What sport? If it is track or cross country, there isn’t a lot of money as it is split so many ways on a team. If she wants to stay at a school of under 5000, you are usually looking at a D3 school and no money. Some of the Catholic schools are that size and D1, and D1 is just a different situation. A few are D2 (Regis in Denver, Wheeling Jesuit).
Lots of people who haven’t sent kids to college think all the really smart kids get lots of money. They can, but not at every school. Your daughter has a good list for being flexible and chasing the money (except a low acceptance rate and ‘Ivy like’).
I don’t know where you live in Southern California but even if it is rural it is unlikely ‘rural’ like Carlton, Grinnell, Kenyon are rural. Sure those places will have movies to go to, but not 10 or 20 to pick from. They’ll have pizza places but not a ton of them. I agree that the safety issues are different as they may be more problems of a coyote bothering her on a run than a street gang.
She really sounds like more of a Washington, Oregon, Northern California kid to me than a rural Ohio kid.
All of the schools she prefers are smaller, so all teams (soccer is her sport, although a small chance she may consider running as well) are D3. We are aware there’s no money there. She has no desire for the D1 atmosphere and doesn’t like the big schools anyway.
We are in a suburb of San Diego…but she’s in the city all the time for sports. She loves a rural feel, hates downtown San Diego. As for what she prefers, we will learn more when we visit. For now she’s researching online, virtual tours etc.
I live in a town that is considered semirural. I cannot walk to anything from my house. A car is a need…not a want.
Take her to visit some rural town. Stay in a room at an Airbnb. Don’t use the car for anything. See how much she likes that.
Many many rural schools have zero public transportation and nothing to do off campus except a cute little Main Street with some nice restaurants, a pub, and an inn or hotel. Is that what she wants?
Thanks for the perspective. She has a car she can bring, but obviously that would be evaluated to see if there is really a need for it.
She prefers a rural area…if there’s no good transportation then she would bring her vehicle or maybe cross that off the list. We are also expanding the search to more small cities, suburban type settings as well.
Don’t forget many schools don’t allow cars or at least for first year. So it’s another question to ask or box to consider at a campus you are looking at.
If suburban ok you can look at Richmond, Mac, Furman, Muhlenberg…the list just grows…ie adding suburban and eliminating the 4 hr flight and low acceptance rate items which happened long ago :). Richmond is low acceptance though abd has some merit ….and while the school is not in the city center the airport ride will be minimal. Mac somewhat too although I’m less familiar with the immediate surroundings.
Not all small schools are D3. Colorado College is D1 for women’s soccer (and men’s hockey). Presbyterian College has 1200 students and is D1 (and gives good athletic scholarships). There are also a number of D2 schools in the 3000-5000 size range.
Some of the Catholic schools like Gonzaga are in her size range and not in too big of a city (I’d consider them rural). Some are D1 and some aren’t. She might find a spot on a team with a partial scholarship.
Here are 2 schools that I’d add to the list to research further that are in suburban locations, offer genetics as a major, and seem likely to offer generous merit aid to your daughter:
Arcadia University (PA, 1800 undergrads)
Ohio Wesleyan (1400 undergrads)
Here are some schools that are in suburban locations, offer biomedical sciences as a major, and seem likely to offer generous merit aid to your daughter:
Marist College (NY, 5200 undergrads)
Bradley University (IL, 4500 undergrads)
Wheaton College (MA, 1700 undergrads)
Nazareth College (NY, 2100 undergrads)
Quinnnipiac University (CT, 6800 undergrads)
Hofstra University (NY, 6000 undergrads)
And to throw in an additional rural option, Michigan Technological University. It has tons of options in the biomedical area (including a major in genetics) and has about 5600 undergrads.
Regardless, come next Fall, she might want to consider doing an “I don’t care” application to SLO anyway – the application is very easy (no essays, no Letters of recommendation) and the Cal States are relatively affordable for Californians, which is important for someone wanting to go to medical school. And SLO is a great school, quite competitive, with a lot of high-stats kids. And since it has a primary focus on Engineering, it could be that their biology and pre-med program would feel somewhat smaller than expected. According to their stats, they aim for 666 biology majors total across four years. (See the following, especially page 8, columns 5-8)
And it might be worth also looking at the smallest and most rural Cal States also, come next Fall. Again, a super easy application and she might be able to check off some of her boxes for a low-cost to you.
When my daughter started to look at colleges, she also wanted a school with about 5000 or undergrad students. We found that a number of the Jesuit colleges fit that to a T. In addition, the Jesuits have higher education down!
Our kid applied to only five colleges…really, she should have stopped with her first three. Those were Santa Clara University (where she matriculated and graduated), University of San Diego, University of South Carolina, Davidson (declined) and Salve Regina.
Her top two choices at the end were Santa Clara and….University of South Carolina. Two very different colleges in terms of overall culture, and size.
My point being…my kid didn’t think she even wanted to look at a larger school….but she did…and she liked it.
I wouldn’t discount larger schools…as you have noted, honors colleges can give those larger schools a smaller “feel”.
I’m going to repeat what I said earlier in this thread. Your daughter can do a pre-med intention at just about any college in this country….arts conservatories excluded. All this means is she needs to take the courses required for medical school applicants. The vast majority of colleges offer those courses.
My free advice, therefore, take the pre-med piece out of your search criteria. It can be satisfied just about everywhere.
So…look at your budget. IIRC, it was enough that perhaps you should have her look at some of the SUNY colleges. Some are in rural locations. Costs for OOS students are modest compared to other public universities.
That’s what she likes better. She also feels she would get more opportunities when the instructors know who she is. She has cousins who went to big UC’s and told her sometimes there’s hundreds of students in a class.
The UCs are rather a lot of work to apply to if it’s not where you want to go (four additional essays).
But with the statewide UC guarantee for California students who are in the top 9 percent statewide, that guarantee can provide a nice “safety”. Note that this only applies if there is room available, but my understanding is that a top 9 percent student who applies to at least one UC and who doesn’t get in to any where they applied will be offered a spot at UC Merced.