Does she seek a particular campus “look?” Not explicitly, but she has visited enough schools that her preferences have become evident. Perhaps Colby is similar to Brandeis in the way mentioned above–that’s a school that, unfortunately, she was unable to visit–she had time to see three of Midd/Bowdoin/Bates/Colby and Colby drew the short straw. Perhaps lady luck rewarded her.
@homerdog: That’s a reasonable, realistic thought. We’re just treating this whole process like a giant chess puzzle–there may be no perfect series of moves, but you start by trying to eliminate the bad ones first.
Something I try to remember, which I’ve mentioned to a couple of you in private messages but don’t think I posted it here (if so, I apologize for the repetition), is that while each student is trying to find the best school for them, the schools are trying to find the students they think are the best match, too. Rejections just mean that the school doesn’t think that there is a good match, not that the student is necessarily not qualified or not smart enough. We just need to try to identify that small Venn diagram circle where there is that simultaneous attraction.
Even though there is no definitive answer, this thread has been enormously helpful in getting us closer to that elusive truth.