“show them”
I will, in minimum 9 years (2 undergrad, 4 med school, 3 residency). But in the mean time it’s tough as hell.
Parents come in two flavors - those who feel it necessary to treat all their kids the same and those who…don’t.
I’m sorry then. But, no, you are not ungrateful. Not kicking you out is kind of the least they can do.
This might not be the flashiest “bright side” comment, but: You’ll get paid as a resident – obviously not at a doctor’s level, but enough to make it much easier to get by.
Well, I feel for you as I’ve heard similar in my life. It feels unfair and it’s frustrating to be punished for being the responsible one. A few things to keep in mind:
- It could be worse. I know some people hate hearing it and I don’t mean to minimize your feelings but it’s true. Some kids don’t even have help at all with living expenses. No house, food or transportation available.
- While it feels unfair now, please believe me when I say you will be better off in the end than any siblings who are being enabled. It sucks, you will have debt, but you will be stronger. You will know you did it with very little help. Your older brother will be 40 and still have his living expenses subsidized by your parents. You will have a stable, secure life that you have built.
- Graciously accept whatever help your parents give you and know that this period of time is temporary. The less they give you, the less obligation you have to them. Don’t expect that they will ever give you more than they are currently giving you.
4.Get a part time job to help you with books and that kind of thing. If possible, try for one on campus because it will put you into a position to meet other (generally) serious, hard working students. When I was in college, the only campus job available without subsidized work study was in the dining hall. Sounds horrible but there were lots of kids and I made so many great friends (and got free meals!) other fun college kid jobs in my area are at the Y, grocery store and book stores.
Good luck!
mom2twogirls,
(1) those kids get full rides.
(2) Yeah, I suppose that true. And no, they are not “subsidizing” his rent, they pay 100% of it, and 100% of everything else. My brother even refuses to admit he has a psych problem, so no disability pay.
(4) Good advice, I’ll start looking.
Unfortunately, you are stuck.
Your parents went to school in another era where university fees were lower and more scholarship monies were available.
Maybe your father assumes that you can do what he did. He doesn’t want to understand your issues right now because he’s dealing with his “failure” in your brother. Which, in your father’s eyes makes your father a failure.
The sooner you understand that you’re on your own, the better.
In the meantime, you need to be a frequent visitor to the FA office and bug them for opportunities at private and merit based scholarships.
I wish you luck!
Thanks for all the input guys, it’s really helpful.
I am able to graduate in 3 years due to my AP/IB credits, but I won’t be able to apply to med school until the summer after my chronological junior year. Should I graduate and do a postbac, work a job (EMT, lab tech) for a year, or just do a minor?
If your grandfather is still rich and likes you, he may be more likely to help you than your dad. It may be worth a shot. Maybe some med school help ? Likely he and your dad had a really bad relationship and your dad just went and did it on his own.
That said, $20K debt is much less than many of your peers, good choice to commute and go to a good state U.
If you are really a good candidate for med school, working would seem to make sense.
Forget your brother. He is troubled and your family is helping him. Life is fair to neither him (troubled, needing psych help and counseling) or you. You can spend your whole life thinking he got a better deal, but really you got the better deal since you are healthy and motivated and will be a success in life. Unless your brother has a big improvement, he will never have any of that and will likely never have anything resembling a normal life.
There is really no shame in living at home at 20 if you want to be a doctor. You can even likely find a girl that agrees.
And, it likely is a nice home … big room, lots of amenities and common areas for TV, maybe a pool … it’s not a ghetto and likely much, much nicer than a dorm.
And you absolutely can’t blame your lack of friends on your parents or your brother … that is your decision and likely leading you to spend way to much time thinking of how things could be better. Go out, have fun, make friends … college is full of free activities and facilities … stop moping …
We haven’t even talked about the Uniformed Services option yet, including loan repayment for working in underserved areas.
Sorry^^^^
I meant to say, maybe your father feels frustrated by your elder brother’s situation.
“If your grandfather is still rich and likes you, he may be more likely to help you than your dad. It may be worth a shot. Maybe some med school help ? Likely he and your dad had a really bad relationship and your dad just went and did it on his own.”
I’m not sure how to ask him. We play golf usually once a month. Whenever I hint anything financial, he just says “It’s important to understand the value of work.” When I get accepted to med school, I’ll ask him more directly about it.
“And, it likely is a nice home … big room, lots of amenities and common areas for TV, maybe a pool … it’s not a ghetto and likely much, much nicer than a dorm.”
Yeah $2M house beats any dorm! It is just the stigma of living with your parents. “Oh dude which dorm you in?” “My parents” “Oh…nevermind”. That literally happened at least 5 times.
“And you absolutely can’t blame your lack of friends on your parents or your brother … that is your decision and likely leading you to spend way to much time thinking of how things could be better. Go out, have fun, make friends … college is full of free activities and facilities … stop moping …”
That’s probably true, although I live almost an hour away, so it’s difficult to get involved. I don’t have zero friends, just not nearly as many as in high school.
After junior year, you may qualify for a good paying internship that will help pay bills and help your med school application. Research on campus may be a paying gig and you can still live at home. Some internships include cheap room and board …
Family fatigue and some dysfunction between your dad and grandfather and maybe even a lack of understanding of your finances and plans (make a business case for them helping you more with UG and med school, roll it out to dad and granddad) may be to blame.
So, what would happen if you told your folks or your grandparents you were joining the Army to pay for medical school?
You can never really tell anything from one side of a story. Families are complicated and siblings often don’t have the perspective or the knowledge of one another to really understand the choices parents make. As the sister of a little brother who has messed up his own life for 38 years, took most of the family resources to get him help and STILL thinks it’s somehow all MY fault, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the “but he gets everything and doesn’t deserve it” argument. I was bitter too until I grew the hell up, became a parent and finally saw that my while my brother is not a druggie or a criminal or violent, he is not OK. He’s never going to be OK. He doesn’t have the CAPACITY to be OK. My parents either help or they plan his funeral and live forever with that on their conscience. And yes, it means I had to step up and take care of myself but they knew I could. I’m forever grateful I got my combination of genes and not my brothers. As a parent, I’m grateful to not be faced with the life my own parents are shackled to.
You throw in some complaints that were always in your control. If you got an Ivy acceptance, I suspect you could have gotten free tuition and maybe even room/board at a lower ranked school. There are schools where merit scholarship is automatic. Is there a reason you didn’t go in that direction? You signed for 20K in loans which I have to assume includes some private loans they co-signed. You didn’t have to sign. You could have worked and started at community college. Living at home and going to college doesn’t make you a loser. If that’s really your idea of a loser then you have little to no experience in the real world. Your parents have no control over whether you have a girlfriend and friends… plenty of people living at home manage friends and romantic relationships.
Look, I get that you are angry. I’m not assuming you are all to blame nor that your parents are total peaches. You are 20-years-old though. You can’t pretend to be a child at 20. If your parents won’t do more than house and feed you and let you use the car, well, then you have more than many. Do I think you are being ungrateful? Based solely on the manner in which you presented yourself here, I’d have to say yes. I am hoping this an emotional vent though and that you aren’t approaching your parents in such a manner as it won’t accomplish anything.
My advice to to plow through. Just keep working. Focus on your courses. Apply for departmental scholarships. Get involved in some campus activities and make some friends. Try to shed the anger as that is what is keeping you from a relationship. This is what it is and it’s not going to last forever.
Op- I am sympathetic. But your choices are nowhere near as stark as you paint them to be.
Why be pre-med? You could work hard for the next two years, get a job doing X, and start paying off your loans while knowing you are done with school forever.
The decision to go to med school is yours, even knowing that you’ll be piling on more debt on top of what you owe. So you need to own whatever decisions you make going forward.
If you decide that whatever else happens in your life you were meant to be a physician- well, great. Investigate the loan repayment programs in exchange for working in an underserved area. Investigate the military. Sit down with the med school advisor at your college and actually look at med school costs and some loan repayment charts to figure out how long it’s going to take you to pay off the loans.
Your grandfather? I’m not an advocate of the casual, over golf, “Hey grandpa I’m having financial difficulties” school of thought. This is someone who loves you. Give him the courtesy of a phone call- “Hey grandpa, I’d like to come see you to talk about my future medical training and the costs”. Show up with a spreadsheet- don’t wave your hands around to demonstrate that you’ll owe a lot of money- but an actual spreadsheet you’ve made with the help of your med school advisor. It will break out the money you’ve borrowed already, the money you’ll need to graduate from college, plus med school loans. Tell him you’d like his help figuring out a way to achieve your academic and professional goals without putting yourself into hock for the next 20 years.
If he says no- then he says no. But you’ve given him the courtesy of telling him what’s on your mind rather than beating around the bush. And he is likely to respect you for showing up for the meeting prepared, not just asking for a handout. If he tells you that he’s already taken care of you in his will (which I know is the answer a lot of high net worth people give their grandkids who need $ for their education) I think it’s perfectly legitimate and respectful to tell him that if he’d consider an interest free loan- now- when you need it, you will comply with whatever terms his lawyer will need to make sure he’s not giving you more than the other heirs.
@turtletime “Do I think you are being ungrateful? Based solely on the manner in which you presented yourself here, I’d have to say yes.” Could you elaborate? If you have a box full of treats, but you only give your dog one of them, and then the dog realizes you have an entire box of treats and the other dogs are getting plenty more than you, is that dog being ungrateful by questioning the owner’s treat-giving frequency?
@blossom Very good advice. I will definitely keep that in mind when the time comes.
From the OP:
If there have been psych hospitalizations it would seem there is more to the older brothers situation than being a lazy bum. The OP may not be privy to the details but there may be clinical mental illness. Yes, some kids sometimes need to be treated differently than the others.
Can you apply to be an RA your senior year or does your school require RAs to have lived previously in a dorm?
Does the $20k debt include your upcoming third year? Isn’t the loan limit $5500 + $6500 for freshman and sophomore years?
Your parents made mistakes with how they handled the older brother, and sounds like continuing to enable your older brother’s sorry life. They don’t want him under their roof to be a bad example to your younger brothers, while also not wanting the daily reminder of dealing with him and feeling bad about how he is living his life.
Just try to do what you can to remain a good student, remain in good graces with family. Act mature and deal with the cards you have been dealt.
Maybe write out all your student expenses and if parents continue to say ‘do it on your own’…can also have this documentation to show grandfather.
You have been given lots of great benefits up through HS on education, etc.
Lots of families have dysfunction. Good luck.