@Malm59, sorry, but I agree with the other guy. NE is a fine school, but I’m on #3 now, and I’ve seen many smart kids go through this process in the greater Seattle area. I hear you about the cost (Middlebury, Pomona and now, potentially, Wesleyan, Vassar or Bryn Mawr … and who knows what else). I do, and I’m fortunate to be able to afford it.
As I said to anotherparent22, my experience with this stuff is simple: if the family can afford it (which means different things to different families of course), even if it’s a sacrifice, they’ll trade up. I don’t think I know a single person whose kid attended a Stanford, an Ivy, an MIT, a Rice, a top LAC, who would have chosen NE instead by virtue of a generous package. These people (us included), or should I say our kids, turned down schools like UW Honors college, UTexas, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and even schools like Emory, all of which I’d say are at least comparable to NE, to attend the bigger name. It’s just how it works most of the time it seems.