<p>Dad II, your daughter is a rising freshman. Who knows what the future holds? She may or may not want to go get a graduate degree. She could change her mind entirely – and that’s just fine.</p>
<p>What if your daughter loves it out there in California and decides to apply to a UC for graduate school? What if she changes her mind entirely and decides to apply to, oh, I don’t know, divinity school? Who knows? Why does it need to be predetermined? I think a lot of the frustration that people have with you is that you pre-judge that only certain places are worth going to and that only certain paths are worthwhile. She’s 18 yo and her path to H/Y/MIT grad school is already being written for her. That’s not great, that’s sad. </p>
<p>I echo the other poster in that it’s not a good idea just to expose ds to Harvard, Yale, MIT (and presumably Stanford), because you’re doing exactly what we’ve all been telling you not to do – hanging your hopes on several schools that are complete crapshoots for almost everyone, no matter how smart.</p>