I am a bit late to the game and have never posted before, but a couple of things struck me about your post. First, you don’t have to love Haverford, your daughter does. And whether you have heard of it or not doesn’t matter. Most people haven’t heard of Carlton or Harvey Mudd, either. My son, who graduated a few years back, had straight A’s, national merit scholar, 99th in SAT, with a great (non-athlete) resume of activities, and could have reasonably applied anywhere (he didn’t cure cancer so we don’t know where he would have been accepted). He had is sights set on Yale. I thought LAC would be better for him and we toured the usual. After that was over he was set on Swarthmore, ED. No question about it. Then he came home from school one day and said that he had met the admissions counselor from Haverford and wanted to give it another look. I still don’t know why, and he never articulated it, but we went back for an interview, he applied ED and his experience was extraordinary. His adult friends are extraordinary people. They are thriving in their careers (as is my son), or going to med school, law school and grad school at Yale, Harvard, Univ. of Chicago, Berkeley, etc. Trust me, those schools have heard of Haverford. Yes, it cost a small fortunate if you don’t get aid, and yes, we both wondered if he would have been accepted by Yale or Swarthmore, but his education was first rate, his writing, the sophistication of his thinking, and his growth as an individual were incredibly impressive. In the end, I trusted him to figure out where he would be happy, and I trusted the school to help him get there. Haverford will hold up their end of the bargain. Before the process started a friend of mine, who sent two to Carlton and one to Mac) told me, “they choose the right school for the wrong reason.” She may have been right.