LOL LF
nava: Those are all pretty different, from what I know of them from friends who have gone to them.
Darchei Binah is a charedi-run seminary with girls running the gamut from equally charedi to from more MO backgrounds. The teachers and education is charedi. It gets a lot of chilled-BY girls.
Tomer Devorah is I believe similar in some ways faculty-wise, but with a more eclectic and MO-oriented student body.
MMY is completely MO and has a much more academically “serious” vibe than the others. (Shaalvim would be the more “warm and huggy” version- Michlalah would be the somewhat more charedi-oriented version.)
If you’re looking solely for serious, based on the schools you mentioned I would pick MMY if you’re looking for an MO place and Michlalah if you’re looking for a more charedi-style place. (In the past I wouldn’t have put Michlalah down as charedi-style- I went there, and it seemed to be making an effort not to pin itself down- but now that R Copperman zt”l is gone and there have been other administration changes, I think it’s heading more in that direction. It’s still definitely not a BY.) Of course, there will be girls of all types in all of these places- but if you are serious, you will find serious girls there to grow with.
If you’re looking for something more in the style of DB and TD, what about Midreshet Tehillah? I get the impression of it being similar. In all of these places there will be academically and spiritually serious girls (I know a girl who went from one to Harvard, and several baalei teshuva who went to another) but I get the impression that the emphases in the program are different.
I could be misreading some of this, as I obviously only went to one of the sems on this list* :), but I know people who have gone to all three and been very happy. I would contact the administrations with specific questions. (And I’d be glad to answer questions about the Mich if you’re interested!)
*actually, I do know a girl who went to two of the seminaries I mentioned here- one for shana alef and one for shana bet…