Also, Seattle U is in a nice part of a cool city and could also be worth a look, although I realize it’s as far from home as you can get from the Southeast without leaving the continental US! Also in the PNW, there’s U of Portland (which is in St. John’s, a very different part of Portland from the downtown area that gets bad press).
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Marquette, too (and about Milwaukee as a city). If you visit the Chicago schools, it would only be an extra 2 hr drive (each way) to check out that possibility.