SUNY Geneseo has a 64% acceptance rate. It is the LAC and Honors College of the SUNY system with a gorgeous campus and smaller classes. There are about 3500 students. It’s in a small town, but is only 40 minutes from Rochester. It is also great value and they offer scholarships. I know a lot of students who have loved their experience there. https://www.geneseo.edu/
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University of Missouri (79%): My older daughter currently attends Mizzou & loves it! It was a somewhat last-minute submission, and then we went to visit. From housing to the student center, I feel like people who work there truly care about its students as individuals and make every attempt to accommodate their needs, from mental health to class selection. It’s got all the conveniences and experiences of a large university with the personalization of a much smaller college. Only a 15-min Uber ride from COU Airport. Should be said that, for the first time in her life, my daughter loved ALL her teachers. So much so she rarely missed a class, and ended up on the Dean’s List the first semester of freshman year. Ton of clubs, rec sports, traditions and activities. Vibrant, fun downtown with a large variety of places to eat. Greek life is big at Mizzou, as is football (should be noted that their stadium is under renovation and is going to be amazing!). Half the dorms are above standard and modern, but most of the older dorms are respectable and conveniently located in central campus. Community bathrooms get cleaned twice a day, and private bathrooms within suites get cleaned, I believe, once a week. Their Rec Center, to me, is unparalleled: lazy river, indoor track, climbing walls, places to study when you want to break from working out, etc. If you’ve ever toured it, you’ll know what I mean when I say it reminds of Disney in the best possible way. It’s HUGE and has a lot of options and personality: MizzouRec
Iowa State (89%) is on the rise, as is their football program! My daughter almost ended up there this year but it was, logistically, just a bridge too far. But the people make that university special. We loved the tour, everyone was welcoming and made it feel like family. So many saying how they look out for their students and they wholeheartedly meant it. Beautifully laid out campus. Only downside was the downtown area was dead when we were there. But could’ve just been an off night as the Greek system was having some kind of early evening event. Didn’t care for the dorms (a bit on the small and old side) but they are currently in development with CyTown, which will be a modern and convenient addition to campus: Iowa State Unveils CYTown Plans - Iowa State University Athletics
University of Oklahoma (73%): Love the way the campus is laid out and the cafeteria food choices and quality were excellent. Both of my daughters found that OU was the only college with all of their very specific majors: Paleontology, Aviation & Creative Media Production. All fantastic programs at OU! The Aviation program is extremely competitive so my daughter, unfortunately, didn’t get accepted. She ended up changing majors later in the admissions process and was only offered Spring term, which she didn’t want to do. She ended up elsewhere but I think her heart will always be with Oklahoma as they also have an Equestrian Team (which she doesn’t have at her current college). Beautiful sorority/fraternity row. And an easy Uber to the adorable airport. Only downside: no significant “downtown” area.
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New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (aka New Mexico Tech)
Admission rate 74%.
Small tech school located in Socorro, NM. Enrollment ~1700 students. It punches way about its weight class with science & engineering grad school placement. The NSF lists Tech as #1 among all public universities for percentage of bachelor’s students who later complete a Ph.D.
Tech is a HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution) with about 35% of its student population identifying as Hispanic.
Strengths include: geology/hydrology, petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering, astronomy. Offers one of the only undergrad programs in explosives technology and engineering in the country.
Small, friendly town that is more small town hip than rural. Socorro has several art galleries and microbreweries. There is a 18 hole PGA-approved championship golf course on campus. Also on campus is the operational center for the Very Large Array/National Radio Astronomy Observatory that located about 50 miles west of campus. World class rock climbing about 20 minutes from campus. Winter skiing at Ski Apache about 2 hours away.
Socorro is a fast 45 minute drive on I-25 to the international airport in Albuquerque.
Tech is a WUE eligible university.
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I’ve posted about some of these before, but I love the smaller engineering schools that we visited:
Rose-Hulman: Such a special little place. My son fell in love when he walked on campus. Price is high, but it seems like a really strong community with excellent outcomes. Acceptance rate is pretty high (73%), but I think applicants are pretty self-selecting. S25 will be headed to Rose in the Fall.
Missouri S&T: Acceptance rate is 73%. They have excellent outcomes for engineers, and it has a strong reputation in the Midwest. The town it’s in isn’t my favorite (Rolla, MO), but it’s close to a lot of wonderful outdoor activities in Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
South Dakota School of Mines: Acceptance rate is around 85%. Again, the outcomes for engineers are wonderful, and it’s a beautiful part of the country. I think the winter would have done my son in, but we were blown away by the faculty members we met when we toured.
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Hobart and William Smith Colleges has a beautiful campus right by a lake. The town in small, but has lots of good food. Much more impressive in person than on paper. We’ve known a couple of people whose kids attended and loved it, especially study abroad and paid summer research. Their parents liked all the local wineries. Ha! We did a visit day and my daughter enjoyed the classes she attended. I was impressed with the faculty. People were really welcoming.
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My son applied to, and was accepted by, Rose Hulman. He had gone to a summer STEM program there and we were very impressed by the professors there. The school does not offer PhDs, and the professors focus on undergraduate instruction instead of research. Because of this, Rose is ranked #1 in engineering for schools that don’t grant doctorates, above better known schools like Olin or Harvey Mudd. When making his final decision, my son said, “Rose would be my top choice, hands down, if it were not in the middle of nowhere”.
When my son applied, we had no idea that their acceptance rate was over 70%. Given the school’s outcomes and rankings, we assumed that it was more selective. With Rose’s reputation and stats for incoming students (mean SAT 1359, and 87.8% having GPAs over 3.75), one could conclude that applicants were practicing self selection. Put another way, Rose has a 70%+ acceptance rate because they have strong applicants, not because they will take just about anyone.
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Friendly reminder that this is a no response thread.
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Has anyone mentioned Flagler in St. Augustine FL. Small college. Beautiful small campus. Reasonably priced.
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OP here, quoting from the OP:
I was just discussing Rochester Institute of Technology with someone and think that it would make a nice addition to this thread. It has about 14k undergrads and a 71% admit rate. It has one of the oldest co-op programs in the country which has students gain valuable experience and gives them an edge in finding a job https://www.rit.edu/cooperative-education. It has a lot of specialized programs in terms of supporting neurodiverse students and hard-of-hearing students which (I suspect) means that the faculty and staff are habituated to providing targeted supports to students.
People are unlikely to be surprised by the multitude of STEM offerings, but it also has a lot of arts offerings. And if one is interested in the intersection of art and STEM, I’m not sure if I could come up with a better school.
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Another school that has strengths in both STEM and Art is UW-Stout. Stout is Wisconsin’s public polytechnic university, with a “hands-on learning” philosophy. Stout has an 85% acceptance rate, and a low COA. It is very possible to get direct costs to <25K or even <20K/yr, even for OOS students.
Stout is in a small Midwestern town, but it is relatively easy to get to because it is only an hour away from Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) airport which is an airport hub, so has many direct flights from all over the country. You can take a shuttle bus from the airport to the school.
The relative proximity to the Twin Cities makes internships possible, and the school has good ties to many employers including some Fortune 500 companies, and many medical device engineering firms.
Stout has 6 ABET accredited programs, including mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. I also like that it has an ABET accredited program in Engineering Technology. An engineering technology degree can be a good compromise for students who want to work in an engineering setting but who may struggle with some of the more advanced or abstract math and science requirements of regular engineering. Stout also has one of the nation’s few programs in packaging science, and graduates of this major are always in demand.
On the arts side, Stout has BFA programs in animation, game design, graphic design, industrial and product design , interior design and illustration, among others.
Stout also has a terrific supportive program for neurodiverse students, including a dorm with extra supports if desired.
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I haven’t seen Hood College in Frederick, MD mentioned. It’s a small LAC (1200 students) with a 78% admit rate. Former women’s college with a beautiful campus just about an hour from either Baltimore or WDC. Every student receives aid, with some very generous merit scholarships and an additional $2000 if you are selected for the Honors College. (They were recently given more than $50 million exclusively for scholarships.) They are strong in nursing, science, and business, and they have a student success center for tutoring, accommodations, etc. They’re also pretty diverse and LGBTQ+ friendly.
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Thanks for creating this thread, @AustenNut . Some of my very favorite colleges are in this admittance range. Too many to list them all, and I love many of the colleges that folks have already mentioned above.
I think some of the best bargains in higher education are the mid-size public regional comprehensive universities. I’m thinking of schools like Salisbury University, Truman State, UNC-Asheville, College of New Jersey (admit rates for these four ranging from 62 to 92%). All four of these schools, and many others in their cohort, offer excellent educations.
A few points:
(1)These schools often have few graduate programs, so the faculty are closely committed to undergraduate education, and often promote undergraduate research - you tour flagships and hear about the amazing research opportunities - but the reality that I have personally observed is that flagship undergrads are often very junior partners in a tiered system that goes faculty-postdoc-PhD students - MA students -undergrads (as opposed to faculty-undergrads at many regional comprehensives).
(2) They often have more direct faculty mentoring and advising for life after college.
(3) often sized between 5,000-10,000 students, the schools are large enough to have a robust number of offerings, but small enough for students to not feel lost in a crowd.
(4) These schools are often MUCH cheaper than flagships, let alone private universities.
(5) faculty are at these schools because they like to teach, and because they have limited graduate programs, even your introductory courses will not be taught by TA’s. You will see that flagship universities will often report 15-25% of undergrad courses are taught by TA’s. When I was a graduate student, our grad student union calculated that slightly more than 50% of all credit hours generated at that university were taught by graduate students. The disparity exists b/c so many of the larger enrollment required courses (the ones that students start with, that help determine their major, and that often have the highest failure rates) are often taught by graduate student instructors.
Just to focus on one of my favorite regional comprehensives: Salisbury University has twice hosted the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, and has its own celebration of undergraduate research every spring, where the campus shuts down for a Friday afternoon and has hundreds of undergraduate papers and posters presented to their peers. It ranks among the top schools in its category (Masters universities) in Fulbright awards each year. Class sizes are small - the physical campus and its buildings are designed so that there are small classrooms - there are physically few locations in which a large lecture course could be taught. It is particularly well known for nursing and health sciences (nursing graduates often are tops in the state in percentage passing the licensure exam, above UMCP and Hopkins), teaching (a shocking percentage of Maryland teachers of the year are SU alums), and environmental programs (with degrees in environmental studies, environmental biology, geography, geosciences, urban planning, outdoor education, coastal engineering, and a dual degree in marine science and environmental science, a campus arboretum, a field station on the Nanticoke River, and fleets of kayaks and canoes, the Princeton Review ranked SU the #29 Green Campus in the US).
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Not sure if Knox College has been mentioned (around 71% acceptance rate), but we liked it quite a bit when we visited it back in 2019 and heard good things about it from some friends’ kids who went there. It’s a small LAC in Galesburg, Illinois, with a direct train connection to Chicago. Supposed to be strong in the humanities and the arts but has good sciences programs as well. Its unique feature is an immersive term when students have an opportunity to focus, in a practical way, on one field of study for the entire term (e.g., to produce two theater plays or hold an internship while taking a specialized psych class). They offer generous merit and talent scholarships, which can bring down your COA below the state school level.
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It was recommended that I post here from another thread. My oldest attended Sonoma State from 2016-2020, so my information from tours and such is about 8-9 years old, but here goes.
Sonoma State is a California State University that feels almost like a LAC. It had a very residential feel and nicer dorms than most state schools. The campus was beautiful and well maintained, with the standouts being the new rec center, the Schultz Library and the Green Music Center, which is gorgeous. The food was very good with many options.
My child had some amazing professors who had retired to the Bay Area and were teaching because they were passionate about their fields. The professors all had generous office hours and genuinely liked to interact with the students. Also, there was free tutoring in math and essay writing.
The study abroad program was also great. My child was able to study in Germany for 2 semesters for less than we would have paid if they had stayed on campus. The housing was cheaper over there and you payed the same tuition.
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All of the New England state flagships fit the description in general… URI, UNH, U.Conn, UMaine, UVM…all pretty great… & all have high acceptance rates --with the exception of certain majors. Business, engineering, nursing are often the exceptions to the very high admit rates, and these schools will often offer acceptance to an alternative major.
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I know @vwlizard mentioned UMN already, and I second it!
Here are some things I think are great about it:
-Located near the State Capitol for internships.
-Strong math department
-Easy to add majors, switch majors, switch between schools etc. This is true even in popular majors such as CS. As an example, I know a student who started as a Food Science major who has added a second major in CS.
-A down to earth vibe. Minnesota, in general, is pretty friendly and doesn’t tend to be snobby or status obsessed.
-Lots of terrific museums and performing arts in the Twin Cities.
-Ice fishing. It really is fun
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Academy of Art University has a 100% acceptance rate. The school has 22 active majors. I’m photography, photojournalism-documentary emphasis.
I liked that the instructors are working professionals, all of the equipment is current (photo major), It’s downtown San Francisco and easy to get to by public transport and school shuttles. The student to faculty ratio is 15:1. I found the photo department to be very supportive and my fellow classmates very talented.
school web address: https://www.academyart.edu
College Confidential has the school listed as closed which it’s NOT.
Other things I like: great recreation options, good athletic program (only art school with NCAA DII teams), good industry resources, and good academic support. They have housing and food service for on and off-campus students. It’s in San Francisco which has MANY art venues. things to do and see and experience not only in the city but around the Bay Area and beyond.
Also, the school has a study abroad program.
It is art school and not cheap however by comparison, it’s the least expensive to other art schools, at least in the U.S.
Things I don’t like, they don’t have a lot of scholarships, you have to get external one’s if you need that. I’m from the city but it’s expensive to live here so be prepared.
I will say this: just because this school is 100% acceptance, AAU is not for everyone. I recommend people who are self motivated to attend this school.
My main reason for liking the school is I found my photographic voice here. For me, it’s been worth it.
I recommend visiting the school but especially to talk to student to vibe out the different departments.
If I think of anything else, I’ll come back and add.
moderator note: this university is a for profit entity
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Additional Academy of Art U. information:
https://www.academyart.edu/about-us/accreditation/
Since I can’t edit my original post, the school is accredited by:
WSCUC
WASC
CIDA
NAAB
CTC
which is important to know especially if you’re looking to go to graduate school.
The school is a independent for-profit school and has been since it’s founding in 1929 as the Académie of Advertising Art.
Another pro for me about the school would be the industry panels that are open to all majors. I’ve connected with so many people from around the world at this school in different mediums.
Again, I’ll add more if I need to. But with ANY school, for-profit or non-profit, visit the campus because on-paper is not the same as in-person.
Cheers!
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