Help!! My parents are driving me craazy

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I’m a junior in HS and I want attend either Amherst or Mount Holyoke. I'm from the Midwest and I want a change. I feel like if I stay in my home state I will become too comfortable and never leave. My parents have decided my school choices lie in either my home state or North Carolina where I have a family member. There point is that Massachutes is too far and if something happens to me there is no one close. My father also thinks I should become a nurse because I would have job security if the economy does not turn around by the time I’m out of school or if in a few years the economy is bad again, but my goal is to become a lawyer. I don't see how being a nurse will aid me, especially when I want to be a corporate lawyer. I don't want to be disrespectful or rude to my parents, but ultimately I will be going to college for four years. Shouldn't I decide, or am I being foolish?</p>

<p>Thanks I'd appreciate any input</p>

2

<p>this is tough, i would just talk to your parents about your goals in life and why you think what you want to do is best. they should be giving you the choice because you will be spending four years of your life there but if they are paying, in the end, it is actually their decision. good luck!</p>

3

<p>Keep talking to them. Listen to their suggestions and then respond. Tell them your dreams and desires. Remind them that people send their children to college across country with no relatives and they do just fine.</p>

<p>Of course, I don’t know anything about your maturity and if you’re ready to be far from your parents, but then, you can always transfer back home if it doesn’t work out.</p>

4

<p>i think you should have the right to choose what you want to do and what school you want to go to. I know that your parents will probably be picking up the tab, but they should still take your thoughts into consideration.</p>

5

<p>I’m guessing that there are other kids from your town that have left for the Northeast that didn’t end up dead in a ditch. Perhaps you can arrange a phone call so that your parents can hear about their experiences as well as perhaps their parents might share their own experiences about things.</p>

6

<p>Lawyers’ job security are just as good as nurses, and they pay much more. Many parents try to force their kids to be lawyers! You still have a year until decision time, and I would just keep on talking to them about it. Be clear and persistent about what you want and why. Show that you’re mature and can handle the responsibility. Remind them that you’d be 18 and legally, an adult and they should let you decide your life from that point on. Remind them that thousands of people go to school not just across the country, but across the continent or across the world. Try to understand their fears and doubts, and find solutions or compromises to them. Meanwhile, keep up your school work, research your colleges, prepare for SAT/SAT II/ ACT, keep up/increase your ECs. When you’re out, call them when you say you will, clean up after yourself, argue rationally and calmly, overall, show that you’re an adult through your actions. Show that you can handle your own life, that your decision is rational and thought through. Ask for their understanding, faith and trust. They should be the two people in this world that will always have faith in your abilities. College is a big change for everybody in the family, and sometimes they just need some time. Let them know that it’s your time to spread your wings, and you’ll never fly if they keep you trapped in the nest. </p>

<p>Are there financial concerns? If finance is involved, it’s a whole other problem.</p>

7

<p>They should be granting you the right to study wherever you want and whatever you want. It’s great that they’re worried about your safety, but honestly I think they’re being a little too paranoid. Same thing with getting out of your home state.</p>

<p>You still need to respect what they say, so your job is to convince them to see things your way. Just explain your feelings and listen to their arguments, hopefully things will work out. Good luck!</p>

8

<p>Suggestions: Okay, it’s easy to brush this off as ridiculous. Most people get through their 4 years of college relatively unscathed. However, they are just being PARENTS. Parents worry about you. You’ve lived at home for 18 years of life and they understandably do not want to let you go. It’s easy to stamp your foot and say “They should be granting me the right to study wherever I want!” but that just comes off as immature and they will be even more reluctant to let you go. It’s counterproductive. The key to finagling what you want is to be understanding of their concerns and try your hardest to allay them.</p>

<p>Every school has to publish a Clery Report, which is a report on the crime statistics at a particular school. They have to be either publicly available or available upon request. Search Amherst or Mount Holyoke’s website’s for the Clery Report and look – I’m betting the crime statistics are very low! Show your parents this and show them the unlikelihood of anything “happening to you”.</p>

<p>Also, look for the services offered by those two colleges – police/security, health services, counseling, etc. Show your parents that there are definitely support services for you if something were to happen. Ask if you can visit, at least, and try to get an admissions counselor to talk to them about support services for students.</p>

<p>Promise to start a savings fund – get a part-time job, if you don’t have one – to save up money for plane tickets for your parents, so that if anything ever happens to you, they will have quick access to monies and can hop right on a plane to see you.</p>

<p>Also, make some compromises. Ask your parents if you can also look at colleges in the surrounding states (not just your home state) or in the states surrounding North Carolina. Beg them to apply to Amherst and Mount Holyoke just in case, to see what your financial award would be like. Also understanding that staying in your home state for college doesn’t mean you’ll never leave. I went to college 20 minutes away from my parents, but I moved to New York for graduate school cold turkey.</p>

<p>The thing is, if your parents are always there to catch you when you fall (when “something happens,”) you will never grown and learn to be an adult. College is that time when you learn to fix your own mistakes.</p>

<p>It is also normal for your parents to be worried about job security, but many parents don’t have a very wide scope of the amount of jobs that are out there. My father wanted me to be an engineer, because engineers get jobs and make a lot of money, according to him. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like physics enough to study it for four years, much less work in it :smiley: He wasn’t very happy when I majored in psychology or when I decided to get my Ph.D in psychology, and neither of my parents understand very well what I’m planning to do with it (since they know I don’t want to be a clinician). However, they’ve learned to get over that and realized that I’m adult, and that I have to make my own decisions and catch myself when I far.</p>

<p>However, you do understand that you can major in whatever you want and then go to law school, right? Obviously if you don’t want to be a nurse then you shouldn’t, but a nursing major could be excellent preparation for being a lawyer, especially if you work as in-house counsel for a hospital, health clinic, or health insurance company, or if you work on medical malpractice cases, or if you become an attorney/politician/legislator interested in health policy. It could be a compromise (unless you hate biology or don’t like taking care of people).</p>

9

<p>You need to find out how much money will be available to pay for your education. Your parents may be steering you toward a practical degree (nursing) because they know that there isn’t much money available, and they want you to be able to get a job. Amherst and Mt. Holyoke are fantastic places, but they aren’t famous for producing people with immediately practical skills. They are basically pre-grad school institutions. If you are going to need a job the day after college graduation, they might not be very good choices for you.</p>

<p>If your parents haven’t already run FAFSA and CSS Profile calculators to determine the kind of financial aid you may qualify for, help them do just that. They will need their 2008 tax returns, and balance statements for their bank accounts, retirement accounts, and information about the value of any homes and land that they own. There are very good calculators at [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>How Much Will College Cost – BigFuture | College Board)</p>

<p>Also, encourage your parents to read the Financial Aid forum here at CC. You don’t have to tell them what your user name is.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>