This is such an interesting discussion, but in the end from what I hear from parents, it is the seminary who picks the girls and not the other way around. As much as the seminaries are a fortune, and each one may or may not have a different concept to attract a different type in the end it is all in their hands. From what I know both Bnos Chava and BJJ only accept a few students from each school. There could be 75 applicants but they will only take 3 for example each year from the particular school. All 75 may be as qualified but that is what they do. So even though you do all your research and decide on Bnos Chava or BJJ because they consider themselves the top of the line and the best of the best they play the selection game with you and keep you waiting with bated breath to hear whether or not you are accepted and keep you in suspense tied up in knots wondering if you should have applied to 5 or 10 other seminaries each at $100 a pop. So depending on how much money you have to waste, it might be wise to sit down with the advisor at your daughter’s H.S. and ask what are the realities of her getting into any one of these seminaries. Then ask your daughter which one she would prefer because she is not a little kid anymore and she has to decide where she wants to go, how much work she wants to do and what kind of girls she wants to spend the entire year with.
If you don’t include your daughter in the decision making process you are asking for trouble down the line. The experience can be an amazing one or it can be a debilitating one if a teen is not prepared for it. Don’t forget that she is going away from home, to another country, on her own, where she will be expected to be independent. Where she will be expected to make her own plans for Shabbos and Yomim Tovim (they don’t make arrangements for you for Shabbos and Yom Tov, and they don’t have family style shabbosim in the dorms!). They also expect you to take care of yourself which means going to the store yourself (hebrew speaking makolets) buying groceries (mostly labeled in hebrew) converting your own money and making change, and cooking and feeding yourselves. In most of the stricter seminaries there is a dress code and as mentioned some actually have uniforms and they lock the girls into the building at night. Seriously, the doors are locked so they can’t get out. Many have dorms or apartments where there are no elevators and the girls are walking and shlepping their belongings, books and laundry up 4, 5, even 8 floors. If you make the decision for your daughter and she has no input then it is you who are to blame for all the hardships and inconveniences that fall upon her at the particular seminary you chose. However, if she chooses or you make the decision together, then she has an equal share in the responsibility. In addition and even more important, when she chooses she is responsible to herself to do the best she can and to enjoy what she is doing. If you “send” her, then she is responsible to do it for you and make you proud of her that adds additional pressure on her and believe me there is enough pressure in the top seminaries.
If your daughter is homesick or unhappy at the seminary she will gravitate to girls from other seminaries who will sympathize with her and offer her empathy. These might not be the type of girls you initially intended for her to be friends with or spend the year with. She will be happy to spend Shabbosim with them, etc. The Seminary can not and does not supervise the girls as much as you think they do, after all they expect them to be mature young adults worthy of that seminary. Teens who are unhappy can get themselves into uncomfortable situations when they are on their own far away from their families. So please it is more important to ask your daughter where she wants to go and what she knows about these seminaries from her friends, she should do her on investigations as well. Her opinion is really so much more important than ours.