May be the first Ball State Mention on cc :). My son’s favorite math teacher went there. I’m sure a fine school.
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One of the finest science professors (both in research and teaching) I know went to Ball State!
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My mom was a professor of Education at Ball State until she retired. Maybe she taught your son’s math teacher how to reach so well. 
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University of Vermont (UVM). They had a great admitted student day for Environmental Science. Great student panels, Dean’s panel and panel with the head of student placement. Fell in love with Burlington and Lake Champlain too. I loved it, but not my kid. But, it was not meant to be.
To a lesser extent, Skidmore. Really great student tour guide, beautiful campus & lovely town in Saratoga Springs. The first year dorms were a deal breaker, though. At the time it was like 8 or 9 girls sharing one single bathroom. But, otherwise great.
Brandeis may have been the “one that got away” for one of my daughters. She sometimes wondered if maybe she should have gone there. But, she ended up there for Grad School!
No true regrets though, both kids ended up pretty happy with their final choice of schools.
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For us, Kenyon was the one got away, it was the hardest acceptance to turn down, but hard to justify an additional $20K a year (impossible,as it turned out).
Your post doesn’t help. 
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Clarkson is the school I would have loved to have seen D at. The decision came down to an amazing accepted students day at the school she attended vs an individual overnight on a Thursday when nothing was going on. Smallish school with what looked like a great hands-on engineering program in a caring environment.
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Swarthmore. I loved the leafy campus and the nearby town of Media. Daughter hated the single dining hall that reminded her of high school. And what I considered to be a wonderful close-knit community, she rejected as restrictive.
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For D22, it was UVa. I didn’t really see it as an ideal fit for her in some ways (despite being a grad school alum myself), but she just loved everything about it. Had the financial aid worked out, she’d probably be flying home from Charlottesville this week.
Of the schools we visited together, MY favorite was BC. Just a spectacular, college-y feeling campus, close to the city but not exactly in the city, perfect academic strengths for her interests, etc. etc. I was ready to sign up for continuing ed or something myself. Her review: “Eh, it’s okay I guess. Don’t love Gothic.”
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It was different schools for our different kids. For all 3 I really fell in love with Pitt. I love the city, the opportunities, and the school. All were accepted but none were in love with it like I am.
For individual kids I loved Auburn for one. We both really connected with the school and the people. I thought that would be the place. It was in the running until the end. We left the decision up to them and they chose differently. We loved where they chose and the four years and outcome could not have turned out better. For closer to home, I really fell in love with Lehigh. The money just didn’t work out, but I spent 4 years wondering if we should have upped the budget and were being “penny wise and pound foolish”. Child said they would not have chosen it even if the big scholarship $ had come through but we always wondered. They just loved the super safety school they attended much more. That is all in the rearview mirror but I still think about both of those schools. With the next, we learned that it was not our search and that once they hit our parameters (mainly finances) it was completely their decision. We also learned to not fall in love with a school. That one never asked our opinion so it didn’t matter which ones we loved. This time around I am prepared to “love the one that they love” and “love the one that loves my kid”.
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Rollins. I loved the school and the town, but they didn’t have engineering for my daughter. After she started school and played against them (she was a recruited athlete so looked at a lot of types of schools, and she could have majored in chemistry or math), I missed it even more as I loved their team, their coach, their announcer (who actually knew something about lacrosse unlike our announcer who thought he was announcing a basketball game and mixed up the calls all the time, not to mention the players; he just made things up).
Alas, my little engineer fixed my storm window on the kitchen storm door this weekend. I guess that was worth her becoming an engineer and giving up my favorite school.
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Thanks for making me feel better about D23 not applying to Rutgers where we would have received great FA. But in my heart if hears, I know it’s not the place for her.
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I think back when you were an undergraduate Wesleyan was still emerging from its pre-history as an all-male college. The face it presented to the world was one of almost Spartan plainness, ready to do battle with the marauding invaders from Amherst and Williams. Today I have to stifle a laugh as I pass all the floral arrangements and wooden benches that adorn major campus intersections. Everything’s much more civilized.
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As a Vassar alum we thought of the Wesleyan males (often crew team members) who came to campus as part of the 13 school exchange as the “marauders”! They would prance around in their “WeScrew” t shirts like peacocks in spring. Hated those guys😀
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Same, for my S. He ended up at Quinnipiac, which was not a good fit. We know many happy, successful grads.
I know WPI will be number one on our “one that got away” list. I loved it. My son loved it. But I don’t think we are going to be able to swing it financially.
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hoping to learn more about the Arizona Honors College. Daughter got deferred from Vanderbilt yesterday and was bummed of course, but today got her acceptance to Arizona honors, where sh also got a nice merit scholarship already. but being from Jersey we haven’t visited and will have a tough time finding a time to do that…
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Congrats on AZ Honors - the facility is AWESOME - and the price is right!!!
Find time to visit - it’s worth the time for sure!!
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D24 & I went on a U of A tour back in October. Posted info about it here →
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Also, FYI - it’s pretty easy to get to the Tucson airport from U of A. It would be probably max 30 min Uber or Lyft or taxi ride. Tucson airport is small, but all of the major airlines fly in and out of there.
D24 really liked the campus, said it felt way more compact than ASU campus. On a campus map, the honors dorm looks like it’s really far away, but in reality, it’s really not. There’s a CAT Tran campus shuttle that goes all around campus, including to UMC (Univ. Medical Center).
There are videos that U of A has on Youtube which show inside parts of the honors dorm building. We were there on a Saturday and there was a fair amount of activity, students eating in the dining hall, etc.
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Michigan Tech - My son loved everything about Michigan Tech until we ate lunch there. He basically chose Illinois Tech over Michigan Tech because of food (not a minor thing because he has significant food allergies). But Illinois Tech changed their food vendor the next year anyway, and so it’s not clear how much of an advantage he actually got. For him, I think the isolation of Michigan Tech would have been a better fit than the big city in Chicago. But hard to say, because COVID screwed everyone in his college generation.
BTW, very interested in the love for Agnes Scott – D is accepted there EA; applied sight unseen as a semi-safety after liking Bryn Mawr and Mt Holyoke and having EA application ready anyway for a more selective school. Now that she’s in, she will more seriously consider.
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