Great approach for your daughter, @Finalthree My kid looked closely at Wooster, Centre, and Denison, so happy to share any insight with you.
I’ve just learned one of our family friends is doing what 8bagels thinks of as trading down. He went to a D1 flagship last year on scholarship. It’s not highly ranked academically, but is in the top 50 or so for his team. He’s transferring to a much less well known D2 school because he got no playing time at the flagship school. He loves sports and could have gone D1 in two different sports. Academically, he’s average, but average from a college prep high school. Is he chasing sports over academics? I don’t think so. He’s picking a college experience that’s right for him. His family is knowledgeable about sports and college recruiting as his older siblings went to Carver, a sports boarding school. Both played D1 on full scholarships.
The new school is definitely ranked much lower than the flagship, but if he’s not fitting into the flagship it’s not the right school for him. His sport is giving him the opportunity to find something else. I have no idea if one school is better financially for the family, but do know he was unhappy not getting playing time. I know others who have gotten into the big name schools because of the sports and either quit the team or never see playing time and they are okay with that because they are at the prestige school.
While I appreciate @twoinanddone mentioning Santa Fe College’s baseball program (ranked #1 in the NJCAA for much of last season), we typically do not think of ourselves as an “inferior school.” Santa Fe College was recently named the best community college in the county by the Aspen Institute because of our commitment to student learning, graduate and transfer rates, job placement rates, and minority student success. SF is a very different type of school then the universities mentioned earlier in this stream, and serve a very different student body and have a different mission, but we are extremely good at what we good. “Different” is not “Inferior.” Best wishes to the original poster in determining the college with the best fit.
My point was that the schools 8bagles and others were calling ‘inferior’ are not when considered for any individual student. I don’t think anyone would confuse Sante Fe with UF or Duke or Alabama, but for many students, SF is the better choice (and they aren’t passing up UF or Duke or Alabama). The student may have researched many schools at different levels and, after considering the opportunity to play, the cost, a special program, scholarships, felt SF was the best match.