Even if you never go to college, that hard work in high school wasn’t wasted. You got an education! But you’re right about all the stress. My kid who wound up at a tippy-top was so stressed out during the fall of senior year that they developed severe TMJ from clenching their teeth in their sleep, and also had their hair falling out. It was horrible. But that kid would also have been pretty happy to have wound up at our flagship state U, wouldn’t have felt as if all the work would have been a waste.
I know plenty of spectacular students who wound up at our flagship state U (usually in the honors program), and did incredibly well there, became student leaders there, because that’s just who they were, whether they got into a T20 school or not.
If you had friends in high school, you will find your tribe in college, no matter where you go. Even for many who were loners in high school, they still find their people in college, because you self-track into meeting people who share your interests. Even at party schools, there are people who aren’t partiers. Some schools with a rep for partying also have honors or sober dorms.
You don’t have to worry about boxing yourself out of the potential for med school. You can always finish your premeds after college, and then apply. If you want engineering, you can still wind up going to med school. And guess what, med schools like to admit music majors, so that’s still an option, too.
That whole thing of whether to do motherhood or career is SO 1970s. Nowadays, women definitely have the option of both, even of single motherhood. Absolutely no need to stress about that ahead of time.
Money. It is always a good idea to be graduated from college debt-free. So if your family is like so many, earning/having too much to qualify for much fin aid, but unable to pay the now 80K/yr for private college, then your flagship state U is probably your best option. You need to have a frank talk with your parents about college finances. I pre-empted applications to schools that weren’t going to be an option financially, when that was relevant, since I knew we’d be deemed full pay. You might want to look into schools where you could get a huge merit scholarship, if your stats are very good. You could have a great college experience and come out having saved the family a ton of money, which will take some pressure off of the money for grad school issue.
I think that you are worrying WAY too much over things that you shouldn’t be, right now, like how will you combine motherhood and career. Even this level of college application freak out is too high for a junior in January. That tells me that this isn’t just about college. Either something else is stressing you, or you may have a predisposition to anxiety, where your mind just searches for something, anything to worry about.