My oldest decided she would no longer wear diapers the day we moved into our new house. She was around 1 & 1/2, and I was sooooo not ready to deal with it. But she only had a few accidents and was out of diapers at night by the time she was 2. By contrast, the youngest was 3 1/2 and refused to go in the toilet. I finally used one of my older kids Star Wars video games as bribery - go in the toilet, play the game. It worked.
The point is that kids are all so unique - ours are often even more unique - and there is no manual. It's all trial and error. If she wants to wear panties, let her - but also be prepared to start scoping out public bathrooms wherever you go and making sure she goes every couple of hours while you're out. Let her be in the driver's seat on this one. If she's not ready, put her in pull-ups (they still make those, right?).
But don't make it tied to school. Then the two get mixed up in her head. Are there play groups, etc. that will meet the socializing aspects? I found the longer pre-schools were a terrible match for my kids, so we went to library story-time, checked out books and came home and "played school" a lot. We went to museums, etc. where my kids weren't horribly bored and could learn and ask questions at their pace. And we used Living Books on the computer.
But dont beat yourself up. We all qualify for mom-of-the-year some days and then think we've colossally blown it on others.
