@0br0123, if she was one of the top students from her home country, yes she could have had a special scholarship from home, and therefore it would have been doubtful she worked because often the requirement is at least a 3.5 GPA (or if they have High Pass/Pass/Fail, High Pass mostly) to keep such a prestigious scholarship.
And if both your parents attended undergrad in your home country (I’m not sure from your post), and did very well afterwards, could you attend college in your home country too?
@rhandco There are too many problems in my home country, with the opportunities I have here, it would not make sense going back. I am however trying to improve my home country
I’m assuming you are currently a U.S. citizen. Is that correct?
Of course. I am just trying to give you a bit of support for how to talk to your parents. If they were able to go to school in their home country, that would have been a lot cheaper (even free in many countries because they only take the very best students).
One thing that we are doing for my son, to decrease costs, is having him take credits locally at a community college for classes not important to his major. That will let him graduate early so we will save a lot of money doing that. There are ways to save money even attending and graduating from an elite school.
But if your parents will not start a dialogue about the money, I am not sure where to start. They will have to give you financial information or do the financial aid forms themselves, or you will get no financial aid at all. Even merit aid sometimes requires financial aid forms to be filed.
Yes @thumper1 I am actually a Dual Citizen (US and parents country)
I think I will have a firm discussion with them. If I got into Harvard they’d pay in a heart beat. However, that is very unlikely. I need to be sure that they will be okay with paying tuition at another prestigious/ world known university.
Thanks for helping everyone
@rhandco thanks! I think taking CC courses is a great idea. I will definitely look into that.
OP- if I had a dollar for every kid I’ve known who had a plan to double major in college and then ended up NOT double majoring in those two disciplines- well, I’d be able to help subsidize your tuition.
You are in HS. You have no idea what’s going to happen once you get to college. You may discover urban planning or agronomy or sociology or biostatistics-- all very helpful fields if you are interested in helping your country of origin. You may take your first political theory class and decide you are hooked- or take the first class in the sequence of what you THINK you are majoring in and decide that you hate it.
Don’t put the cart before the horse. Figure out the budget you have to work with and identify a bunch of schools which you can afford and where you can (probably) get admitted.
If you are targeting large universities, the likelihood that you can’t major in something you love is close to zero. The nomenclature may be different from what you think it should be called, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the same subject. So don’t get bogged down by thinking that you need to attend one of three colleges or else you are doomed.