She doesn’t want to apply at any of the Ivy League schools. However, she wants to be among high achieving students so she is pushed to do better. She is equating that to low acceptance rate/high grad rate. I do realize there is much more to it than that.
If she is in the middle politically, you should take Hillsdale off the list.
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We added Truman on to her list based on the posts here and what we read online.
I agree with you about saving money. We have told her we will pay for her bachelors but if she follows through with med school it will be loans for her.
The more you save. Everyone is different.
I have one at Alabama. His choice. I wanted to send him to Purdue which was $20K more. But I will spend $65-70K.
The other is at College of Charleston - their scholarships - plural - she got a few endowed ones - cover tuition + $K.
I’m lucky - for two kids i’ll be less than $150K.
But you know - it will help me later…and thus will help the because one day they get to split everything…hopefully a long ways away.
Others are ok spending and feel it’s worth for a name. In fact, while my son has a great internship for his second year in a row, I wish he was at Purdue and yes it’d be another $80K -so i’m a name snob too.
But in the end, i’ll be happy to have the $80K and whatever it grows to over time- and when i help my kids buy their first home, they’ll be happy too.
Or when you can help with med school.
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Another to consider might be Austin College in Sherman, TX (60 mi from Dallas). So it won’t fit the “snow in the winter” category, but it does fit the criteria of “4 hr or less plane ride.” Of course, it’ll be a 1 hr car/shuttle ride from the Dallas airport to school.
- 55% acceptance rate (compared to St Olaf’s 49%).
- 1302 undergrads (so it’s small)
- has some merit scholarships, which do not require a separate app. For example, their Presidential Scholarship pays for $31k of tuition, which brings the tuition down to ~$12k/yr.
- they have some impressive #s in % of students who get accepted to med school.
- suburban, not rural. Sherman has ~44,000 people in it. If you live in a large city/suburb, a town of 44k people might feel like a small town.
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I 2nd the suggestion above to consider WUE schools in NM. For example:
New Mexico State University:
- total undergrad student body is 11,687, but they have an Honors College, which might make it feel ‘smaller.’
- WUE (Western Undergraduate Exchange) scholarship might end up making cost of tuition cheaper than your CA in-state options.
- also has some competitive OOS merit tuition scholarships which bring OOS tuition down from ~$25k to $9k.
- closest airport is El Paso (1 hr east)
- is technically a city, but according to my husband (who’s had to go there a few times for work), it feels like a small town and “feels a lot like a smaller version of Tucson.” Las Cruces feels rural to me.
University of New Mexico:
- cold in winter, but not Minnesota cold
- urban city, but the population in ABQ is ~500,000, so it’s not like being in the middle of LA or the SF Bay Area.
- easy driving to mountains and snow
- larger total undergrads than NMSU (~18,000), but also has an Honors College
- lots of OOS merit scholarship opportunities. Regents Scholarship is the most competitive one (aside from National Merit scholarship). Also has a WUE scholarship like NMSU does.
There’s also NM Tech (New Mexico Institute of Technology & Mines):
- not in an ‘Ivy League’ category in terms of ability to get in
- has reputation in the science world & among employers of being a tough school academically
- VERY rural. Is in Socorro (about 8-9k residents). No movie theater. There’s a Walmart. 1 hr drive to Albuquerque.
- has a bio major
- pretty much all the undergrads here get research opportunities with their professors, some as early as freshman year.
- LOTS of the undergrads at this school end up in some primo hard-to-get-into summer internships at various government agencies & industry (CDC, FDA, etc.). Their Bio dept webpage has a whole list of undergrad internship opportunities listed.
- has a WUE scholarship
- but if you’re looking for a rich social life, don’t go here.
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Lot of great suggestions/recommendations here.
@Kathleen_Mauzy …I think you are at very good spot trying to find right fit for your daughter. Since you are visiting colleges this summer, I would say keep options open and visit big/public or private etc schools in whatever town/city you are. You will be surprised how many times just stepping into certain campus brings a different vibe …keep options open. Kids change their mind so much about type colleges/distance etc they want to attend after visits.
Good luck !!!
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I stand corrected. I went back and looked, and CC does provide some merit aid, although it’s not much more than what I consider ‘token’ aid, since it maxes out at 10K/year. Not nothing, but not enough to get within the OP’s (or our family’s) budget. (They may have a separate pot of $ for Colorado students – I don’t know anything about that since we aren’t CO residents. I know Grinnell has something similar for Iowa residents, and maybe others do as well? )
The best way to figure out just how much schools play the merit-aid game is to look at the Section H of each school’s Common Data Set.
For example, CC provided just over 2 million in non-need based aid in 2020-21.
In contrast, St. Olaf gave out more than 12 million, and Whitman almost 7 million.
Those amounts, combined with knowing the max merit scholarship awarded plus the school’s range of stats (since serious merit offers start for the kids at about the top 75% of GPA and scores) give families a pretty good idea of how much their kids will be offered at each school. Our best guesses came in really close to what D21 was actually offered at every single school.
Finally, I thought of one more school that should be on the list, since I think it meets all the OP’s criteria: Lawrence in WI. Great LAC with excellent merit aid (18 million in 2020-21!) rural, plenty of snow.
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Yes great idea on adding Lawrence to OP’s list - though having been to Appleton for work I can tell you that by the standards of that part of Wisconsin, Lawrence would qualify as urban LOL. For many of us, the overall location of central/northern WI makes it “rural” (as you say) and it’s certainly not too far from farmland since Appleton (and even Green Bay) aren’t very big cities. Definitely has the snow…and colder than most of the continental US.
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I’ve met several “Columbia” grads who have never been to NYC as well! Cornell College predates Cornell University fwiw. 
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Does anyone know anything about Carroll College in Helena, MT? Technically, it is in a city, but a small one. It is a Catholic school that seems to specialize in health care majors and offer decent aid, I think?
Anyone know more?
Does anyone know anything about Carroll College in Helena, MT? Technically, it is in a city, but a small one. It is a Catholic school that seems to specialize in health care majors and offer decent aid, I think?
I looked it up on our school’s Naviance page.
- undergrad enrollment 1287
- campus surroundings listed by Naviance as “town.” FYI - Although Helena, MT is stated by Dr. Google to be a ‘city,’ the whole ‘metro’ area is only ~ 83,000 people with Helena itself having a 2019 population of ~ 32,000.
- 78% acceptance rate
- 73% of students live on campus
- 60% female, 60% of students from out of state
- $34,506 tuition & $9760 room & board
- according to the school’s website, 85% of pre-med students are accepted to med school.
- incoming freshmen scholarships info: New Student Scholarships | Carroll College
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I wonder if that 85% is a real # or there’s a force out.
That would be a huge #. Awesome place if true. Others would know better - if that is a manipulated statistic.
Good info. Looks like merit is 16-23K for qualifying and they’ll tell you up front.
Scholarships & Aid - Scholarships: New Students | Carroll College
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Having done no research, I am nevertheless confident in saying if a school has 85% of all its premeds accepted to medical school, that’s got to be the highest placement rate in the nation. And prospective premeds would be beating down the doors to get in.
Or just maybe that’s not the case.
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What their website says:
Carroll College prepares you for entry into graduate school and a successful career in medicine or dentistry. For example, those at Carroll who earn their pre-med degree are consistently accepted into medical school at a rate of 85 percent — far higher than the national average of less than 50 percent.
Graduates of the pre-med program at Carroll are accepted into some of the finest graduate programs in the region and the country. Recent pre-medicine and pre-dentistry students have been accepted into their respective graduate programs at the University of Washington, Mayo Medical School, Georgetown University, University of Colorado, University of Iowa, and Penn State University, among others.
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So, I was curious-- here’s a school that boasts a 100% acceptance rate into medical school!
https://belmontabbeycollege.edu/pre-med-student/
Meanwhile, the University of Chicago clearly states that there are about 150 entering premeds each year and that they support approximately 100.
I don’t think it’s bad to throw out schools for the OP to consider, but let’s take some of these claims with med school placement with a grain of salt. Clearly not everyone who wants to go to med school at Belmont Abbey College will go, so some sort of weeding out process takes place.
AAMC has a profile of a Carroll College alum
Can see latest med school data nationally
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Belmont Abbey is not a well known school even in NC. My niece went there as a commuter from Charlotte, but most people outside of the Charlotte region are not going to know it. That may mean that 100% of the few kids who go there who are interested in medicine do get into med school. If they only have five kids who are pre-med, maybe all five get in. Most kids in NC who are interested in med school are going to be looking at UNC-Chapel Hill or one of the other UNC system schools. Not usually gonna be looking at a school like Belmont Abbey. According to USNews, the most popular majors at Belmont Abbey are business (37%), education (17%), parks/rec/fitness (9%), protective services (law enforcement, etc) 8%, psychology (6%).
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Juniata is great rural school that would check all her boxes (safe, very very rural, premed). I’m sure she would get huge merit aid and could probably get recruited to play on a sports team. However and this is huge, it will be almost impossible to get to from California, especially in 4 hrs. It is much more than a 4 hr plane ride because the nearest airports are 1.5 hrs away and they are smaller regional airports which would definitely require transfers at major hubs. I know they have students from all over the country attend, I just have no idea how they get there. I would suspect that this could be problem with almost any rural college you attend. Just remember, there is rural (and closer to major cities with services) and then there is truly rural. Juniata would fall in the second category.
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Please view this statistic with caution. Many colleges counsel kids to not apply to medical schools. Colleges that do committee letters can decline to do one for a student they don’t think should apply.
@WayOutWestMom what did I miss?
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