@zinhead my parents have no problem with location as long as it’s in the US.
@midatlmom Princeton is actually my first choice!
@Much2learn yeah my dad is a lot less extreme than my mom. He may try the convince her to let me go to a more liberal college because of the quality of education and, as you said, the grad school prospects afterwards.
Unfortunately, I just briefly talked to my dad and he said they won’t be able to provide me with much help at all. If I got into a very good school that I couldn’t cover on my own with small loans and work, they may be able to contribute some just as an investment into my future; however based on what he’s said, I wouldn’t be able to attend a college other than the flagship, HYP, possibly Swarthmore or bowdoin, or anywhere that I would get significant merit aid. Although they tend to be brutally pessimistic and giving the worst possible estimate, it seems these are my only options.
My dad suggested getting very deep into debt in order to have a good UG education (if I didn’t get to one of my top choices) but I’m not going to do this.
It frustrates me that they didn’t tell me this earlier, haven’t helped me in my college search, and haven’t educated themselves on paying for their daughter’s college as much as they could’ve in order to help me (their situations in college were very different).