If you know up front that the finances will be a stretch- but a coach is expressing real interest in your DD- be up front about your concerns and see what they say. Schools with larger endowments will clearly have deeper pockets - in NESCAC, Williams endowment is about $4 billion, so they may have leeway about the financial package given your resources, age and living situation. Where they won't bend is on academics, so your DD should make sure she keeps her GPA up, is aggressive with her academics and take SAT and ACT next year as a sophomore, maybe in the early spring so that she can go into sophomore summer with the numbers in hand. It lets the coaches know is she is in the recruitment ballpark.
FInally, I think there is alot of common sense posted above. I can speak from personal experience, that there are some D3 schools like Muhlenberg which has an excellent pre-law; pre-med; pre-vet; pre-everything program- whose students are highly regarded by professional schools (e.g. where I work)- my DS who was a stellar test taker- was offered 25K merit towards tuition, there as well as at Gettysburg College which is a solid D3 school. So slightly lower target rep-wise can give great yield with regard to $$ but still position your DD well for post-college life.
FInally, I think there is alot of common sense posted above. I can speak from personal experience, that there are some D3 schools like Muhlenberg which has an excellent pre-law; pre-med; pre-vet; pre-everything program- whose students are highly regarded by professional schools (e.g. where I work)- my DS who was a stellar test taker- was offered 25K merit towards tuition, there as well as at Gettysburg College which is a solid D3 school. So slightly lower target rep-wise can give great yield with regard to $$ but still position your DD well for post-college life.
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