@Bantamlove I thought you were looking for some suggestions of less selective colleges than William and Mary. If that is the case, UVA isn’t one of those.
What are you asking here in terms of suggestions? Do you want colleges with the same or less competitive admissions than WM that meet your price point which is somewhere above $30,000 a year? Please clarify so we can really help you.
Your student is a strong one…but admissions at some of these colleges are very unpredictable.
Okay @Bantamlove, first of all congratulate your child once again for that 1480 PSAT. That’s an awesome achievement right out of the gate.
Down to business. So it seems like you have three metrics: 1) a school of equal prestige as W&M; 2) cost between $30k & probably $50k tops; 3) within a “reasonable” driving distance. Here’s my advice:
Pick two metrics. Either similar prestige and less expensive, or less expensive and a car ride from home; or similar prestige and a drive away?
I don’t think that you’ll be able to capture all three.
If you haven’t already, you may want to go through CC and check posts for schools similar to W&M. One school that kept coming up was Miami of Ohio. It’s a 9-hour drive, doable for college purposes - we do it all the time. Fine research university, she should be able to find her people there. Should cost less than LACs like Lehigh & Villanova, or even Dickinson, for pete’s sake. With a 1480 PSAT if she improves upon that, she could be competitive for aid/scholarship money at Miami Ohio.
Look, W&M is amazing school for any student, but especially cost-effective for elite Virginians. The reason that you’re here is because it’s one of the only schools that hits your three primary metrics. Take a look at Miami of Ohio.
What about a school like Elon?
Maybe GWU? We just toured with my STEM-focused S26, and while it leans toward social sciences, it’s actually pretty strong in STEM. Good size too, about 11K undergrads.
Was going to suggest Elon too (assuming OP’s student gets some merit). When we visited several years back, I definitely picked up a quirkier vibe.
I’m wondering if W&M and UVA lean more toward a “preppy” vibe, since you mentioned your D doesn’t like preppy. Has she visited either?
UNC would lean more towards a preppy vibe as well.
I wasn’t going to suggest due to distance but one of my favorite schools to recommend to families. This student if Sat holds would get more merit than the family would think. Look it up on their website and their outcomes are fantastic. The campus is great and like every family loves this school,but never heard of it before. I have a neighbors child there now and the mother couldn’t believe how happy and challenged she is there. She comes from a well known IB school in Chicago… It’s a distance though.
But this thread is another version of… But… You got great schools in your backyard that many kids out of state want to go to. Lol.
What school???
Miami of Ohio.
@Bantamlove I just wanted to make sure you saw AustenNut’s post, because it’s an important point. If the actual financial aid award is significantly less than the NPC, then you can decline the ED acceptance without a problem. That’s true anywhere. You can also ask for a re-evaluation /appeal based on the discrepancy.
@Bantamlove, are you still looking for additional suggestions or are you waiting until your D has more bandwidth to research some colleges?
For those not from VA, just for future reference, the feel of the student body is very different at W&M and UVA, and different more still at VT and JMU. It’s always been that way (I went to W&M in the dark ages, both my boys applied to VT). Particularly for kids coming from a NOVA high school that sends a number of students to each of these. I don’t know if it’s a self fulfilling prophesy or what, but there are few kids who are equally excited about W&M and UVA - they just attract different vibes of students and typically if your kid falls into one, they are uninterested in the other.
And, unfortunately, for the top rockstar students at VA highschools JMU is a hard sell. My S25 has been offered a lot of money for JMU. Like, it would be ridiculously inexpensive for him. But he really doesn’t want to go there because that’s the school for the kids who were an academic level under his in HS. Yes, it’s a prestige thing to some extent, but it’s also some of “if that’s the student level they are filling their student body with, I know that level of student and that’s not right for me.”
VT is a different beast all together. Bigger in every regard. If you want engineering and football, VT likely wins. But even then, for the top students, it can feel not special. W&M and UVA have something about them both, their own mystique - and that’s probably honed by the fact that they are harder to get into. To many top students in Virginia who can afford out of state, VT feels like a backup. Like the place you go if your reaches didn’t pan out.
Not to say that any of that is actuality. But if OP is a VA resident, they and their student are very aware of these different school vibes.
OP - I’d second Case Western, Miami of Ohio, and maybe throw in RIT. All are a farther drive than you want, but all have some interesting aspects to them that make them feel a little like what your child seemed to like about W&M. You can get solid merit aid from each of them (just make sure to show interest at CWRU - visit if you can and sign up for emails and click links and sign up for virtual events).
She might want to apply to Pitt because it’s rolling admissions and she’d get in early - if she likes it, that’s a nice confirmation to have. But other than the fact that it’s a good school with a nice benefit of knowing early, not too expensive and not too far away, it doesn’t feel like W&M at all. But check it out, she might like it!
Keep in mind that there are many high stat kids who need merit in order to attend college at all. My daughter turned down Villanova honors for UDel honors due to cost, met similar high stat students there, graduated at the top of her class and is now at BU after bring accepted into every DPT program she applied to. Not every family can afford $300,000+ for each child to attend a university. There are super smart students at most colleges.
Of course! I think most people should aim for colleges that are less than $300k (I certainly didn’t mean to suggest otherwise), we certainly sought merit to stay well under that.
Given that OP is looking for schools like W&M, I was trying to give her some that have that feel and give merit that could fall into the price range she indicated. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t other great schools out there that would be cheaper, but they might not have the similar vibe. Like I think UDel has close to 19k undergrads, W&M has 7k. The UDel honors program is a smaller cohort and might make it feel more like a smaller college, so that might be a great idea for OP - look for larger schools that have a close-knit honors cohort that could give her that same vibe. I was trying to name a small handful of schools that I think are similar to W&M off the bat, without having to find a cohort within the college.
The discussion of the different VA schools wasn’t to discourage anyone from applying to any of them. Rather, it was mostly to explain why, as a Virginia resident, most high stats kids and their families don’t view them interchangeably even though they are all arguably strong in different ways. A number of people have suggested adding JMU or VT. If the OP’s daughter likes W&M, then those are not likely to feel comparable to her. It doesn’t mean they aren’t great schools for the right audience, but I don’t think that’s what the OP is looking for.
OP – Has your daughter looked at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, VA? It is a public liberal arts university, and probably comes in under $30K/year.
But it appears the OP doesn’t know if they will receive any financial aid (we don’t) and has a $30k budget. When you need merit, you need to change the selectivity of where you apply. Matches/reaches don’t usually work out.
I am so sympathetic to this approach-- here in New England we’ve got loads of colleges which appeal to different “types” of kids and loads of kids who are ready to write off a college as “No, that’s where the stoners go” or “not happening, there’s a guy in homeroom who slept through HS and he’s going there”.
So I get it.
But then reality comes around. Each family has to decide which of the various trade-offs are “worth it”. For some people, it’s more loans to get the kid to the desired college which on its face, is unaffordable. For some people, it’s heading off to the “I hate this college” but knowing you’re graduating debt free and have the rest of your life to “choose your own adventure”. And for some people, it’s making the best of a sub-optimal situation, knocking the cover off the ball academically, being “that student” that professors want to teach, want to have working for them editing a journal submission, indexing their latest book, doing research, fact checking for a grant application, etc.
I think looking for “comparable” when budget is important is a slippery slope. Maybe not comparable-- maybe suggesting schools where the student can get an equally rigorous education, regardless of how they view the student body?
OP said the above earlier this week. I suggested three schools that I know people who have gotten full ride (Miami of Ohio) for tuition + room and board with stats equal or less to OP; my own child, with similar stats, got a merit offer for less than $60k (CWRU); and that I’ve heard gives strong merit and that isn’t such a reach (RIT).
Sure, but that’s not what the OP asked for. I wasn’t replying to some people, I was replying to OP. They feel it’s likely for their student to get into W&M, and if that’s the case, she wants to have other comparable schools. JMU and VT aren’t that and even if they were, I’m guessing that the student wouldn’t want them because of the other intangibles. Which is why I was suggesting schools outside of Virginia. I think @Mjkacmom’s suggestion of something like a UDel with a rigorous honors college is a strong option - it’s probably comparable to one of the other VA schools, but doesn’t have the emotional or peer pressure-y baggage that those VA schools might have for a VA resident. It’s just larger than the student seemed to want. But other than size, it really does hit the sweet spot in a lot of ways.
Again, I’m not saying, in any way, that chasing merit is bad, or that going to a less expensive school that maybe isn’t as “prestigious” isn’t a good choice. We’re chasing merit and BOTH my kids are going to go (or have gone) to schools that are “less prestigious” than what they could get into so that we could get cost in the right place.
But if OP thinks they have a great in state option, and they aren’t interested in the other in-state options, why keep suggesting them? Why not look for something else if we are trying to help this particular poster with their specific interests? Comparable doesn’t have to be expensive, and it could be some school that isn’t a fancy name, but I think it’s important to also look at why a top tier student might not want to go to the school that “all their peers are going to” (OP said something similar above as to why the student wasn’t interested in JMU).
As a parent of a child who is about to turn down a school that I think would be a great match, because it doesn’t feel special and “everyone from his HS goes there” this is a real thing and deserves to be recognized and not ignored. OP seems to be looking for different from the “typical” VA schools, so I tried to recommend some. I guess I should’ve stopped there and not tried to explain why the VA schools that people have been pushing may not be ideal.
I think your post is helpful so don’t apologize- and I apologize if I came off as critical. People often find it hard to understand reputations outside of their own region-- I have told people that University of New Haven is a great option for a kid who wants a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice- but it’s not a substitute for Yale for a kid who wants to study Classics, even though they are a quick bus ride away from each other.
Keep posting. And let’s hope the OP (and everyone else) finds that elusive “fit”- the right student body, the right price, the right location! For many people- there will be trade-offs and that’s also OK!
It has always been that way!!
I graduated from a NOVA high school decades ago and that was my impression then!