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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I don't actually want "the best" for my kid. "Good" is good enough for him and me. I am not willing to spend my child's teen years hounding him nonstop to achieve-achieve-ACHIEVE in order to acquire THE BEST. And even if he were one of those kids who drives himself relentlessly, without any push from me, I am not willing to spend (borrow) the amount of money that "the best" colleges will cost me.
Being upper middle class has its privileges, at least for me. I run the expected financial contribution calculator and the college net price calculators, and they generally spit out a number that is wholly unacceptable to me. They may think we can afford that amount; I don't. Once you realize that you aren't willing/able to pay for HYP, you stop worrying about whether your kid has what it takes to get in.

If you don't have the resources, you don't have the resources. HYP and their ilk give ZERO merit aid. ZERO. There will be no scholarships to "the best" schools that aren't directly related to your family income. If we were relatively poor, I'd be more interested in "the best" for my kid--both because "the best" schools are the most generous with financial aid and because the research shows that attending "the best" colleges makes a difference only for low income students, students of color, and first-generation college students. But for my upper middle income, white child of highly educated parents--research shows that "the best" conveys little benefit.

So breathe easy. All will be well.[/quote]

I partly agree with you.  We do push our child to always do his best but have just realized that no matter how much he achieves he will not be able to attend a top school because we can't afford to send him and I cannot countenance having him saddled with a lot of debt.
We have just figured this out in the last year and recently had a conversation with our hard-working, bright child about how we could not afford to pay $240K for four years at an Ivy but how we earned too much to qualify for any need-based financial aid which is all the top 50 colleges typically offer.  It is unfortunate - if you are poor, you have the opportunity to get FA, if you are rich you have the means to pay but if you are an upper middle class family you are out of luck.  Of course upper middle class by national standards is usually just barely getting by in the DMV.  So, dc will have to go to UMD which is what we can afford.

[/quote]

We are in the same situation with our son and his college options are going to be all in-state.  We're in VA, so there are quite a few to choose from, but I do feel somewhat guilty that we can't do OOS for him.  [/quote]

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