There were lots of snafus for this kid. Correct me if I’m wrong…but the parent actually didn’t submit the financial aid application documents to the girl’s top choice schools…at all…last year. The student never wanted to attend UMass…it was the parent choice. The student has bounced from reason to reason regarding why she doesn’t like UMASS…classes too large, classes too crowded, not in a major city, doesn’t like hospitals for clinicals and really wants to be in Boston.
And she wanted to be in Boston from the get go as a high school senior…but remember…parent didn’t submit the financial aid application forms to those schools. Big OOPS.
This year, hopefully all the forms have been submitted, and hopefully this will work out for this student. Apparently she hates UMass sufficiently that she is willing to go to a CC for a year…thus extending her college years in all likelihood.
Maybe the parents could agree to help the kid out financially since she did save them money this year by attending UMass.
Yeah, I remember that, too, and OP saying they really didn’t understand the process last year. I hope this time around the FAFSA and all the other aid docs got filed on time, but for a transfer we know that packages may not be the greatest.
Ellen94, have you listened to the posters here on why the 2 hour from home rule is an arbitrary one that just increases the tension and difficulty of the situation? Is there a “reason” for the 2 hour rule (a medical issue, a dying parent, etc.), or is this just your arbitrary line in the sand? If so, does that help or hurt the situation to cling to such a rule?
“I just do not want to be responsible for either paying for break housing (which is very expensive) or plan tickets home.” - Don’t worry so much about that. Just look at total costs, including transportation, when you compare schools.
There is no medical issue, but she needs to be around for her brother and the family; if I want her home for the weekend for whatever reason, I want her to be able to come.
I’ll weigh in on this. Your daughter will have increasing responsibilities at college as she becomes an upperclass student. Are you saying you must have her at home…any time you ask? This is the first time this issue has been mentioned on any of your threads.
Honestly, I feel like it’s one excuse after another why this student can’t attend college where she wants to attend. First…last year, the parent neglected to submit financial aid forms for the preferred schools. The student was then encouraged by the parent to attend the college she is at. Then you said the student wanted to come home on weekends…no mention of the need for her to come home for you…or a sibling.
Bopping home for multiple weekends per semester wouldn’t have worked for either our student 40 minutes away or our student 700 miles and 2 plane rides away. They had too many academic and extracurricular commitments, including work and internships, to make that realistic. If a family crisis necessitated that amount of time at home, they each would have had to skip a semester, regardless of geography.
Is there some health issue with her brother? I’m trying to understand why you think it’s reasonable for her to drop everything and return home on your command. This is not usual, nor does it seem like a good idea for a busy nursing student.
I don’t know how else to say this, but from an outsider’s perspective this is incredibly self-centered and it honestly makes it sound like you only care about what your daughter can do for YOU and your family.
Your daughter is an individual. She deserves to be able to be her own person and not run her life around her brother and family.
She needs to be around for her brother and the family, but there is no medical issue?
Do you need her as a free babysitter so that you can hold down a job that is necessary to keep the family afloat? Is this some kind of cultural thing vis-a-vis the place of girls? When your son goes to college, is he going to be subject to the same demands?
I’m sorry, but this latest thing does sound very questionable.
Ellen, I think you are trying to have it all and thus are spinning in circles looking for it. Your daughter wants to go to a sleep away college that has nursing as a major, but she (and you) want her to come home every weekend, you want the cost to be low, she wants the class size to feel cozy and for all the students to be intellectual and not party and for there not to be too many of them (i.e. UMass is too big and the students not serious about anything but drinking).
You need to list all the requirements, and in the order they are the most important to you. 1) ‘Not Umass’; 2) close enough to come home almost every weekend; 3) nursing; 4) cost, after FA, of $15000. It seems that the actual major of nursing has fallen lower on the list to make room for ‘ability to come home most weekends’ and ‘not UMass’ at the top. It really seems that community college is the best choice if being near home is the most important.
Sometimes you just can’t have it all. For me, giving up the 4 year college experience would be huge and I know I’d stay at UMass, but if your daughter doesn’t want the 4 year experience if it has to be at UMass, she’ll make another choice. She has to realize the choice may not be UMass v NEU, but UMass or nothing (or community college). Whether she likes it or not, she may not be able to afford NEU or the other Boston options. It is not just getting into another school, it is being able to afford it once you get in. Does she really want to pay $30k+ per year to NOT be a nurse?
I’ve been following this saga since your first thread, and I honestly hope your daughter is able to finish her degree as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then is able to get as far away from you as she can and needs to. You wonder why your relationship with your daughter is so poor (which you mentioned in your first thread had been so for quite some time) when you are the most controlling, selfish, and narcissistic parent I have ever seen on here. You have been constantly undermining her and controlling her choices for no logical reasons since she began her college search. In spite of that, your daughter is obviously very bright and determined, and it is obvious this ordeal with you will only make her a stronger person in the end. She has my sympathies.
Don’t be surprised that when she is finally free from your control in a few years you end up hearing very little from her. It’s more than you deserve.
I thought the “coming home on frequent weekends” was just a way to get over the hump of finishing at UMass. I was not under the impression that this student wanted this forever. But then, I also was not under the impression that the mom needed this, for some reason.
Maybe there is a reason why the student wants to look more than 2 hours from home. Maybe, just maybe, she wants to stay at college.
OP- I know a lot of families that want the kids at close by colleges for sibling and family reasons. Grandma’s 85th birthday, nephew’s christening, a big bridal shower for a cousin… these things seem to happen every other weekend. And I honor and respect families where this is the expectation for a 19 or 20 year old college student.
But these families typically differ from yours in one meaningful way in terms of your predicament-
They understand that their cultural or family or religious preferences/needs impose a burden on their college students/young adults, and therefore they do EVERYTHING they can to make the college experience successful including being on the hook for full pay tuition, taking on loans, HELOC, buying the kid a car to help with transportation back and forth, etc. They realize that their kid could have gotten a big merit award 800 miles away, and so to facilitate this “must be within two hours” lifestyle choice, they accept that it’s going to cost them out of pocket and for their future indebtedness.
So I think you guys collectively need to decide which requirements you are going to relax- debt? distance? degree? recognizing that by senior year, even the most devoted nursing student is not going to be able to get home more than once or twice a semester. But I think once you all relax one or more criteria, this will become a lot easier.
And do recognize that your D’s interest in coming home during a less than optimal Freshman year is going to diminish if she actually likes her college!!!
She doesn’t want to come home forever, but she has agreed to be home twice a month on the weekends to help out with my son, who’s going through a rough time. She wants to go to Northeastern, and if the package is the same as it was last time, we’ll make it work.