I think she is asking questions in a Penn thread, and I would just emphasize one point.
The fact Penn is in the Ivy League sports conference should have no weight whatsoever in her decision. That was just an geographic proximity thing. Schools like Chicago, Stanford, and so on were not somehow less distinguished than Cornell, say, they were just too far away. Same deal with Penn (close enough) versus Duke (too far).
And to be blunt, this is underselling Penn! Penn isn’t a great institution because it plays football with Harvard and Yale. Penn is a great institution because it is a fantastic global research university, with many top departments and schools. It has a really broad range of undergrad programs with all sorts of interdisciplinary connections, offers all sorts of great non-academic programs and activities, and has a location right in the center of a major city.
So choosing Penn for those reasons would make a lot of sense. Choosing it because it is in a certain sports conference is really missing its actual value, in my view.