As long as she's not going into some sort of tech or art degree program, most notebooks will be fine. Dito on what has been said about size and such.

Get all the RAM in it that the slots will hold. It might come in handy later, and it's a chore sometimes to upgrade RAM.

I envy you. My son graduates next month and is going into a program that will likely require a Mac. The price for what he seems to need is at least 2X what you're planning to spend. We're a Windows shop here, so to speak, even though most of our time is engaged in what are considered Mac functions.

I've told him that he can't count on me for tech support if he gets a Mac.

Some universites have computer packages available, with maybe bettern-than-street pricing. But that mainly seems to be in engineering, based on what a neighbor says.