<p>University of Oregon comes to mind. beautiful campus, many outdoor activities, wonderful school spirit, and they took my son, who scraped by to become a “b” student. It also has an honors college there, so it has a good mix of “a” students as well as "b’s.</p>
<p>The entire town of Eugene supports the Ducks!</p>
<p>Except for #4 - rural, The Ohio State University perfectly fits what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! We’ve got lots of ideas now! We don’t have any scores yet. When her PSATs come in, we may have a clearer idea of what is realistic.</p>
<p>Are you instate for VA Tech? That makes a big difference for the VA schools. I think her chances would be pretty good. U of Delaware is in a small town, good school, pretty campus, wide choice of majors, and is one of the few flagship state universities that admits more students from oos. Good luck!</p>
<p>OP,Clemson University fits all your D’s criteria. </p>
<p>Catera45, I know a girl (VA resident) who was turned down at Appalachian but accepted to VT where she is now a freshman. Appalachian gets tons of apps. from the kids in our area of NC. It’s sort of like James Madison…used to be a back-up but now way harder to get in.</p>
<p>Seconding the suggestion of Ohio University in Athens Ohio. Lots of my d’s friends are there and there is a lot of school spirit!</p>
<p>Also, seconding Michigan State. My younger cousin and her husband went there and are still huge Michigan State fans.</p>
<p>Packmom - I agree that App State is competitive, especially for out of state since the state schools in North Carolina take so few out of state applicants. Since we don’t know the OP’s D’s stats yet, I was just recommending on basis of her wish list. The GPA could be a problem at several of these schools so she needs to do the very best she can on the SAT and / or ACT.</p>
<p>agreed with MOWC about the Texas A&M. ugly, ugly, ugly.</p>
<p>Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Unless the school spirit spirit has to revolve around football. Beautiful campus, active club/intramural programs,lots of Lion spirit esp surrounding men’s H2O polo.</p>
<p>Would it be helpful to mention Elon?</p>
<p>Beautiful rural campus, safe, not as huge as Va tech, I guess it’s liberal artsy in atmosphere but I think it seemed like a nice school.</p>
<p>I thought of Elon but it’s just as competitive, if not more then VT now.</p>
<p>I’d echo the suggestions made earlier about App State. They have great school spirit since their football team won the national championship AND beat Michigan last year! My neighbor is a senior there and she absolutely loves it. </p>
<p>If considering Penn State–also meets your requirements, although it is bigger–it is much easier to get into if you apply early–like September!–as they have rolling admission and don’t care where you live, meaning IS has no preference over OOS. </p>
<p>South Carolina is also a great school with lots of school spirit, etc…Good Luck!</p>
<p>I think if you are instate whe should definitely apply. What will she declare as her intended college (major)? That can make a big difference as well. You never know. I do have to disagree with one of the former replies regarding the waitlist though. As far as I know, for the last two years, VT has not gone to their waitlist. In fact they overenrolled last year and were scrambling for freshmen. How about Auburn University in Alabama? Great school spirit, rural, a solid choice for kids. Clemson, too, comes to mind. I wish her the best and hope she can make it happen at VT. It is a very special place!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone again! The suggestions are great and my daughter is more optimistic now.
She is a Virginia resident, for those who asked. Sorry I didn’t mention that in my OP.</p>
<p>Edit: “scrambling for freshmen” sorry I typed too fast…I meant scrambling for freshmen housing! :)</p>
<p>Also, if you could give us a bit more information…i. e. her GPA and what classes she has taken/ will take it would help to get more of a feel for her chances. When we visited last year to go to the orientation/open house (my son is now a freshman there) they spoke of how numbers driven VT was. Our s’s former hs guidance counselor (we are instate) tells those thinking of applying to look at 3.75 ( weighted)/ approx. 1250 M & V SAT’s as a numbers guide to having a pretty good chance at Tech. Engineering /Architecture need higher numbers. They also want a “rigorous” course load as well. </p>
<p>I reread your post and saw her interests…I don’t know which area it would benefit her more when applying. From what we have heard, the sciences are pretty competitive, but if she went for the arts, it falls under the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. It may be worth a call to see if the applications for students intending to major in studio art/fine art are reviewed with the architecture/industrial design kids. If so, I would suggest she apply as a science major or even university studies. It may level the playing field a bit. Would she consider going ED?</p>
<p>She might want to consider East Carolina University. There are lots of VA kids at ECU.
It’s in a town of 70,000 but everything else for miles around is really rural. It’s less than 2 hours to several NC beaches. Lots of school spirit. Fine Arts at ECU… art, music and theater(Sandra Bullock and Emily Proctor (CSI)are graduates) are well repsected. ECU is home to the Brody School of Medicine and recently broke gound on a new Dental Sch. so the sciences are prob. pretty strong too. </p>
<p>I know a freshman at VT from northern VA who got in (biology major) with a less than 1100 SAT. If VT is her first choice def. give it a shot. My friend didn’t think her D would get in but now she’s a happy freshman</p>
<p>I’ll throw out Iowa State University</p>
<ol>
<li>25,000+ students</li>
<li>member of Big 12 Conference</li>
<li>attractive campus</li>
<li>Ames has a population of about 50,000; Iowa is, well…rural</li>
<li>Has a good list of club sports</li>
<li>Trustees recently approved construction of new $75 million chemistry building; fine arts probably wouldn’t be one of the school’s strengths</li>
</ol>
<p>yorkyfan, I thought of a couple of other notables from our VT open house/orientation session. I remember the admissions rep saying that they looked more at a student’s courseload and GPA than the board scores. She mentioned A-/B+ range students and said not to worry about sending in recommendation letters- they didn’t read them. S sent one anyway- he thought it wouldn’t hurt…I hope this helps and I wish her all of the best. I think she will be fine.</p>
<p>My cousin is a junior at V-Tech right now, and loves it! But, more to the point, his family moved around A LOT when he was younger, and he went to a total of three high schools and four or so grade/middle schools. Obviously, his grades weren’t great- mostly B’s with a few C’s and A’s thrown in. There were extenuating circumstances, of course (all the moves), but he got in. His test scores were pretty good, too, though. I think if your daughter has all B’s she has a very decent shot at V-Tech!</p>
<p>Here are some observations from looking at the Naviance scattergram data from a couple of Maryland public high schools. While we should probably be careful not to take away too much from these examples, it looks to me like VT has a hard GPA cutoff of about 3.0 (UW) and doesn’t care too much about SAT or maybe even weighted GPA.</p>
<p>Take a look at this Naviance scattergram for Virginia Tech. <a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=wootton[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=wootton</a></p>
<p>(Click on “enter as guest” then click on “scattergrams” under “About College” on the left. Scroll to Virginia Polytechinc Instititute and click on “display graph”)</p>
<p>On this plot, there is almost a hard cutoff around 3.2, with only a few rejections above this and only a few acceptances below. These are weighted GPAs going up to about 4.8, so I’m guessing they would take a 3.0 unweighted with strong courses. There doesn’t seem to be any relationship between SATs and acceptances, except for the inherent correlation between SAT and GPA.</p>
<p>Here’s another one. Use the password “wildcat”. <a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=johnson[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=johnson</a></p>
<p>This one has an unweighted GPA option, and it looks like a narly hard cutoff of 3.0 unweighted. Except for one 3.0 and one 3.05 with SATs of about 1050, I see no rejections for anybody with a 3.0 or better unweighted and only about 3 acceptances in the below 3.0. Again, no dependence on SAT score.</p>
<p>JMU looks similar. So much for holistic admissions. Your mileage may vary.</p>