My daughter is having trouble expanding her target college list for recruiting. She is looking for at least 10k students, plenty of green space, not rural, and no religious obligations. Her plan of study is Pre-Physical Therapy through biomedical sciences or exercise science. Geographic location she’d like is east of the Mississippi river, but not northeast of Virginia or south of South Carolina/Tennessee. She has a lot of the big D1 schools on her list. D2/D3/NAIA is proving more difficult because they tend to be smaller and/or private/religious. I’m hopeful you all have some great ideas!
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So schools in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Is that correct?
What is she looking to be recruited for? And what is her anticipated level?
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D3 schools are all small, except for schools in the UAA athletic conference. Emory is the only one near-ish to your daughter’s geographical area, but it’s farther south than she wants. And has less than 10,000 undergrads.
There’s a lot of missing info in your post – what year is she, what are her grades like, board scores? Sport? Playing level? Is she already at the d1 level? I think the 10,000 size is going to limit her to D1s.
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Grand Valley? Over 20k students, extremely strong D2 sports, kind of rural, but also has a well established bus system and has a campus/dorms in downtown Grand Rapids, and is a public college, so not religious. They have a biomedical sciences and exercise science, which are both popular majors. They also have an allied health science major with an emphasis on pre-PT if that is of interest. They have a PT school that is very well regarded and Grand Rapids has what is known as the Medical Mile, which has numerous hospitals in that area.
Wayne State is D2 and is in Detroit. They are also an R1 institution, which is cool.
I guess you missed the part about being east of the Mississippi, and between Virginia and South Carolina? 
There was Midwest in the title and they said northeast of Virginia so I thought they didn’t want schools in the northeast.
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I think Michigan schools fit the geographic description, but OP needs to come back to clarify. And also answer your other questions.
If you can re-state the preference - or name states that could work - it’s a bit hard to tell from your description. I’m guessing there’s a fair amount of schools that can work dependent upon the stats.
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I would have her look at Ohio University in Athens Ohio which has a bit over 20 thousand residents. They have around 18k undergraduate students, it’s a D1 school and the school has an uptown with plenty of restaurants and entertainment for students. They have an excellent Health Sciences department which would have the degrees she is looking for. They also have their own DPT program so they are very aware of the preparation involved in applying to a DPT program. A few of their programs have guaranteed entry if she is interested. It requires a year at the school to be accepted but I believe either biology or exercise physiology are both part of the guarantee program. My D did both her undergrad and DPT studies there. She is now a Physical Therapist.
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2026 volleyball player, 4.1 GPA, attends a high school for high ability/gifted students, no SAT or ACT scores yet. Should have no trouble playing mid D1 or upper D2. Yes, the size and non-religious is definitely limiting her search.
volleyball 2026 mid D1 or upper D2 most likely
she is visiting GVSU in a couple weeks!
Would high academic schools like UChicago, WashU, Carnegie Mellon or Case Western be of interest? All mid-size but solid schools academically.
You list seems overly constrained. I suggest you loosen some requirements and perhaps focus on the major. PT is a very tough program.
For example, while it does not meet the green space requirement and it’s not clear they could play D1 Volleyball in the ACC, Pitt checks a lot of boxes for PT.
- It’s the #1 DPT program in the country.
- Pitt has a guaranteed admission program (GAP) for the DPT grad work. So if you get into the GAP they don’t have to worry about being pre-PT and later getting into a DPT program
- It’s a great size. Tons of schools spirit and things to do in a medium sized city.
- Practically every other bldg around Pitt is a hospital so getting clinical requirements out of the way should be very doable.
- if they drop out of PT, it has a large number of majors.
- They still give high stats OOS student merit aid and they like high test scores so if the student is a good test taker you can really increase your chances at Pitt
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My 22 year old graduated from UDel honors as an exercise science major, they have an awesome DPT program and she hit a lot of experience at their PT center on STAR campus. Beautiful campus, cute Main Street with stores, restaurants and bars, a lot of school spirit, very fun. She was accepted into every DPT she applied to, including UDel, ended up at BU with merit (as much as she loved UDel she wanted urban for graduate school). She had high stats, all 9 AP tests were accepted and she was able to graduate in 3 years, and was given nice merit.
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Pitt offered significantly less than UDel to my daughters, for dd21 it was one of her lowest merit offers, ($8000 vs. $17,000 a year).
Pitt is a great school. Their volleyball team is highly ranked and currently in the Sweet 16. It might be a reach athletically for “mid-D1” skill level, but a worthy addition to any college list.
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Agree on UDel as well. A bit greener and perhaps a more accessible sports conference.
You have several strong options in the Big10, including UIUC, MSU, UofM, Purdue, Penn State and UW Madison. What do you consider rural? UIUC is in Urbana/Champaign, but once you are outside of town it is cornfields to the horizon.
Northwestern is a hair small, but is an outstanding school that is strong in just about every field. It is also near a city rich in culture and entertainment.
If you are considering Pitt you should apply to their honors college. With your grades you would be a strong candidate.
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