I wouldn’t worry too much about pressure cooker reputation at UChicago. Yes it is a very academic school, but the students they accept can handle it. I think UChicago also tries very hard to have a diversity of options. The thing about the core is that it forces the students to go deep in a variety of topics.
From one of your other posts, it looks like your daughter is involved in Mock Trial. All 4 of the UChicago teams qualified for the opening round of the National Championship but you can only send two. Both of those teams advanced to championship tournament (next weekend). Neither of of Brown teams advanced out of the opening round.