Congrats to your dd! What an amazing group of colleges from which to choose! I have some familiarity with two of them, MIT and Stanford, both amazing places to study but in different ways. If we knew more about your dd it might be easier to advise. How certain is she that she will major in math or a science? I think that is an important question. Also, I see you live in Northern California. Does your dd appreciate good weather, and how does she feel about the bad weather she will encounter on the east coast? Is she looking to get away? How close are you to Stanford? I personally think it is great for kids to have the chance to get away (some distance) to college. Do you live far enough away from Stanford that she will have the sense of starting a new life for herself there (assuming that is important to her)?
I think it would be great if your dd could visit or at least talk to some women at these schools under consideration to see how they are doing at making their schools welcoming to women. Without pointing any fingers, one top school (which may or may not be on your list) had some extremely sexist math professors, and I heard some time back from a woman who was tenured at another top school that she had heard horror stories from some female grad students about incidents at this other school. It is probably easier to be an undergrad (in any case) but I think it is still worth talking to students at each school (probably especially other women) to see how comfortable and happy they are. One of the reasons I would not want to name the school (with the sexist professors) is that these things change, and some schools make a great effort to improve, and I have no idea how the environments have developed over the past several years. I do think it is worth talking to current students though about these kinds of issues.
Wherever your dd decides to go, she will undoubtedly have great experiences and meet other amazing students (as I am sure she is too), and again, big congratulations!
