This does bring to mind a question for me: how does one ascertain if the culture of a school lends toward a HG+ kid with deep passions finding intellectual and emotional peers?

We are just starting the college visiting tours with dd14 as she's going into her junior year in the fall. We are going to kill two birds with one stone so to speak later this summer by visiting family out of state and looking at a uni that is near those family members that has been in dd's top few for some time. While we're there, we are also going to try to look at another campus that someone recommended that is fairly close. Over spring break of her junior year, I plan to send her to visit my mom in another state and have my mom take her to look at another school that is in her top few list.

She's hoping to get a feel for what these schools offer and whether she likes big or small, but everyone is going to tell us that they have a great fit for her socially I'm sure. How does one know if that is true? FWIW, she is not interested in Ivy League schools, just normal "good" schools like UW Seattle, Stetson in FL, etc. partially because these schools have an undergraduate major in her very specialized area of interest.