Perhaps more traditional than I thought

I just finished her applications for high school. I hate, hate, hate that we live in a district where you have to compete to get into a public high school. It isn't even a merit competition; it is a super-secret "decision process" carried out by school administrators in a building that looks condemned. I'm pretty sure it also involves the blood of virgins.
What has been entertaining, though, is engaging her in a (not) very serious conversation about her college goals. She's thinking Stanford, UNC, UW, although she has recently become enamored with a friend of our family who did her undergrad at Dartmouth and her masters at Harvard School of Ed. I told her to keep studying, because our friend's parents footed the bill for most of that and we won't be able to.
This has given me a chance to revist those heady days when I was writing to colleges to request info (writing! those were the days), dreamy about Bryn Mawr until the tuition statement came and Stanford until I didn't get in. I'm torn between hoping she goes far, far away for school and hoping she stays right here at home. Mostly, I just hope she doesn't end up in Pullman.