Anonymous wrote:As you can see, OP, this is a tough request to fill. If she had to give up one of the criteria you mention, which would she be most comfortable giving up?

People have listed 17 schools that fit OP kid's wants.

Anonymous wrote:Dayton?

Dayton is Jesuit.

As you can see, OP, this is a tough request to fill. If she had to give up one of the criteria you mention, which would she be most comfortable giving up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVM? 11k students, and a little further though.

No football and not much spirit.

Agreed. But checks all the other boxes. And a gem of a school.

Northwestern hits pretty much all of your boxes. Not quite driving distance from DMV (about 11-12 hours) but an easy flight.

If you are in Virginia for in-state tuition UVA would be a good fit if you are willing to go larger (18,000 undergrad).

My DS had similar criteria and, yes a lot of the schools on the list that size are Catholic.

Anyway, adding:

American U.
Worchester Polytech
Wake Forest
Case Western
Rennsselaer
William and Mary
Lehigh

Anonymous wrote:U of Miami has some of those -school spirit, 12K student body. Too expensive but they give merit aid and it's far but a direct flight.

U of Vermont similar size and distance with less spirit.

Are you kidding??? The difference between sports at Miami and UVM is huge. Many UVM students could give a rat’s ass about sports whereas Miami kids are usually there for the huge sports community.

Anonymous wrote:Denver's kind of far away, but DU (with 13 thousand students) otherwise meets your criteria.

It doesn't have a football team

Anonymous wrote:Looking for a school with about 10 k student body; football and basketball teams; strong spirit; no more than 60k tuition; non-church affiliated; preferably within 8 hours of DMV. We are stuck. Thanks.

Marshall - the Thundering Herd. It's in Huntington, WV - about a 7 hour drive from DMV. West Virginia state school. 12,000 total students. 8800 undergrad. D1 sports. They're in the Sunbelt conference (so is ODU and JMU) $20,000 out of state tuition.

Denver's kind of far away, but DU (with 13 thousand students) otherwise meets your criteria.

OP, if you're hung up on something very close to that size, it could limit your options among well-known schools -- SLACs are smaller, state flagships are generally larger, most highly ranked urban privates are larger, and many of the remainder are religious-affiliated. So that could leave you with a lot of "directional" state schools (or smaller/lesser campuses in larger state systems like Penn State, SUNY and Rutgers) and some private universities of uncertain long-term viability.

The other thing that wasn't clear is whether the 10K size you mentioned is for the full campus or just for undergrads (ie ~2500 per class).

At any rate, here are some options (setting aside Ivies like Princeton, Yale and Brown which actually are in the 10K ballpark). Apologies in advance for not being able to confirm the tuition cost:

Tufts (12K students, 6 K undergrad)
Case Western (12K students, 6K undergrad)
U of Rochester (12K students, 7K undergrad)
Emory (15K students, 8K undergrad)
Tulane (too far?) (14K students, 9K undergrad)
SMU (not religious, name notwithstanding - but maybe too far) (12K students, 7K undergrad)
UNH (15K students, 12K undergrad)
U Maine (12K students, 10K undergrad)
Hofstra (10K students, 6K undergrad)

I’d make sure to focus on the undergraduate enrollment numbers specifically

Anonymous wrote:Looking for a school with about 10 k student body; football and basketball teams; strong spirit; no more than 60k tuition; non-church affiliated; preferably within 8 hours of DMV. We are stuck. Thanks.

University of Rhode Island.

Have you looked at Pitt? I know it was referenced in another post. My dd transferred there from a school with 2,000 students (she originally thought she wanted a small school). She has mentioned that Pitt never feels crowded and her former school always felt crowded. The physical campus also isn’t super large at Pitt (IMO). Plus, the city is great (we live there so I’m very familiar). Good luck to your dd!