First of all, Goosegg, thank you for your excellent and incredibly helpful information! And K9, I really appreciate your personal perspective and you made some great points. My big takeaway is that we have a lot of planning to do (financial and otherwise) and many hoops yet to go through, but crossing the Ivy schools off the list now purely based on the sticker price would not be prudent. Unless my son's interest level in those schools changes before then, I think we'll go ahead with our January trip.
In terms of what my son's career goals are, that is as clear as mud at this point. He is very strong in the sciences and math and loves biology, so I would not be surprised if he did something down that path (of course, I know from following this board that STEM degrees are tough for athletes). As I am sure is the case with many of your kids, he has quite a full plate now with AP classes at school, after school workouts 4 days a week, volunteer hours a few days a week, helping drive his younger sister to her activities several days a week, traveling to fall showcases/camps for baseball, and occasionally finding time to hang out with his friends. And this is his quiet season--once basketball starts in Nov along with off season training for his summer baseball team, his entire days will be full. All of that to say that he is used to balancing a lot and I think he thrives on it. So, while he doesn't quite know yet what field he wants to pursue, I think he is the type of kid that will push himself to reach very high career goals in whatever field he ends up in and will be willing to put in the work to get there.
Personally, I am with Goosegg in that I am at the stage of my life where work/life balance is a priority. But, I did not start out that way and I earned the privilege of now being able to set my hours and slow down. I may yet have some runway to ramp back up once both my kids are out of the house, but I may be too used to my current pace by then! 