’s say 100k if we take in top 10 public unis ooS state admits. Or 200k spots if we double this to include other fine schools. Where do the other 2.1mm of the 2.3mm go?
To other fine schools and many are affordable.
Let’s stop with any reference to hpysm or top 20 lacs or hyper competitive Public unis.
Puget Sound. Awesome. Montana. Great. ASU Barrett. Phenomenal. USD. Mid size Catholic schools. Great opportunity. State flagships. Yes indeed. Wonderful lacs. Sure. Ctcl types. Of course.
OP. There are more that meet your criteria than don’t. I would not look for them as much as cross off 30 or so upfront. The rest are excellent.
And there’s also the issue of THEIR definition of need vs your definition! I think this is why so many upper middle class kids are headed to state schools.
“When I read post like this I often wonder if this is what a parent wants or what a student wants?”
Unless you really know what’s going on in the family (tragedy, single mom), I’d lay off the judgemental posts. I think the OP has a pretty good idea of what her D is going through, and the D herself is saying she doesn’t fit in with wealthy kids in a private schools, feels excluded, and wants to avoid that in college. That’s exactly how you should approach things, now if her classmates are going to T20s, well avoiding T20s may be a good idea, even though as others have said, you could be generalizing too broadly.
OP: So she’s trying to find schools that fit both her academic needs and personality.
Isn’t this what we advise, fit over prestige? The OP and daughter are going about it the right way.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting applying to Harvard et al, unless the daughter has some good reason to. But excluding schools based on info that may be wrong or outdated, or out of fear, is a problem, especially if it is a general category like private schools that are selective.
And it is a fact that the super selectives tend to have amazing financial aid and supports for kids with lower income. But yeah, you have to get in. Maybe she is afraid of rejection.
I always suggest the Colleges that Change Lives website and Loren Pope’s other book, Beyond the Ivy League, though it is kind of old at this point. I also like a book entitled “Creative Colleges.”
There are indeed many small privates that give merit as well as financial aid.
I always think state universities are a great way to go but if cost is the determining factor, they may not be the most affordable.
I found that looking at statistics for the “top of the top” schools is wildly deceptive. You have to think of them as a lottery. High stats get you a ticket to the lottery, but chances are small. So unless one of those schools really interests your daughter, don’t bother. If she really likes one, enter the lottery with eyes open.
My very-high-stats daughter is very happy at a mid-sized highly selective state school. FA is not good so I won’t suggest it. But there are tons of great schools that don’t get as much attention.
Will she be a National Merit semifinalist?
I thought the rat race she wants to avoid is once in a college. She’s in a private now, has experienced some issues, may be pushing herself “pathologically hard”
I think she wants a softer landing than what a T20 can be. There are plenty of comfortable majors at top colleges, collaboration. But she’d need to explore this.
It’s not just the admissions pressure and FA. This sounds like the classic big fish in a smaller pond? Where she can live and breathe, while learning.
If you only can pay <$15k, and that’s including the Direct Loan and counting on your student to work during the year as well as all summer, finding a good spread of schools is not easy. The likely , safety school may simply be the local community college. In some locales, that’s a good deal, if there is a good state system in place. A local state 4 year is even better because you don’t have the issue of transferring and if no 4 year state school is within commutable distance, paying for room and board is likely going to be a challenge. There are such academic deserts.
If OP lives within commuting distance of 4 year colleges, those may be her safeties. I know around here, even a number of the private schools were willing to give tuition waivers to top students so that commuting to one of them could be cheaper than going to a state school or even a CC. She’s up there in stats, so this is a good possibility for her.
Getting a full ride or close to it, to a sleep away school is not going to be easy. There are some full ride schools still out there, but most of them not well known. The school GC might have a lead on some schools in state that are hungry for high stat kids and have been generous with financial aid and merit money.
It’s difficult to weigh the chances of getting big money in this sort of case. A lot ifbthe most generous schools are lottery tickets for acceptance. Doesn’t do any good that they give great financial aid packages when you can’t get in. Some schools that are stingy with aid over all pick it up big time if they see a student they want and admissions to such schools might be more likely than the full need met guaranteed schools.
Then there is merit. Those are the categories and Id pick a few from each, looking at the Common Data to make sure that there are a number of large $ awards. Even half cost is not going to help if you need near full freight to make it work.
If it comes down to finances rather than location. U Texas Dallas does offer full tuition and room/board packages. Many very bright kids from Texas are going to UTD because it is so difficult to get into UT Austin and A&M. The U Texas system is pouring money into the next tier down from the flagship universities to attract top faculty and students. My son decided to go out of state for school, but UTD was on the table due to the package offered and the STEM opportunities. UTD has a diverse student body that includes local students who commute as well as lower to middle class students.
Complicated situation but not all that uncommon. The challenge is to find the “Goldilocks” school with challenging academics but a more laid back atmosphere.
If it weren’t for the “wants a city/town with things to do” part I would have recommended some of the NESCACs or a strong LAC like Grinnell, Dickinson, or Wheaton (MA). Many of her classmates may be lusting after the Willams, Amherst and Bowdoins of the world, but places like Connecticut College get less love and would still offer top-flight academics. The problem is that many of these are not exactly in hopping areas. Vassar might also be a good choice if she’s on the liberal side. Colorado College or Macalester might fit the bill and would also take her outside the hotbed of NE prep school mania. One of the nice things about most of the schools outside major cities is, as someone noted upthread, that there’s little need to spend money.
I can relate to how your daughter’s feeling because I was in a similar situation in high school. I came from a highly competitive NE prep school and even though I ended up a NMSF I never felt smart. There were just too many smart, driven kids there. I instinctively knew I needed something else for college so turned down Williams to attend Bates, which had a kinder gentler feel to me at a time when there were reports of Willams kids sabotaging each other.* It turned out to be a great decision. I flourished at Bates and ended up at a HYPS graduate school.
*Take this with a grain of salt. I don’t think it’s true about Williams these days and I don’t even have concrete evidence that it was then.
Here’s an older thread you might find useful. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1855768-collaboration-versus-competition-in-top-northeast-schools-p1.html
@chicago5010, One thing to tell your daughter is that college is different from high school in that in high school everyone is taking the same group of classes and pretty much has the same goal-to get into a “good” college. In college kids are all taking different courses so there’s no head to head competition. There’s no class rank or competition to get into honors or AP sections. Students forge their own paths, some to graduate school, some to jobs, and often those paths change during the 4 years they spend in college. Also, students have matured a bit by then so it’s a lot easier to be honest and say “that’s not in my budget.” No will look down on her for it. No matter what their budgets most students will run out of spending money at some point so they’ll understand what it’s like.
Lots of good points here. The Williams/Amherst/Swat suggestions - even though they meet full need, the odds of admission are so slim. I’m not even sure actual students go there - I think they are just mythical creatures. (I joke - don’t come at me).
On the one hand, I agree with not stereotyping the top schools and writing them off without exploring their cultures and opportunities. On the other hand, the fact is that they are full of very wealthy students. That can be a mixed bag for a student who doesn’t come from money. I definitely get where your daughter is coming from, OP. But there might be schools that meet full need and are, as @homerdog puts it, more collaborative in spirit - e.g. Hamilton, Bowdoin and Vanderbilt. It might be worth applying to those schools just to have options once Spring rolls around. You never know how your child might change over the course of a year.
Even though it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere,I still stand by the St. Lawrence suggestion. My son did not enroll, but I was so impressed by the opportunities available for students there - opportunities that the school pays for, no less. Spring break abroad or on a service trip, internship stipends, additional funding for students with paid internships in high cost of living areas … I’m sure there are plenty of other schools out there that will pay what it takes to recruit OPs fantastic daughter as a student.
Wow its like nobody listens to what the OP wrote:
So let me summarize,
Out West, Colorado California (yet people keep suggesting east coast schools)
Enjoy outdoors, running hiking (yet people suggest schools in large cities)
Academic fit
Meets full need
I can think of two schools that meet this criteria and they aren’t perfect either
Colorado College and Reed
Personally I could care less where OP attends so no personal favorites here.
Adding to CU123’s suggestions, Whitman might be a college to look at…
Out West was not an absolute - seemed to me the whole water and mountains thing was the important factor there.
There is no perfect school for every student that meets full need and guarantees admission. CC and Reed are not need blind schools. And they both are CSS profile schools that consider the non-custodial parent.
@CU123, I know from personal experience that when somebody is looking for a meets full need school, you have to follow the money, not the geography.
@CottonTales Sure but lets try to get most of what they want and not overwhelm them with personal favorites.
Vanderbilt IS in the T20 rankings BUT does give excellent need-based aid, is a very collaborative environment, has tons of diversity, and there are a number of things to do (and people to do them with!) that do not involve drinking/partying in and around the Nashville area including hiking and kayak/canoeing at state parks as well as free/cheap ‘festival’ concerts where you can here several bands. My daughter and her group aren’t into the traditional SEC sports (which students can attend for free BTW) but they do like to go to the soccer and lacrosse games when schedules permit… they try to make most of the student theater shows or orchestra concerts as well as the cultural shows (several dance and a capella groups too!). Vanderbilt has this fund you can apply to that will pay for your membership in certain on campus clubs or groups or activities (my D does a service fraternity and they have both social and service opportunities) Now the classes ARE hard and it’s not easy to get an A (or sometimes even a C!). Vandy is in a major metro city but with mountains, lakes and rivers right at your fingertips - best of both worlds!
And now that I have gushed about Vandy, I have to confess that her first choice was URichmond (that school is just super amazing, vibrant city with great museums and definitely collaborative not competitive academic environment) and she also loved UVA - just an amazing school (although maybe even tougher to get into this year because of their Basketball Championship!) and Charlottesville is surrounded by mountains just calling you to come play! Both are competitive to get into, but gave great aid (Vandy just gave her more and we had to follow the money) and both have all of the things you mentioned being important to her. Some aspects of UVa may be more competitive (Business school and engineering) but the other majors not so much.