I’m a rising high school senior from northwestern South Dakota. I’ve been looking around here for a little while now, and I feel like I need to share the situation. I really need some help
Compared to everyone on here, I’m a normal kid. I got a 30 on my ACT, and I have 3.6-ish GPA. I’ve spent a few hundred hours volunteering, but it’s not like I have done anything noteworthy. I’m not really a stellar kid. I was looking for college to get out of the brown buttes and rangeland, and away from all the people looking for High School Round 2. I fell in love with Minnesota-Twin Cities. An awesome campus, with everything I was looking for. Big enough to go into anything and have it as a good major, and not engineering oriented. Big enough where I wasn’t just one of 16 people in my graduating class. Big-time college football. SD residents get instate tuition there. Girls, and attractive ones too. It had literally everything I wanted. Nebraska was pretty much the same way. It was cheap, and is still a great school. Plus, it was Big Red Football. It was what I grew up watching on TV. Simply, they were the antitheses of South Dakota’s schools.
And then my dad got laid off. The college fund they had been saving for years for my sister and I, well, it went to pay the mortgage, and grocery bills. He landed on his feet, and we’re getting it together again, but we don’t have enough money for me to go, even at in-state tuition.
And then we were visiting family out in Bozeman, and my cousin showed us around Montana State. He told us there were major scholarships that they offered and I should look there. I looked into it, and I could qualify for nearly 10 grand a year, from one scholarship alone. I figured that, under WUE, that would essentially cover it. Plus, it also had nearly everything I wanted, just not nearly as big, and no football, but hey, I’ll take Bridger Bowl too.
But It really just wasn’t meant to be. Apparently, you can only qualify for one or the other. And it suddenly made sense why the trust fund kids from California went there. It was easy to get into, didn’t cost much for rich parents, and was essentially a 4-year ski trip. It does take money if you’re not a local. To any out-of-state school worth the cost of college, you better be loaded or leave.
So after all that, here I am, feeling dejected, and I’m not even applying anywhere selective. I’m unwanted and unwelcome, at any school I want to go to. I worked too damn hard in high school to go to the community college a couple hours away, and literally South Dakota schools only have the people I’m trying to get away from: ignorant hicks and drunks with guns. If there was any further reason to hate where I live, this is it.
But maybe I’m just too picky in a college. I mean, after all, I’m going for an education, not to have fun. It’s only 4 years of my life. Football’s a waste of money anyways. I can find people I like anywhere, and I’ll have my own circles of friends.
And it seems like my choice was made up for me. I don’t have any money to go anywhere where it doesn’t feel like a kick in the nuts. I’ll end up majoring in something that is crap here, and has no job market in this state. I’ll never know what it’s like to be apart of College Gameday and a rowdy student section. I had my hopes up to finally experience everything I was missing out on in Harding County, but it looks like it’s just not going to happen.
So, I’m posting here, hoping that I’m not actually screwed.