As her parent, I'm sure you want to do everything possible to make her "dream school" attainable. Even if it means selling your organs to send her to the University of New Jersey at Durham. *shudders*
Having attended a comparably "elite," comparably priced private research U. in the Midwest; dropped out; worked for 10 years; returned there as an adult student; and worked for several years at the University while earning my degree...I've seen a lot of smart people come and go. The wisdom of investing in a $200,000 education probably depends on what field she wants to go into and what personality type she has.
In the STEM fields, the top-ranked national universities tend to have the best combination of facilities, grant awards, and endowed professorships (read: genius faculty) to accomplish interesting research. The occupational outlook for that industry is trending up, so she may not have to starve. Business, IMO, tends to be a clubby industry where the name on the degree determines a lot about who recruits you coming out of college.
At our school, there are students and parents paying $200K for the theatre performance program. Maybe 0.00001% of that population is gainfully employed at any given time. So look at the unemployment rate and median entry-level salary for her industry before you let her do something "drastic," like apply ED to Duke.
The other thing to consider is if she's a extroverted type who moves through diverse social groups easily--or an introvert who requires time to form trusted, close-knit relationships. In my observation, we lost more kids to transfers at our school because they couldn't find their social niche than because they couldn't do the work. (HS seniors today worry about being untouchable if they haven't found their clique after orientation week. Which is absurd, but...)
Is she considering any liberal arts colleges? Kids sometimes avoid them because they anticipate "High School 2.0." Or parents confuse "small school" with "mediocre education." If she's hard-working but quiet, there's a big difference between a 30:1 student-faculty ratio in a first-year survey course at a small college vs. 600:1 at Big State U. Peer-wise, I would think that being in a small community where the same faces with the same interests show up at the same events tends to favor strong relationship formation.
At the end of the day, education is a journey. Lots of kids set themselves up to fail by building expectations around "my perfect fit": perfect degree program, perfect freshman dorm, perfect club officer position, perfect fraternity/sorority, etc. So try to keep her expectations realistic if she starts obsessing that School A is dream--so that she'll be ready to engage and learn if School B is the reality.
