The University of Lynchburg is another quintessential small liberal arts college of 1500 students in Lynchburg, Virginia, a small city of about 80,000 people. It's one of the Colleges that Change Lives, a wonderful group of institutions that, frankly, are underrated. Their academic and social bang for their buck is much more powerful than their apparent bumper sticker value.

The most popular majors here are Exercise Physiology, Nursing, Criminology, Psychology and Business Administration. Some really great facilities include a cadaver lab and an anatomage table as well as a Bloomberg trading room floor where students can become certified and trade up to $100K of the university's endowment. For the Criminology majors, there's a crime scene investigation course run by a former Boston Police Detective that uses the whole campus as its lab. Class sizes max out at 25 and the Intro to Physics class often has 14-15 people. Trust me, that's what you want when you're in a pre-med or pre- health track of any kind.

There's also a leadership institute that actually offers a minor in Outdoor Leadership, which is convenient as the college overlooks the Blue Ridge Mountains and outdoor activities are very popular here, including canoeing, rafting, paddleboarding backpacking, hiking fly fishing, climbing, and caving. There are also many Division 3 teams on campus - 50% of students are recruited athletes - with a lot of support from the student body. In fact, the baseball team won the 2023 national championship! Greek life is also an option here, with about 18% of students participating, but I'd like to note that there is a very strict no hazing policy, which is always good to hear. Model UN is very strong here; they compete against colleges in the ivy league and often win.

With an all-in price of $50K, automatic merit scholarships of up to $22K, and some stackable scholarships on top of that, the University of Lynchburg is a great value! Admissions is rolling and they start sending out decisions September first. So this would be a great school to get an early answer from!