<p>We visited 3 of the Midwest CTCL schools: St Olaf, Beloit and Lawrence and felt all 3 were solid academically. DD2 only ended up applying to Lawrence from this list(good science and theatre/also known for having a music conservatory–a good safety for those interested in Oberlin or Macalester, though conservatory would be quite competitive)–accepted with merit money, but chose another school instead. Lawrence also has a surprisingly large number of international students and domestic students who’ve lived abroad.
If OP’s student has stats to consider Stanford as a reach, I’d suggest a look at Macalester which is in the city of St Paul, MN and has a particularly large number of international students (around 13%) as well as US students who’ve lived abroad with their families or as exchange students for a year (again, from the website, around 13%). My DD1 did a Rotary exchange for a year; the next year she was joined at Macalester by a boy from her high school who also did a gap year with Rotary and by the boy (from another state) who replaced her in her Rotary district in South America. Several of her friends have also lived abroad with their parents.</p>