Absolutely true about fit. My kid is the one who absolutely LOVES St Marks and dropped St Paul’s from his list. But they are both excellent schools.
SMS is a bit smaller than the 400 cut off you mentioned but is the same size as Groton, which is on your list. It is full of very kind kids (DS and myself were interviewed with many questions focused on interacting with others and later found this was to determine if candidates were raised to be kind and selfless as this is the type of student they look for). There is not a flaunting of wealth nor a separation of socioeconomics, race, background or sport. Kids intermingle better than any place I’ve seen.
They have solid soccer and LAX teams but no volleyball…I don’t know if that’s a deal breaker. They have a solid movie making club, which my son joined III form and is now a leader of—the equipment they use is state of the art.
They do sit down meals twice per week…one with community and one with their advisory. They have regular chapel (non denomination based) with senior talks and an occasional evening chapel service. I know myself and a few other CCers have kids there from across the country, and they are all very happy and do not feel like an outsider in the community.
They also have Lion terms which would enable your DD to go abroad to make films, if this is what she wanted to do.
They offered this middle class family generous aid, as well.
If you have questions, please PM. In any regard, I recommend you check SMS out!!