@DadTwoGirls “Other than an eager desire to get rid of an extra US$200,000 (or C$250,000), I don’t understand why you want to go to the US for university.”
1. Did I not make it clear that I'm hoping for financial aid? I'm not so stupid that I as a poor person from a poor family would get a nearly financially worthless degree from an overpriced American university. It is quite conceivable that I could attend university in the US for less money than I could here IF I get the desired amount of aid.
2. There's a much stronger university culture in the States than there is here, and American students treat university more seriously than do Canadians - or that's what my experience is at any rate. There's a university in the city where I live, and not a small one either at 12,000 some students, and I could attend it for less than $10,000, but I'm not even remotely interested in it because the standards are too low and the students too frivolous; you only need a 65% from high school to get into the faculty of arts, which results in a bunch of underperforming students applying to it because they aren't smart enough to get into the STEM fields. I want to be challenged in university by my classes and professors, and I want to be inspired by the academic rigour of my classmates, and it won't happen at my city's university. Could it happen at a different Canadian university? Only if I won the lottery; universities out of the province, once you take into account residence fees, would make the whole endeavor untenable.
I have other reasons too, but suffice it to say I’ve thought extensively about what I’m doing and have solid reasons for preferring an American university.