LAC vs. State School

My daughter might be interested in a (non-engineering) science major and, for us, Virginia Tech is a popular in-state option. However, we heard, from someone who’s a freshman neuroscience major this year, about the introductory calculus classes being mostly on-line/self-taught (we pay money for this?) and that was a complete turn off. So, we are looking at smaller schools first and maybe a big, R1 research university for grad school.