@aquapt @collegemom3717 Ahh, good to know that bit about admissions I wasn’t sure if that was the case or not. Makes me feel much better : )
And I know I’ve been saying that a lot, but sincerely, I really appreciate the time you all have taken to share this advice, it’s such a great help. 
Bottom line - you have lots of great options. If you apply to a top LAC and get turned down, no harm because you have many other great options!!!
You are good. After you have your offers, then you can dive deeper.
And you’re gonna have offers !!
You’ve gotten some great advice already; I’m just going to throw out a couple more names for you. I think these are all likely or extremely likely with respect to acceptance, and I suspect that you’d get good to excellent merit aid at these.
Delaware Valley (PA ), about 1800 undergrads. The biology major offers specializations in botany, environmental biology, and microbiology and biotechnology. There are also separate majors in crop science, horticulture, sustainable agriculture systems, and turf management. There’s even a certificate in horticulture therapy. For such a small school, there is really a plethora of options in your areas of interest.
Ohio Wesleyan: About 1400 undergrads. Majors in botany, genetics, or microbiology are all offered. The major in East Asian studies requires at least one semester of study abroad and a focus on either China or Japan, so I think there will also be a number of opportunities in this arena for you.
Louisiana State: About 29k undergrads. I suspect you’d get good merit aid here. They run a lot of the agricultural extension programs for the state here (Baton Rouge is the state capital), and there are some botanic gardens as well. I know there is at least one foreign language house, and perhaps others.
U. of Arizona: About 37k undergrads. Usually gives pretty good merit aid, and the honors college has an excellent reputation.
China has an aggressive zero-COVID policy, which keeps cases down, but involves relatively frequent lockdowns when a case is noticed.
With respect to early research opportunities, you can look within the biology curriculum of prospective college choices for courses (often for fractional credit) in which you would engage in faculty mentored research. For later in your college years, you may note thesis courses, also for credit. Colleges with greater expectations for independent, sometimes original, research may require a thesis for degree completion.
@AustenNut Oh thank you so much for this list!! I’m very glad to have more likelies to look into!
@ucbalumnus That article has a very strong bias. But yes, I am aware that the borders between the U.S. and China are unfortunately not likely to be navigatable anytime soon. I’m not relying on the ability to do an exchange program, I just appreciate the availability. Plus, colleges with their own specific exchange programs sometimes have other partnerships or collaboration in research, which is honestly my main interest. : )
@merc81 Ahh, thank you for the information!! When I look at course lists, I will make sure to look for those independant study opportunities!
You can certainly get a good education at any of the schools listed. However, if you want to get some research experience in your specific area, you need to dig into the specific research areas of the faculty. This is especially true at the smaller schools. For example at Macalestar, it looks like there is 11 faculty members. However, only two have anything related to plants listed in their research interests. If you compare this to a place like Wisconsin, they have 15 in Botany, 16 in Plant Pathology, 17 in Agronomy, and 15 in Horticulture. In addition, many of these professors are running a lab that that have many people. For example, the Braun lab (UW Botany) has 13 members including 4 undergraduates.
Regarding graduate school, I believe many funded PhD-track programs award master’s degrees at an intermediate stage. This allows a student to graduate as a credentialed master’s recipient, who then may continue on at the same school, move to a different funded program, or pursue full-time employment.
Be really careful about this: yes, many/most PhD programs grant a Master’s degree along the way, but it is often incidental to the overall program. In many funded PhD program, finishing with a Master’s is an off-ramp for students who aren’t going to make it through the PhD process- a consolation prize if you will, and not something you would plan to do.
Each PG program is specific about their policies on Masters and PhDs, so research is smart- but do it closer to time, as policies can change. For example, until very recently, the horticulture group at Cornell had a straight MS or PhD choice, but they have now restructured it along the lines @merc81 mentions. It is easily 3 years too soon for the OP to be thinking about this level of grad school detail.
Although I would say that faculty numbers can be deceiving. I was a biology major at a small LAC similar to Mac that had only 1 botany faculty member. But she was an amazing mentor, and launched many, many successful future botany PhDs.
Don’t let Minnesota’s housing system scare you. The best 2 dorms, in my opinion, are not in high demand:
If and when you decide to move off campus, there are plenty of affordable options.
@fiftyfifty1 Oh!! Glad to hear, thats a lot more reassuring! ^^;;
And thank you & @Eeyore123 for the perspectives on research opportunities! : )
Also, sorry for the late ping, but @aquapt: would you happen to know the likelihood of recieving merit at places like Mt. Holyoke or Scripps? I ran the NPC for both and they’re looking at 40k, which is too much. Both however seem to have fairly generous merit, and since the EFC listed for both was in a more affordable range, I wanted to know if it would be worth hoping for these awards (to replace the loans in the offered aid package), given my stats? I’m was thinking they probably weren’t high enough for Scripps, but was hoping Mt. Holyoke miiight be more possible.
For an additional perspective on undergraduate research opportunities, this site from U.S. News may be of interest: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs. While the ranking can be questioned with respect to its order and, especially, its omissions, it nonetheless may offer you a sense for the variety of institutions at which student research may be supported.
Unfortunately, the maximum merit award at Scripps is half-tuition. Even if you received that scholarship (leaving aside the odds of same, which are non-zero but not high), it still wouldn’t drop your net price below the 40K baseline that the NPC is showing; it would just reallocate most of your aid to merit rather than need-based.
Holyoke, OTOH, does have full-tuition merit awards, which I presume would bring it into an affordable range. I think your odds of acceptance at MoHo are pretty good, but getting the max merit is obviously more of a long shot. Does the Smith NPC look a lot better?
Another affordable safety that hasn’t come up yet (I think?) is Kansas State. It’s an MSEP reciprocity school, so the baseline cost is already pretty low, and with your stats you could get substantial merit as well. They have a Plant Science & Biotechnology track in the undergraduate Agronomy major, and their plant genetics research doesn’t focus on corn! K-State stands out as a school that everyone seems to love. Students truly love the school, and the small city of Manhattan, KS. Could be worth a comparison with Iowa State, in the safety category.
@aquapt Ahh, got it! Yeah, I think I’ll skip applying then.
The Smith NPC is much more reasonable for us, we’re looking at $32k : ). And I’ll check KS out! Thank you so much for your help 
Kansas State is regularly listed among the colleges with the happiest student body.
If you would like to consider colleges in the context of their arboreta, this article will be of interest:
@merc81 Oh, thank you! I didn’t know Louisiana had a bamboo garden in their arboretum… that’s so cool!
Thanks for the fun arb list!
Although I was surprised not to see the University of Minnesota’s arb included when 3 other (inferior in my opinion) arbs in Minnesota were listed. The University of Minnesota’s Arb is also located next to its apple breeding research station. For me, apple breeding (plant breeding in general actually) is a “road not taken” career for me. I sometimes look back and wonder “What If…”
I believe three species of bamboo are native to the southeast. My understanding is that the genus for these three species may — or may not — be unique to North America. Cool indeed.