I guess I can finally join this thread. My kid is outside the top 5 by a wide margin. Her class size is small at her magnet and she had a crappy freshman year due to some personal issues that she's completely bounced back from. She did well on the SAT and wants to take it again to see if she can improve her math score. I'd love her to go to Texas but it's really not in the cards and that's fine. I want her to go where she wants to go because it speaks to her and not because Mom and Dad went there. She wants to be a therapist so she would like to get a degree in Psychology.
We're working with a college counselor who recommended smaller schools. We toured Colorado College and University of Denver. We also checked out CU-Boulder and CSU. She loved Colorado College and CU. It's hard not to as both had great presentations and you cannot beat the views just outside the campus. She liked CSU but that was a bit more remote. I feel that would be a good one if they offered some scholarship money. She did not like Univ of Denver but made a friend who lives here in the process so that was cool. We also looked at UTSA since we went down on Saturday for the Trinity University open house. UTSA was more if she was somehow offered the 1 year at a UT-affiliate option before getting acceptance to Texas her sophomore year. Trinity was really great. That's one that I could see her doing really well at. I just don't know how much they could give us to make it competitive but it's worth an application as they don't charge a fee to apply. We don't plan on doing any early decision applications as we don't want to be tied to an option that might be too expensive. None of them really so far have been one where she said she would want to be there over anywhere else...except CU.
We'd like her to get out of Texas if it makes sense but obviously don't want to break the bank in the process. She's not really a kid who I think would do well at some of our Texas options. I really don't want her to stay in DFW if possible. Our guy also recommended looking at San Diego State, UC San Diego, University of San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and Cal Poly. I think the last option is a reach for her based on their requirements. My niece goes there so we know it's good so we may just apply because why not? We're looking at a trip to San Diego in September to tour the 3 there. We're going to Disneyland in August and will take a few hours one day while there to head to tour UC Irvine since it's 25 minutes away by Uber. UC Santa Barbara is a bit too remote. He also said Oregon could be a decent option for her if she's comfortable with its size. We're going to a small college fair in August to also check out those options. I think Southwestern will be there.
Any other places we should look either in California or Texas? I don't think she'd do well in the SEC schools.