Forgot to mention the thing your son is interested in. About 30% of Miami students are in the business school. There’s a good video in this link.
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Flagler College in Florida and Palm Beach Atlantic University, also in Florida, might be of interest to you & to your son.
The students at Ithaca College and Willamette University are very friendly. I’m looking forward to visiting Susquehanna next month.
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U of Puget Sound could be worth a look. It’s smaller (around 1700 undergrads) but has excellent business programs and isn’t too hard to get into. For new students, they offer a wide range of immersive small-group orientation programs to help students connect with one another. Immersive Experiences | University of Puget Sound
McDaniel is another small school, not overly competitive, with multiple tracks of Business Administration; I have a vague sense that it has a friendly reputation but maybe others can confirm or deny!
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Puget Sound made me think of another suggestion – Western Washington University. Both of these schools are pretty popular choices for students at my kids’ HS, and students who go seem very happy at both places. Seattle is tough to beat as a location, unless you really need a lot of sun.
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I came here to say that when I think “friendly, welcoming college” I think Susquehanna, but I see others beat me to it!
Seconding Willamette, UPugetSound, McDaniel, Xavier, UNC-Asheville – Miami-OH may be too competitive in business ?
What about Elizabethtown, UScranton? Knox, Beloit? St Olaf as a reach?
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Check out Butler in Indiana. Great business program. Small social school known for nice kids.
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Juniata comes to mind, but not much of a town to walk to. St. Olaf is very friendly and a great school, but no business major.
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JMU in Virginia has been noted as a friendly school. There are more girls than boys there, idk if that’s good or bad.
Not sure if it would suit, but St.Olaf has a Business&Management concentration with experiential learning which can be added to any course of study (Economics or anything else).
https://wp.stolaf.edu/management-studies/
Similar, but probably academically more appropriate than Miami University, would be Ohio University. Their business school is good but not as selective as the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. The school as a whole is not as selective as many that have been mentioned but it is a good school and has the reputation of a school that students love. Miami University is very Greek centric. While OU has greek life it’s not a major factor in the social make up of the university.
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OP here. So many great suggestions! Ones that we’ve visited with his siblings that were already on our radar but you’ve all just reaffirmed as to my initial thoughts when we visited:
U of Dayton
Susquehanna
Butler
Miami Ohio (brother almost attended)
Xavier
U of Scranton
Gettysburg
Loyola Maryland
Hobart
Marist
When he was 12 we did a PA road trip with his sister. Susquehanna was the first school we visited. I do remember him announcing after 5 minutes “this place is beautiful, this is where I’m going to college!” Maybe it was fate! 
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Lots of other great suggestions to check out!
Anyone have firsthand knowledge about the friendliness levels at Catholic University? My D and I D really liked it. Not sure if the kids at Catholic all kind of scatter into the city on weekends.
I don’t think S is opposed to greek life, his brother is in a frat and I think it could be a good way for him to make connections but it’s not a requirement either.
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Sorry to hear about your D’s boyfriend’s experience at DU. My son is in a frat and most of his friends are wealthy (we are probably upper middle class but live in a very high cost of living area). They are some of the nicest kids I’ve ever met. When I moved him in this year to his frat, we were never even out of the car before one or several of them would run out to help us. None of them seemed snobby and they all work really hard over the summers to make spending $$ for school. My son also has lots of friends outside the frat that are all types of kids. Sometimes there are things my son can’t do with his friends because he just doesn’t have the $$ but none of his friends judge him for that. Tons of earthy-crunchy type kids on campus as well and my son tells me lots of them come from plenty of $$.
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Oh, he loves it - don’t get me wrong - and is Greek - but says everyone is rich, spoiled, and entitled (as is he, skiing all the time…he just doesn’t realize he is). He doesn’t do much academically (hardly going to class and work) and aces everything…but he’s just one of those kids that excels at doing the minimum. Same in HS. He skis…last year 64 days he said. Dang - what a life!!!
And he’ll graduate in three years (this May).
Now, for my daughter’s sake, I just hope he lands a job!!!
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Also consider Rollins College in Winter Park FL.
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I also thought of Dayton. Glad to see it mentioned.
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Forgot about Rollins, visited with my older son and I loved it. Younger son loves theme parks so might be a good option as well as some of the other FL schools that were mentioned.
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I know a lot of others have already recommended these, but I was also going to mention University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN (my S24 is looking at it and got a ton of aide), he is considering DU but did not apply to Elon. He did not apply to Elon because he will only look at smaller schools if they are not isolated. He also applied to University of San Diego which might merit consideration.
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I have twin boys applying to colleges this year so we’ve come across lots of schools. The one I’d consider “friendliest” is Houghton University, in western NY. If you apply they send you a tossle cap. Admitted kids get this really sweet little party box. We haven’t visited yet, but the whole vibe seems really… nice. It’s not terribly “elite” in terms of selectivity, plus it’s really small. I think around 900 kids in a tiny rural town. Do it won’t be for everybody. But man, they seem nice.
Best example: My son’s acceptance letter didn’t just mention his essay. It discussed it. So I don’t think it was some AI algorithm.
Just really friendly.
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I’ll throw out UNC-Wilmington for folks that want to be close to the beach.
On our list were Knox, Cornell College IA, Earlham, and Guilford. Many of these are “colleges that change lives”. I don’t know how they are for business — not my kid’s major.
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