I think D limited her search unnecessarily on two fronts—first, she wanted a research university rather than an LAC, and second, she wanted a school with a med school/hospital close to the main campus. In retrospect, I don’t think those criteria were as important as she thought they were.
I also think she underestimated the resources available to students at relatively small schools. She went to a relatively big high school (3,000) and couldn’t imagine that a college the same size would have been “enough.” So, she focused on mid-sized colleges, 7,000-12,000. She got it. But I think she might have eliminated schools she would have liked by putting those limits on.