<p>Hi MinneMom2, We went through the same thing with our daughter last year. My D was also high stats, NMF etc. and by the end of her Jr. year her wish list of colleges were all elite, difficult to get into and mostly need based only FA or a few with very competitive merit scholarships. We had a heart to heart with her and explained our financial situation to her in detail. We said she could apply to any colleges she wanted to but she had to come up with a few academic safety/likely matches and financial safeties that she would be happy to attend. She sulked for a couple of weeks, but then jumped into the search. We helped her with suggestions and some research, but really left it mostly up to her. I think that was really the key because in the end she owned those choices. She had one match on her list already, our excellent state flagship- great school, but bigger than she wanted. She decided she could be happy there if she was in the honors college and joined some clubs that interested her. She found another large state school that she liked a lot of things about except for size, it had rolling admissions, lower overall cost and automatic scholarships. And she found a midwest LAC that was similar to many of the elite east coast schools she liked, just less well known and less prestigious. It had all the specific things she was looking for, strong academics, D3 sports, excellent school orchestra accessible to nonmajors and in a not too small town. In the end she was admitted to all 3 of these schools before xmas and ended up choosing (and falling in love with) the LAC. She did apply to 2 elite east coast schools, but decided on the LAC before she heard back about admission from those. I hope this story helps and I wish you the best in your search!</p>