<p>See if you can come to some kind of agreement with your parents where you apply to some schools you're interested in and some compromise schools where they would like you to go.</p>
<p>Once your acceptances and/or rejections play out, the dispute might become easier. If you get good fin.aid from a far away school, your parents might be more willing to fund transportation costs. I hope everything works out for you!</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who replied. I really appreciate the support.</p>
<p>alGorecousin, thanks to you too, for summing up my parents' arguments. They don't care, so why should you? Just try to not post that next time.</p>
<p>So far, I've been planning on covering all of my application fees. I wouldn't expect my parents to cover those costs, and some of my schools have very high fees. I haven't even told them how much it costs to apply. </p>
<p>In a new dispute this afternoon, my mom said that I should just go wherever I want to college, and pick up the tab too. So the financial aid has to be good, since I'll be paying for all the costs of college. I do have a job, as I have for the last year, and I can continue working through school. However, I don't really like on-campus jobs, since I can make better money elsewhere. I don't mind taking out some loans, but I don't want to graduate with any more than maybe $20,000 in debt. If I keep from buying that new car, that will be feasible. But any more than that amount would be too hard to pay off, especially when I'm entering a new career.</p>
<p>I can probably pay for transportation costs as well. At this point, I'm willing to ditch my parents and go visit colleges by myself. The complication, however, is that I live in a town accessible only by private car. There is a train station about 20 miles away, but I don't have any clue where the nearest bus stop is. I'll have to look into that. I do have my own car, but that's not always convenient to take to college. My parents own the car, so I would be gambling on their letting me take it to college. I've seen other parents take away the car when they get mad at their kids, even, in one situation, forcing the student to buy a car with a high interest rate to commute between college and work.</p>
<p>I'm most certainly not giving up yet. My parents are not going to keep me from getting a good education. But I need some guidance in making them happy, as well as making a good college choice.</p>
<p>Here's my list now:</p>
<p>Princeton University
Brown University
Amherst College
University of Chicago
Case Western Reserve University
Bucknell University
Lafayette College
Oberlin College
Ohio State University
Ohio Wesleyan University</p>
<p>Of those ten schools, five of them are within four hours. I think that's a good compromise. I'm sorry to say this, but I have to veto Carnegie Mellon. Its average need met is only 82%, and I need a bigger guarantee than that. Additionally, the average debt upon graduation is $30,000. That's too much.</p>
<p>I really appreciate the help. Keep the suggestions coming! I can't stress how much this thread has helped me.</p>
<p>Looks like a very good list. As a parent with two daughters 1100 miles away at college, I can vouch for the value of videoconferencing via iChat or Skype. If your parents are computer users, Iknow they'd be happy to stay in touch with your college life online in between visits.</p>
<p>Have you heard about several Ivy League colleges' decision to eliminate tuition for students from lower income families? I'm not sure if your family falls into this category, but for families earning something like $60,000 or less, schools like Brown and Dartmouth have taken initiatives to greatly reduce tuition costs. Read up on it on Google.</p>
<p>If you get into Princeton or Amherst, you'll be set financially.</p>
<p>Brown, Chicago, and Case will probably be the most expensive, if you get in-- you'll be caught in a trap between schools that offer simply out-of-this world aid and schools where you may not be quite enough of a "catch" to count on receiving merit aid. The same may be true for Bucknell, Laf, and Oberlin.</p>
<p>OSU and OWU look like good merit aid options.</p>
<p>Because aid and education are so important to you, and because your distance requirement is more lax, I suggest throwing in five more apps: Yale, Harvard, Williams, Swarthmore, Grinnell. They are similar enough to schools already on your list</p>
<p>I may (this is a big maybe) be able to get merit money at Case. That would really help in reducing the cost. Additionally, it's in my state, and therefore, there are many scholarship opportunities I may be able to use.</p>
<p>Should I really apply to more than ten schools? I was trying to keep it limited to that. Most of my friends apply to five schools or less, so they already think I'm crazy. Plus, I'm covering my own app fees. All those $70 fees add up really quickly. However, I will consider Grinnell, and perhaps Swarthmore. I'm not sure about Harvard and Yale. Something tells me those might be a bad idea. But I'll look into them.</p>
<p>^ Harvard and Yale have also jumped on the bandwagon of eliminating or significantly reducing tuition costs for lower-income families, so if you can get in there (a big if for anyone), you're set.</p>
<p>Case offers good merit aid so keep it on your list. Definitely consider Denison. Contrary to what was stated earlier, it is not in the middle of cornfields like Kenyon. Granville is a quaint little town just a walk down the hill from the college, and a short drive from Columbus. Denison offers some excellent merit aid, especially if you are a NMF.</p>
<p>If the cost of applications is a factor, I would suggest not applying to superselective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Swarthmore. Though your grades are perfect, your scores won't impress them, so your chances will be very low unless you have amazing ECs.</p>
<p>I think I'm going to stick with Princeton as my choice for the Ivies. I agree that it's not a good idea to just toss out applications to see if I get accepted.</p>
<p>Try to figure out which colleges will not expect a parental contribution from your family. Then, if you get in, you won't really have to worry about what your parents say, although you will almost definitely have to take out some loans, even if it's for something as simple as actually getting to whatever college you decide on.</p>
<p>A number of schools you are considering offer free online applications, including Case Western, Grinnell and Ohio Wesleyan. You should take a look at this link
Free</a> College Applications
to see if any others are of interest--since you might need merit aid, I would advise casting a wide net.</p>
<p>It sounds like you might think about educating your parents a bit more need-based financial aid and how it works. I know of one student who received need-based aid from both Haverford and Kenyon Colleges that made attending either of those schools cheaper for her than in-state costs of Ohio State! Obviously, that would depend on lots of individualized circumstances, but it happens.</p>
<p>In addition, when lots of LACs give you the total cost figure on which financial aid is based, they include allowance for travel expenses as part of the budget. You might want to check out this great piece from Williams College which talks about financial aid packages The</a> Price of a Williams Education</p>
<p>Perhaps you can convince your parents to consider adding a few of the most generous schools (and some of the nation’s best) which have pledged to provide 100% need-based aid without grants (e.g., Amherst, Bowdoin, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Davidson, Harvard, Haverford, UPenn, Pomona, Princeton, Stanford, Swarthmore, Williams, Yale). The above mentioned schools do so for all students, several others do so for neediest families (defined differently by each school but usually between $50-100K income cap) so if your family falls into that category you can consider some other schools.</p>
<p>Clearly, I don’t know your circumstances or your parents, but it is possible that if you do some research and understand financial aid more, you may be able to negotiate with them, and even save money. Good luck.</p>
<p>Actually, I have explained the financial aid aspect of it. I've told them that they look at income and assets, and from that, make a decision on EFC. I've told them the tricks of the trade as far as reducing assets and income on paper. But what they don't understand is how it will help any, because they believe (correctly) that we are relatively well-off. But that's because cost of living is low in my rural area. My parents don't make much more than the cost of attendance at most colleges.</p>
<p>I've mentioned Stanford for that reason, but obviously, my parents aren't sold on California. Since we're "not made of money," as they usually say, Stanford would be too expensive. I'm still working on it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice so far.</p>
<p>Show your parents this graph, from the New York Times:</p>
