A couple of other safer LACs for your D to consider that haven’t been mentioned: Juniata and Ursinus in PA. Demonstrate interest in any LAC to increase the chance of admission.
I remember seeing some posts in this forum from families with introverted kids that found out that actually contrary to common belief larger schools were a better fit for their kids.
My daughter is an introvert. She really hates it after a while when everybody is on her face. This year a lot of kids left her school to attend the other up and coming school in our city and she ended up with classes that have 15 kids. Every day she complains that it is too much and she is not given her space any more. She told me that when the time comes she would like to go to a big university.
Ursinus has an exceptionally strong record for pre-med. It’s very small.
How safe does her safety have to be? If she is solidly in their top 25% and they take 40% or more of students, I would think that is safe enough. Stonehill would seem like a slam dunk safety for her.
If you are willing to look into the midwest for LACs, she might like College of Wooster and Earlham for their intellectual qualities, but both are probably the friendly, nice kind of place rather than the quirkier type that seem to draw her. Both would seem to be solid matches to me.
I think it is a bit difficult to balance ‘not large’ with ‘too friendly’. 
It sounds as if she might most prefer the kind of mid-sized university where the undergrad population is in the 4-5K range. That of course includes the Ivies, but that is not what you’re looking for! (I would have thought she’d like Clark.)
It is clearly not the safety you are looking for, but she might really like the University of Rochester.
BTW, what is the current breakdown of her SAT? Has she taken any SATIIs or AP exams? Are yet non-AP courses al honors, if available?
Son with similar stats was accepted at Bard with merit and waitlisted at Skidmore this year. Bard has an application process that offers nearly immediate decision. Were she to apply that way, she could have an acceptance in November. In any case, if she applies early to Bard she will know by Christmas.
As a Clarkie, I can attest that the student body is tight-knit. If that is not her thing, then Bard might be a great fit. Oldest son went to early college and loved Bard’s quirky intellectual vibe.
I would second Hampshire as a safety, but don’t know much about fit for her.
If she would consider further south look at Rhodes in Memphis - lots of fans here on CC and there was one poster in particular whose D chose Rhodes full-ride over an Ivy and then went to an Ivy for Med school, but I might be misremembering. My D (introvert, leader like your D) visited and really liked it and the neighboring community.
Interesting comment above about introverts and larger schools being a (surprising) better fit. Something to consider w/ your D.
Juanita in PA.
Check out Le Moyne in Syracuse. It’s a Jesuit school but not overly religious.
The problem is that many kids with sights on schools well known are not going to like ANY safety. The best to do in such cases is to just apply EA for some likelies and they become the safeties. if not accepted to them it will jolt the kid with an early warning that she had better lower her sights. Sometimes they just have to hold their noses and pick a school that is the least unctious to them. Sorry to put it this way, but I see this all of the time.
Then comes the list of the iikelies and with many kids that is also a problem. My son’s friend considered a school in his likely category as his safety. Ha! He did get accepted there , but he was shocked that it and his safety are his only choices. At least he has a choice, the schools are both great schools, and he is being offered substantial merit at one.He’ll be fine and happy, I m sure even if he does not get off any of the waitlists.
A lot of the schools mentioned here are not safeties or even likelies for a female from MA with those stats. FOr those categories, one is looking at schools that are just about certain to take the kid so she can move on to all of those juicy reaches she thinks she deserves. It’s important that base is solid and affordable.because it may well be her only choices. Liking the schools may be a luxury that does not happen in these situations. Impossible to happen if only selective schools are liked.
Hobart and William Smith has a premed option. It is really tiny and that’s why my dad hated it when we visited the finger lakes region.
Dd hated it not “dad”!
My friend’s DD is at H&WS, and loves it there. It was her likely school–her safety was a local school. And it came down to the two of them after she was turned down by BrynMawr,MHC, Smith, Bates, Colby and a bunch of other schools where she set her sites.
Susquehanna and Bucknell, very close to each other in PA. Bucknell is more selective, with <40% acceptance, but it must be pretty self selecting since the average GPA is 3.56 and 75% SATs are around 2100. We drive by Bucknell on the way to my D’s college, and I always want to stop and tour the gorgeous campus. I do know a graduate from there who absolutely loved it.
Bucknell is not an easy school for admission. ED maybe. Not RD. IT is a wonderful school. Susquehanna and Ursinus are good picks with good merit, but student does have to show demonstrated interest and if there is the attitude…well.
I forgot to mention that Ursinus has early action, and will notify within 4 weeks of application. If you apply really early and get in, you have a perfect safety.
My D has very similar stats and was also looking at small LACs. My best advice to any young woman looking at LACs is to get off the East coast, and consider women’s colleges. The reason your GC is saying those women’s colleges are targets is because despite their high rankings and stats, they have relatively high admissions rates. I had the same worry over Smith and my D but her GC felt it was likely she would be accepted and she was. Her safeties were Guilford and College of Wooster and both accepted her with significant merit aid. Plus because they were EA, she had those in the bag in December which made things less stressful.
Muhlenberg is another option. My older daughter will graduate from Muhlenberg this spring and has had a good experience there.
Another factor to consider is that if she wants to go to med school her GPA will be paramount. Plus she will want to avoid debt. We’ve been having that discussion with a good friend of D’s who is leaning to a small but excellent state school for that reason.
I think kids in this range actually have great options and are likely to have a lot of admissions success if they are clear-eyed in the beginning. I think my D faced her limitations in the fall when she dropped most of those East coast reachy-reach reach schools off her list rather than in the spring when the rejections come in. As a result, she only had one rejection and one waitlist.
A lot of its schools have been mentioned already but get the book Colleges That Change Lives. These are small liberal arts colleges, for the most part, that admit around 50% of its applicants the B/B+ student. These schools can serve as low matches, if not safeties.
If she is willing to leave the NE, there are many good schools in the Midwest (Beloit, Earlham, Cornell College) and the South (Hendrix, Birmingham Southern, New College of Florida, Sewanee, Rhodes) that suit her stats. I second the suggestion of St Mary 's of Maryland
Here’s my strategy on safeties – almost by definition they are not going to be as “perfect” as that wonderful reach school. List all the criteria – location, size, curriculum, etc. A safety should hit a lot of those criteria, but not all of them. Think about what you are most willing to compromise on, and find a safety that meets most of your criteria except those one or two you’re willing to compromise on.
For example, my daughter decided that size was something she was willing to compromise on. She wanted a medium-sized school. University of Wisconsin met just about everything else she wanted, except it was too big. But she was willing to live with that, so that was one of her safeties. Another safety for her was Fordham – she wasn’t thrilled with the core curriculum, but it had many of the other qualities she was looking for. If she had had to select among her safeties, she could then decide whether size or curriculum was more important to her.
So while your daughter might hate the idea of a large university, finding one with an intimate honors college could be a compromise, just as looking at some of those southern LACs which might be perfect except for the location.
Several have mentioned Hobart & William Smith - add my vote! They also have some very generous ($25k) merit scholarships for top students. Has anyone mentioned Union College??? Excellent for pre-med. Rochester, too, although not necessarily a “safety.” (Union, in fact, more of a match). What about Pittsburgh? Too big? They, too, can be generous with grants for top students.
Fairfield, Lehigh, Elizabethtown, Bucknell, U of Rochester, Lafayette, Union are all within 6 hrs drive. Some may not be safeties but she should get into a few if she applies to a good mix.