<p>OP- Please email my s’s and tell them that hanging out on cc is normal for parents . Thank you. :)</p>
<p>I guess I see doing research on CC and elsewhere as responsible parenting. </p>
<p>I see parents all the time who basically ignore their kids, don’t check backpacks when they’re little, never know what’s going on at school, don’t get notes/forms sent back on time, kids miss scout meetings, etc because parents forgot…THOSE parents aren’t on CC.</p>
<p>In my personal opinion…I would be a bad parent if I didn’t help.</p>
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<p>You are very fortunate to have parents who (1) have a realistic picture of their own financial situation, and (2) are willing to share the information with you. This gives you a big advantage over a lot of college applicants (and parents!), many of whom do not have a clue about their family’s finances or the cost of college.</p>
<p>With that financial knowledge in hand, and your obvious independent and self-directed personality, I think you’ll do just great handling the rest of the college application process on your own.</p>
<p>OP - It is great that you and your parents are up on things. There seems to be a lot of sticker shock during college app season, sometimes when it is too late to start over. </p>
<p>After so much time on CC, I was surprised to hear a co-worker tell me that he was sending his middle schoolers to a great charter school (or maybe it was a private school)… thus he expects they will get huge scholarships at the top colleges. He is not doing any financial planning for college.</p>