<p>MUZICMAN: to be honest, it's too soon to begin such a fight. You won't be applying to any school until the Fall. The most important thing that you can do right now is be sure that your grades are at their very best this term and the next because colleges look at those two terms as extremely important. </p>
<p>Also, you might want or need to visit some other schools, taking into account your grades and SAT scores, as you and your parents may want to consider some other possible backup schools besides UCs.</p>
<p>Brown, as you probably know, is a very popular choice among college applicants nowadays. Unless you have something really really special (also known as a "hook") your chance of admissions are probably around one in 15 or 20, at most. Applying ED may make the chances better, but it's hard to say by how much.</p>
<p>You and your parents will have to decide in the end just how much money they can put into college education, whether or not you consider it "fair". College costs are very similar to house-buying in the Bay Area in terms of "sticker shock" and rising costs. If you want to go to Brown that much, you may have to show your maturity to your parents by putting together good reasons why you should apply ED no matter what the cost will be (because by doing so you and your parents will have committed to pay for whatever the costs turn out to be - the admissions person you spoke with will have little or no input into any financial aid award).</p>
<p>Oh yes, by the way, experience of many of us parents has shown that our kids' ways of thinking can change quite a bit from the spring of the junior year to the fall or spring of the senior year, including their thoughts about which college is "right" for them.</p>
<p>Good luck with the process and with your application(s).</p>