Dickinson and Denison are excellent ideas. Denison got rid of residential Greeks if I recall properly (due to their excess). Run the NPC as they offer good financial aid in addition to merit (same as St Lawrence or St Olaf).
The one to beat is going to be St Mary’s 
Merit at Dickinson is capped at about $20k per year, and I believe the same is true at St Lawrence (a lovely school). Wooster does give 1/2 tuition. Denison is a changed place from 20 years ago and maybe even from 10 years ago; among LACs, it is more economically diverse than many, and has good racial and ethnic diversity as well. Greek life participation is about 25% for guys, higher for women, and is all non-residential, the old houses have been re-purposed for dorms and administration, and are only used for chapter meetings, not parties. Acceptance rate was 34% for the current cycle, and middle 50% ACT score was 27-32, the year before it was 28-32. My kid met some of the full tuition award kids at a Denison admitted student event, and they were truly impressive kids, one was choosing between Stanford full pay and Denison full tuition award (chose Stanford) and another was choosing between Chicago or Columbia, I can never quite recall, and Denison, and chose Denison.
Grinnell College in Iowa is very wealthy, terrific academically, and gives great aid for the students they want.
My D didn’t like Lynchburg because there’s not much around it (virtually no stores or restaurants in walking distance) and Greek life was more prominent thanshe thought it would be (she also has no interest in it). It’s also very sports oriented (another thing she’s not interested in). The dorms are in need of renovation, and she just told me the really dumpy one she was living in sophomore year is being torn down.
On the plus, side Lynchburg’s room and board were the cheapest of all the schools she applied to. And the campus is really lovely.
Are you in a true big-merit hunt because the NPC results are way our of your affordability range? Or are some of the NPCs coming in close to affordable?
The very best source that I have found for predicting merit aide is https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/college/T014-S003-best-college-values-2018/index.html. We just finished the cycle with our youngest, and the data matched perfectly. As a full pay (no need-based) family, merit was critical. As you probably know, the further that your child is above the 75th percentile, and the higher the percentage of merit aide given, the better chance that you will receive it. Somehow, we missed this memo with D1, but got it with D2. Just as an example, our daughter has a 33 ACT and a 4.6 GPA with an art “hook”. She is a little weak on EFCs.
First, we educated HER on our family policy. This amount of money is a gift (thank the Lord for frugal grandparents and educational funds!) More than that, is your loan. Less than that, is your investment. We went to each college site, and compared her statistics to admitted students. Then we did the EFC online for the college. THEN we went to the Kiplinger site, and looked at the % of students receiving non-need based scholarships, and the average amount of non-need based scholarships. We were nearly dead on with her admissions offers knowing these statistics. Ironically, I find their “salary yardstick” to be horse manure, and ignored this - seems completely dependent on the types of majors, and has nothing to do with the quality of the education. We did pay close attention to the 4 year graduation rate, although kept in mind that some colleges have inclusive policies for students who take classes but are not degree-bound. As a general rule, we found Christian and Jesuit schools to have higher merit.
75 percentile = her stats vs the admitted class
Last year my D got 50% off total cost from Wooster and St Olaf but had to apply separately for extra scholarships (Buntrock and Presidential, I believe). Our cost at each was roughly 30K out of 60K. Dickinson’s maximum was 20K. I know somebody who was awarded 30K (out of total cost of 65-70K) for this year’s graduating HS class. Denison has a few full tuition awards but they are very competitive. I believe the same is true at Grinnell.
Thank you all for your input - great info! It is very much appreciated!
We visited St. Mary’s of College of Maryland recently. Very nice campus. Affordable for us (we are in MD).
I see so many kids say “there is nothing to do” in schools in areas like St Mary’s, Lynchburg, etc. But my kid is not off at the mall (she actively dislikes shopping) or at Starbucks every day. So are these complaints from kids who come from a more urban or suburban area? Or are they just so used to having a thousand activities, or their parents coordinating their schedules, that they can’t entertain themselves?
Loved Muhlenberg. It is such a pretty area with a green way right there.
Our D wanted a small liberal arts college. She had stellar stats. We are full pay so the merit hunt was on. We focused on schools in the top 100 and she only applied to schools that offered merit (although she applied to a few Ivies just to see). For all schools she was in the tippy top compared to student body. She also applied for some music scholarships. We found merit to be generous in the mid west so you might want to expand your search. Schools that were particularly generous include Grinnell, Lawrence, St Olaf, Mt Holyoke, Oberlin, Case Western (not an LAC but good music), and Fordham (free app applied on a whim). Definitely check out women’s colleges if your daughter has any interest. Mine did not initially but they became a front runner once we visited and several are in consortiums where classes can be taken at other co- ed schools.
Bryn Mawr checks all of your boxes. Offers Merit, small LAC for students who don’t like to party and are more studious, very pretty campus, excellent education. Also it’s part of a co-ed consortium so that if she decides that she needs a larger setting she can hop on the free bus to Haverford (1 mile away and the bus runs every 10 minutes) and take classes there, or hop on the free bus to Swarthmore (further away and bus runs every like 20-30 minutes) or get on the free trainride to Philadelphia and take classes at University of Pennsylvania. There are men in the classes because of the consortium cross-registration programs. They offer overnight visits for the prospective students to check out whether they like it.
Though outside of your geographic region, she might like Simmons U in Boston. She would probably get a huge scholarship, the academic programs are very good, and it’s part of a consortium with an engineering school and an art school.
I echo Mt. Holyoke and Smith – they both offer merit and they have very different personalities from each other. If you don’t like one, you may like the other. Both are excellent academically. They are also part of the same consortium, meaning that she could take classes at the other if she wanted. Other schools in that consortium are Hampshire, UMass Amherst, and Amherst College.
Further south she may want to look at Agnes Scott – she’d get tons of merit I suspect.
Hollins University – ditto and it’s closer to her desired geographic area.
@RookieCollegeMom Glad your D liked St. Mary’s! I can tell you that my D who attends St. Mary’s is never bored. There are tons of clubs and ways to be involved on campus. The school does a good job of bringing in speakers and entertainment. There are organized trips to NYC and DC. The school may be rural but it is still relatively close to major cities and she can get to practically any store or restaurant in 15 minutes.
One of the nicest things about St. Mary’s is its location right on the water so students who enjoy being outside can sail, SUP, kayak, swim, and hang out on the beach. Its location was one of the primary reasons my D chose St. Mary’s and I think that most other students feel that way also.
To answer your question, I think when students don’t want to consider a more rural campus and say that there will be “nothing to do” I’m not sure how much of it has to do with a fear of boredom or just different preferences of the size and location of a school and the types of activities that are available.
Is that just a section score? Or did you mean to say “1300” (not “130”)?
The minimum total score is 320, right?
It would be easier to offer appropriate and reliable recommendations once you have SAT/ACT scores, and if you share a little more information about your financial situation. Have you run the online net price calculators for any schools that interest you? If so, does it look like you won’t be getting any need-based aid?
If you need as much as $30K-$50K in merit money (to hit a $22K/y budget), that would be much higher than the average awards at some of the schools mentioned above. In that case, and if you also don’t qualify for adequate n-b aid, then your best strategy might be to focus on in-state public colleges (especially if SAT scores aren’t super high.)
Your application list might look rather different depending on whether you focus on big merit, n-b aid, or low sticker price to control cost.
As with the other posters, Earlham College was the first school that came to mind for me, as well. It is a very good school, with no greek life, not a lot of partying (and a lot of kids with zero interest at all in partying) that offers great merit money to good students. If your daughter can get their top merit, and, especially if she might get an additional scholarship from somewhere, you could conceivably get it down to around 22,000.
Earlham is consistently ranked at the top for “classroom experience” and for professors and investment in “undergraduate teaching.” Also, consistently in the top 1% in the nation for med school placement and top 2% for lawschool placement. (I dont know that your student is interested in that, but I mention it, because I think those kind of numbers speak to the quality of education the school provides.)
A lot of students from the DC area are in attendance.
http://earlham.edu/
I also agree with other posters that checking out the 40 CTCL-listed schools might provide you with some schools that fit your parameters.
OP here. D got a 30 on her ACT and 1350 SAT if that helps at all.
So really liked St. Mary’s. We didn’t get much info on academics, mainly the tour. My concern is that they don’t have a lot of majors (24) for a kid who has no idea what she wants to do.
@BayMom3 - do you feel like your daughter is challenged enough at St. Mary’s?
Gong back to Juniata for a day (classroom visit, etc).
@RookieCollegeMom - Did your D attend one of the open houses at St. Mary’s or just a daily tour? We found the open houses, and later the accepted student’s day, to be very helpful in learning more about the academics. D got to visit with several professors, see the labs and facilities, and sit in on a class. I think they’ve already had a couple of open houses this fall and maybe there is one more in November?
Yes, I think D has been academically challenged so far and overall has enjoyed her classes and professors. Several of her freshman classes turned out to be much tougher than she anticipated considering that she had found those subjects relatively easy in HS (much of that was probably just making the adjustment to the college workload).
I didn’t find that the academic offerings differ that much at St. Mary’s from other similarly sized LACs unless you are looking for something very specific like accounting. St. Mary’s might have fewer majors than some schools but it is very easy to customize to get the needed coursework. In my D’s case, she has already changed majors a couple of times and is now adding on a couple of minors – it is very flexible. Her advisor has been very helpful in this regard. They also recently added a few majors/minors such as business and some students make their own major.
Good luck to your D. She sounds like a great student and I’m sure she will have many great college choices!
Lycoming (PA). Hiram College in OH has some full and 3/4 tuition scholarships. As others have noted, St. Mary’s seems to be the obvious choice: great school that sounds as if it is a private Catholic college but is, in fact, MD’s public LAC. Your D would be attending the exact equivalent of a small private LAC for a public school price.
University of Mary Washington - Fredricksburg, VA. OOS @ $27,000. 4,000 undergrad enrollment.