05-22-2015, 12:35 PM
Farm93, I think you're absolutely right that kids around the Bay Area tend to think that the "good college" world begins and ends with Stanford and UCB. I was so concerned about that that I took my son on his first trip to see colleges the month after he graduated from 8th grade. We didn't see anyplace that turned out to have the slightest interest for him, but he realized that there were lots and lots of places on the East Coast that might be just right. And indeed he wound up on the East Coast. (The risk I took, which came true, is that he'd wind up staying there... But at least he's in a nice place to visit.)