Do you have any younger kids whose college years will overlap with your daughter? Brown (and probably some of the other highly rejective colleges) will still give a sibling discount when multiple kids are in college at the same time. Public schools will not and likely only some privates will. My info may be a year or two out of date, so definitely double-check if this is still true if it is of relevance to you.
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William and Mary was in her list as well. She loved Wesleyan as well. Big Brown cross over. Williams and Bowdoin were high on my Ds list. You might want to check them out. They have big endowments and known to be generous.
While you are at it, I would encourage you to look at Grinnell. They give generous merit and people don’t realize they are one of the wealthiest per student schools in the country. Kenyon was a good option for us at well in terms of merit.
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Great suggestions! Williams is kind of on her list. She’s not totally sold on it since it’s so remote and small but we have a lot of family members who went there on my husband’s side, so she is curious. Same issue though with cost. I know they are super generous, but we are on that weird cusp of probably not getting aid but also not being able to afford 91K/yr.
Bowdoin (I went there myself) is too small for her. She wants to go somewhere bigger than her high school. Same with Kenyon. Williams is as small as she will consider, but even then prefers bigger.
Grinnell is a little too small and remote for her she says.
Might give Wesleyan another look but have a feeling we will have the same issue with cost like the other meets-needs schools.
St. Olaf, Holy Cross, Macalester, Loyola Maryland, U Delaware, Virginia Tech, and some others are on the list to consider.
A few schools that seem good on paper were crossed off due to heavy Greek presence/drinking culture (Colgate, Dartmouth, Wake Forest.)
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Williams is almost as generous with aid as Princeton. Did you run the NPC? (Please come back and let us know!) She might like Amherst or Swarthmore. Small, but more urban so may not feel as such, specially since both are part of consortiums. Also schools with rich coffers. Might be worth exploring. Though Swarthmore, although also very friendly, has some of that Princeton intensity IMO.
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Have you looked at any of the Canadian universities? They tend to be less expensive than comparable US colleges (and the exchange rate makes them even more affordable). Plus they tend to be generous with AP credit.
My son was very interested in McGill when he was applying. Note that McGill has different tuitions depending on what your major is, though!
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Yes, actually! We looked at UBC (too big) and U Victoria (which she actually really liked). But since then we visited Lafayette and she loved it way more. As of now, they still offer decent merit to students with her STATS.
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That’s great news!
I’m a Wes parent (kid was also interested in Brown, to @TonyGrace ‘s point about crossover), and my understanding is that Wes is surprisingly generous with FA. I’ve seen many reports here and elsewhere of FA packages that were more generous than much wealthier schools including Ivies.
My kid is so happy there. I’d really recommend checking it out.
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