I don’t think she particularly cares about any of those things. She’s very pragmatic, and trying to figure out where she can get the best education at this point. I think that applying as a junior is different from applying as a freshman: she has more defined college and career goals, and she knows the classes and programming that she wants access to. Boarding v. day and big v. small doesn’t really affect those things… we are very lucky that we live in Boston and so there are a million day school options to choose from, but that’s really just luck that we live here and so has great day v. boarding options.
She’s also a genuinely nice, interesting kid who has always made friends easily in all sorts of environments, so I don’t worry about her socially at any of the schools we’re applying to, all of which are full of smart kids she’ll enjoy hanging out with. There ARE schools that I don’t think she’d be happy at socially, but I don’t think that the kids at any of these schools are markedly different enough that she wouldn’t find her people easily.