All good advice…Remember that your child’s priorities may very well change as she matures and grows as a student and performer. As you develop and evolve your spreadsheet I highly recommend that if you eliminate a school from the list, you copy and paste the details you had already researched to another page in your spreadsheet and mark it with a reason for the elimination so if you want to reevaluate the school you have a starting point. If your child makes a decision that eliminates a large number of schools from your active list you will want to look for other schools to add back.
I worked on my spreadsheet almost every day through the whole process. I added hyperlinks to the schools’ program page and to the admissions page. My columns included: # students; Location (including distance from home in hours); Type of program (BA,BFA,BM), Average GPA/SAT admitted; Cost; Whether I thought it was academic safety, reach or target; General notes that included opinions discovered on CC and by reviewing the websites.
Once we determined which schools she was applying to, I created another page in the spreadsheet that included all the audition and academic application requirements.
I do not think you should start with the schools featured at the top of the CC MT forum. It has not been updated to include many of the newer programs. Since you have a geographical limit anyway, I would recommend visiting the Big List of MT programs and systematically reviewing every school. There will be many you can eliminate quickly for one reason or another (remember to keep that list of why you are eliminating them). Also remember that CC is a collection of opinions not facts. Although extremely insightful, many of these opinions were gathered years ago, and applied to one person’s experience. Do your own research and check facts!