I think you mis-read.
She’s choosing to go to Alabama because it IS a larger school than Duke or Stanford.
Maybe it’s a degree of unfamiliarity combined with unconscious acceptance of the SEC stereotype, but the only SEC school I’ve ever thought had an outstanding academic reputation is Vanderbilt.
Actually, she’s not sure where she’s going. She’s applying to larger universities: Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, and Clemson.
She has a full tuition scholarship to Alabama already, but we haven’t heard from the others.
She has a very rare medical condition called dystonia, and they are doing research at Alabama that my daughter could particpate in .
http://bama.ua.edu/~gcaldwel/research.html
She hasn’t visited Alabama yet, but she’s going in a few weeks.
She loved the University of Georgia. Her brother goes to Texas A&M (that’s where I went). She thinks it’s too big and not artsy enough for her. Her brother thinks she will love it.
Vanderbilt and Yale have been sending her lots of information, but she just isn’t interested. Plus, she can only go to those if she gets a good scholarship.
She thinks the Ivies would be better for grad school. If she has a good scholarship for undergrad, then we can help pay for grad school.