I think U of Maryland is her best choice. By far. She can recreate herself in Maryland, find her tribe, and
have warmer weather. Maryland is fantastic for CS, better than Columbia, and less stressed out compared to CMU.
Its near a better city, Washington DC, not the jungle that is New York City, or the sort of depressing grey that is Pittsburgh, and the small intense CS group there. Maryland is on the DC METRO, has special strengths in many quantitative areas, many summer programs like CAAR in CS, and nonlinear dynamics REU, which always accept Maryland students. See the Clark investments in Maryland for engineering. Also the Oculus Labs found donated large sums to U of Maryland. Its by far better than Columbia for anything technical. If she wants to learn to read and write well, Columbia wins by a hair. If she is truly vested in robotics, CMU wins by a hair, but not much more than a hair over Maryland for undergrads.