1.”Do you think Machon Raaya would be okay with me going away to college?”
I don’t know.
2. “I may be wrong about the first two, please let me know if you have another perspective!”
Something in your original post was edited, so I have no idea what you are asking me! Sorry!
3. “By RWMO, I assume you mean hashkafically and not politically?”
yes. I mean, sincerely Frum.
4. “Do you think the places you mentioned would be unanimously right wing politically?”
I’m not sure what you mean by that. Are you talking about Israeli politics – not giving away land, pro-settlements, etc?
I would imagine the more Bais Yaakov places don’t talk much about politics altogether. The non-Bais Yaakovs tend to be pretty right-wing politically when it comes to the above issues. I don’t know how much it is discussed – it probably depends what’s going on in the country at the time. But again, is that what you are talking about?
5. Also, I suppose seminaries have marriage focused classes – are they the kind of stuff I’ve heard in high school (support your hubby’s learning, passive female roles etc.)?
It really depends on the school. MMY doesn’t talk much about that type of stuff. You can choose your classes, so even if there are one or two classes like that (which I don’t know if there even are), you would not have to take those classes.
I don’t know about the other schools mentioned. I think that most of these schools are on the open-minded side in terms of being understanding about where their students are coming from, but I don’t know how each compares to the other in that way.
“By the way, in terms of academics, I would love to have interesting Judaics classes, but I dislike the way most of high school was memorization. I would want a year without lots of pressure so that I’m not worn out when I get to college. At the same time, I do like learning and don’t want to be around people whose goal is to skip class.”
MMY pretty much fits that description. In terms of pressure, it depends how you define pressure. Unless things have changed, they don’t give much homework besides for studying for Finals during Finals time, so you don’t have that kind of pressure.
What they do have is a lot of cheverusa time including night seder (when you can learn with a chevrusa anything you want) from approximately 8:00 -9:45 at night (unless the schedule has changed over the years). But there are breaks during the day.
I think Machon Raayah, Darchei Binah, and B’nos Avigail all fit that description as well – interesting classes, not memorization type of learning, girls who seriously want to learn.
I do not know how Machon Raayah and B’nos Avigail are in terms of pressure. I don’t think that’s an issue at Darchei Binah.