I feel like I chose the wrong college after some late research

College Search & Selection
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I feel for you! On the positive side, if you like DC, then Catholic U will be a great location. Three metro stops from the Capitol, the Mall, world class museums, historic sites, concerts, and theater. It’s a very walkable, cyclable city with something new to discover every weekend. DC is also a generally liberal and tolerant city politically and culturally.

Even though it sounds like the CUA administration tows a relatively conservative line on LGBTQ issues, the 5,000 students will be of your generation. Most of of them will likely be open-minded about sexual identity.

I don’t know any students at Catholic U, but I do know a handful of queer students or queer-allies at Catholic colleges, and they are not having trouble finding their people. They like the ethic of community service and social justice at their schools.

My daughter does have a gay friend who feels that her Catholic college’s administration is not embracing the queer community the way some admins do. However, she has made a wonderful group of friends there. She also did a semester abroad at a very progressive uni and that gave her a break from her college admin. Her professors, classes, and sports experience are excellent, so she has been happy to stay.

Best wishes! Living in DC itself really is special and offers a lot more opportunities than commuting from George Mason (1 hour on the Metro). I also think CUA is a perfect Goldilocks size (not too big, not too small). George Mason is almost 40,000.

Finally, I’m sorry about the situation with your parent. Sometimes even loving parents take awhile to wrap their heads around ideas that are new to them. Hoping for patience and understanding.

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Thank you all for your advice and support! I’ll give it my best shot and see how it goes, though I don’t think the nervousness will go away until I actually start. I have also stashed away basic information on transfer deadlines and such to a few other schools, just in case.

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I think you might be pleasantly surprised. I know a very liberal student that goes there who plans on being a lawyer and has interned for a progressive politician. She loved where CUA was and the opportunities available and saw learning to state and discuss her opinions in a place where it was not necessarily the sweeping majority as a good skill to develop.

Take this for what it’s worth and I’m trying to pick my words carefully so as to not make people mad. It is probably easier to live in a community of people in a very progressive city that looks at LGBTQ issues as something that is just the church doesn’t accept but beyond that don’t have many issues with it than being in certain areas of the country or at a school where they vilify the LGBTQ community. My understanding is that the CUA community is either open and accepting or falls into the former, rather than the latter, category.

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Late to this thread…just wanted to mention that my S attended an urban Jesuit college. There were a number of rules etc. that the Church put in place that the kids quickly/widely knew how to circumvent if needed. For example, the health center did not distribute birth control – SO, the kids went to the drugstore a block off campus…the college did not allow women to have a male overnight guest (and vice-versa) – SO they would get a friend to sign them in and things like that (S correctly noted that arranging overnights with significant others was much easier for his gay friends). Point is that the community of students was liberal, open,and accepting and were not concerned about official school policies. I am guessing (and hoping) that you find the LGBT community will be supported by the students and faculty at CUA even if there may not be the level of official support you would have liked.

Best of luck moving forward.

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LOL!–“arranging overnights was much easier for his gay friends”! :smile:

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I have seen a couple news articles over a decade ago written about the same things happening at CUA, so that does give me a bit more hope, thank you!

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Which other colleges admitted you AND were affordable?
Contact them today and tomorrow. It doesn’t hurt anything to ask, politely. You can even run bits from your would-be message here if you want to make sure it sounds professional.

CUA is VERY Catholic: 80% students are Catholic, 50% go to mass each week (in college it would be an uncommon number even if it’s common for HS students), there are several chapels in addition to a church where you can attend mass any day, priests and nuns live with students or teach. The Catholic Church is considered the one “true” church. Unlike universities such as Notre Dame or Georgeown, which were created by specific orders, this university officially represents Catholic doctrine and teachings in the United States, since it was founded by papal bulla. Its Chancelor is the Archibishop of Washington. Teachings have to be faithful to strict Catholic doctrine (which means against premarital sex, contraception, LGBTQ relationships, and abortion).
It doesn’t mean all who are there believe that, probably many don’t and at all colleges students find ways around the constraints… but you do have to take it into account.

As a result, if you’re not Catholic or not religious, I can understand your hesitation. In particular, if you come from an area or a region of the country where religion isn’t public and doesn’t impact much, I can understand why you’d not think to try and distinguish between the nuances of what it means that it’s “the” Catholic university of America and how it impacts the behavior or beliefs students are assumed to follow.
I would tell you to try and see if you like it but I also know students who attended very religious universities while non concommital wrt religion and they had a terrible time. For them, seeing crucifixes in the classroom wasn’t benign, being the only one not praying at the beginning of an event or in the morning made them feel left out, and the positions on abortion made them angry.
However, transferring wasn’t an option (their parents or grandparents refused to pay if they went to another college) but they deeply regretted their choice of college. This would be even more important if they were possibly LGBTQ.
Reaching out to the clubs/alliances was a great idea.
Do check that the therapy sessions are meant to help you be yourself, not help you become straight.

For people who mention “part of your generation”, it really depends what the group is. (This based on a recent eye-opening set of conversations).
Officially the Church requires compassion and accepts people who are LGB as long as they aren’t in a relationship. Actual experience is likely different depending on the place.

An issue is that transfers never get as much financial aid as freshmen, so that your only affordable option to transfer may be your state’s universities (if those are affordable). As a result, “trying” a university that seems such a bad fit may end up costing you a lot of money.
What is your home state?
What’s your budget?
Why DC?
Did you apply to American University?
(What are your stats: GPA, AP/DE/IB classes taken…)

I second what @Lindagaf said above:

  • contact colleges that admitted you and were affordable. Can you still attend with the same FA package? (FA is crucial).
  • work on your college list some more, find a job that pays well even if it’s boring, take a gap year and apply ED somewhere if the NPC indicates the university is affordable + EA wherever you can.

For your major, History, Gettysburg is excellent, had you applied this year? Wheaton, MA (<- note the State as there is another one) would allow you to major in History and Creative Industry Management with possible internships in museums for instance.
What internships were you thinking of in relation to History?

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My understanding is that the OP has already paid fall semester tuition.

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Classes haven’t started yet. Surely this person can get the money back if they withdraw before the term starts?

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That’s what I was thinking!

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@Harakon – Just to reiterate from above:

if you have any colleges that accepted you and offered you sufficient financial aid, you may be able to contact them to see if you can still enroll there with the original financial aid package, even though you already turned them down. This is an okay thing to ask them.

It is also quite possible that Catholic University will refund your tuition for Fall 2023 if you contact them early enough. You may lose your deposit, but hopefully that is within the range of something your family can afford to lose.

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@harakon: And you can offer to pay back the $500 if that’s a problem for your mother, who I can understand could be upset that you had overlooked the importance of religion at that school.
ALL colleges experience “summer melt”, it’s so common colleges invented that term to describe the students who accept, enroll, then un-enroll before classes start.
You won’t be the only one by far.
However time is of the essence, you need to contact all your affordable colleges to see if they’d be willing to let you enroll with the original financial aid package and contact CUA to see whether you can get your tuition payment back if you un-enroll now, with the understanding you’d forfeit your deposit. Only when BOTH pieces are known can you make a decision about a change. You need BOTH pieces of information first.
If you don’t want to discuss being bi with your mother, you can start with the “LG” part since you said she understands (explaining you hadn’t realized the university wasn’t supportive) OR you can skip the LGBT situation altogether by discussing the role of strict Catholicism at the university.

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Yeah, my discovery of the fact that CUA banned birth control/prohibited premarital sex/had no official lgbt organizations is what kind of what made me doubt my decision in the first place…I just didn’t know to look for this stuff beforehand, and when visiting campus it seemed fine, even though my mom asked me at the time if I was sure the religion part would be alright and I said it would be fine, as I assumed it was like any other school. Unfortunately, as of right now, my mom will not discuss anything besides being excited to go to my current school, and gets angry every time I bring up the idea of any other school as she thinks I’m ruining her experience by not being excited, so there’s sadly no way I could pull out now, although she has agreed to let me visit george mason directly before my CUA orientation in late august for reconnaissance, so she is not completely closed to the idea of transferring later…but as of right now she won’t consider any other idea besides going to catholic U, and I don’t think I’ll be able to make any progress on this, as I have a history of not committing to things and I didn’t really make a good case for why I might not like catholic U+she thinks my worries are overblown because she talked to the college coach I worked with on my applications and they said they know a lot of different people who went to Catholic U and loved it.
I really screwed myself over on this one :frowning: I wish I had known to look at their policies beforehand, bc I’m fairly sure I would have just gone to george mason instead if I knew, as it’s pretty much also what I wanted, just secular and a bit larger/bit outside of DC.
I did not apply to american university, it wasn’t on my radar at the time.
3.35 cumulative gpa, one AP class that can count for credit (ap euro history, scored a 5), 29 ACT, 1260 SAT.
Budget is a trust fund of ~150k$
I live in southern new Jersey, got into catholic U, george mason, rowan, drexel, university of pittsburgh bradford campus, and stockton university.
Chose DC because of the ability to intern at the museums there+archives+it being far enough from home to where I’d be able to explore something new but close enough that if there was an emergency or a visit it wouldn’t take too long to reach me.
As far as I can tell the therapy sessions are actual sessions and not just conversion therapy, and apparently according to CUAllies there are some accepting people/spaces.
I’m still trying to keep an open mind about the school, but it’s quite difficult at times.
When we were looking at colleges she even offered to drive to george mason to take a tour but I said no at the time because I wasn’t taking this seriously like I should’ve and I was a high school junior who just wanted to get back to playing games :frowning: I guess this is the result of me not being as involved as I should’ve been, even though I’d still have had no idea to go look up these specific problems at the time.

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At this point she’s gotten so aggravated with me being anything but excited to go I’m not quite sure if I should push it any further for now

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She’s also talked to the college coach I worked with today and I’ll be talking to the coach on saturday, hopefully I’ll be able to explain myself better then to the coach about my worries.
However, my mother has told me that the coach told her a bunch of reasons why catholic u was the right choice and george mason is the wrong choice, so I do not think I’ll be able to explain to my mother anytime soon without getting instantly disregarded, at least not until I actively start going and see how I feel after a few months of trying.

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I’ve also already ordered the dorm bedding for CUA with my mother, and was already assigned a roommate, so I’m not sure if I have any real options now

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Does the college coach understand you had never realized there were religions that banned birth control and don’t support LGBTQ relationships (you’ll have to eat some humble pie to make the college coach understand - admit you are clueless&sheltered, haven’t met traditional Catholics ever that you know of, and didn’t know what you didn’t know, believed the marketing – and at registration time found that some of it was hype and some was just a deal breaker for you…), or do they think you can “go around the system” - ie., do they realize how big of a mismatch it is or do they think it doesn’t matter bc rules aren’t enforced/have easy ways to bypass them? (For instance, students buying condoms at a nearby pharmacy in the same way underage students find beer even if they’re not supposed to drink it?)
Check with the Allies club: if you enter a same sex relationship, do you have to hide it? can you be dismissed? will you and your s.o be able to hold hands without problem, kiss without problem, dance together?
The answer may make your case stronger or may alleviate your worries.

Why does the college coach think GMU is the wrong choice?

If you have a trust fund and can afford GMU without financial aid, then you can give it a try then transfer to GMU, you could even email GMU right now asking about how you’d like to attend this Fall but have to try one semester

No matter what, you have to kill it at CUA – if you want to transfer, you need excellent grades, and it’s much harder in college than in HS.
In part because a lot rests upon you:
for instance, professors don’t hang out in their room where you go talk to them and encourage you to come&ask questions. They don’t hang out at all. They come, teach, and leave. Everyone clears out and another professor comes for the next period.
You have to go see them at their office hours but they won’t go looking for you. They post their office hours and you’re supposed to go with questions you wrote down during the lecture, either things that weren’t clear or things you want more info about. Going right from the start will ensure you are on the right track. But almost no freshmen do that and let little things they missed pile up, they forget the questions they should have asked, and right before the midterm it feels like they have a mountain of work. Freshmen may go to office hours right before midterms which helps a little but mostly to fill in a couple gaps not to lead to mastery of the material, or, worse, after their midterms because suddenly their grade is a C or a D instead of the B they expected.
There are tutors, which you often need to book ahead of time; they make the difference between a C and a B.
Tutors and office hours with professors (or TAs) are your sole responsibility.
Most freshmen take many weeks to catch on - the faster you catch on, the better you’ll do.

Everything you do makes you feel like you’re backed further into a corner.
The dorm bedding is likely to be the same regardless of where you go.
Roommates assignements can be changed.
None of this is written in stone - remember that “summer melt” is a term colleges invented because students who enroll then un enroll are so common…

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I will be talking with the coach tomorrow about my worries directly, however from what I heard she says the rules are mostly just written on paper and not very enforced. She has apparently had multiple other people she coached go there before with no complaints, including a gay person, apparently, though as of what I know right now this is all hearsay.
She also does not believe GMU is right for me because it’s a big party school (and I am not really into parties) as well as it not being as good for my major, and not being able to focus on individual students as much with their increased size.
I have researched the requirements for transferring to some schools beforehand, and realize I’d need to keep my grades high…as well as I also want to get high grades because that’s the main reason I’m going…I just hope I’ll be up to the challenge of college classes.
I did not really discuss anything about religion with the coach when we were meeting, as I saw no point at the time/did not think it was that important as I had never seen a real reason to care about religion before.
I could afford every school I applied to, but I also want to get all the financial aid I can as well, more money saved just in case is always better.
For a transfer, I believe the only way I could convince my parent to let me if I ended up hating it is if I gave it an honest shot academically and socially, and despite trying everything just didn’t end up liking it, though as of right now, she will not consider anything because I haven’t even started attending college yet, and thus to her, I do not have a very strong case, especially after what she heard from the coach, though what exactly it was I am unsure, as I was at work at the time, and all I know is that they talked for a while and the coach told her why catholic would be a better fit for me then gmu.
I just emailed the club with the question and await their response.
As of right now I do not believe I could convince her to unenroll without at least trying catholic U for a semester or two first, and giving it a shot, as I have a history of not committing to things before over my childhood, which does not really help my case either.

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I received word back from the club and they said things like handholding, kissing, etc are perfectly fine

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Ask the college counselor if she would be willing to connect you to one of her previous LGBTQ students who attended Catholic. You could get firsthand answers to your questions.

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