Originally Posted by echappist

is that a backdoor brag of some sort

jest aside, most state schools would probably love to have her as they are all clamoring for that oh-so-e_wanglicious US News chart. The liberal art schools, especially the Seven Sisters (Holyoke, Smith, etc), may also be worth a shot.

My own high school (Lower Merion outside of Philly) is probably very similar to high schools in your area as in my year, there were ~30 studious types and ~30 who are intelligent enough to do well but just somehow didnt run with the right crowds. A few of the latter scored well enough (1400 and above, i'm showing my age here) to end up at schools with great name cachet, though I don't know how they did since.

I'm probably interjecting too much about now, but one thing you may want to consider is a gap year of sort after high school as people generally end up a lot more mature after that experience. Nick Kristorf of the NYT is a big advocate of this. Looking back, i probably would have benefited from it both between high school and college and then between college and grad school.

In any case, good luck to you and to her.