<p>Women’s college.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=dmd77]
Women’s college.
[/quote]
Brilliant!</p>
<p>Other options are to plan on transferring in a year or two if they’ll consider compromising. It helps if you can articulate academic reasons for an alternative school (as opposed to I NEED TO GET AWAY FROM YOU). Promise daily phone calls and AIM. Visiting the schools is a good idea too.</p>
<p>See if any other family friends or relatives live near your alternative schools, so they can offer to check on you. Consider religious schools, if appropriate, and schools that will guarantee single sex dorms. A school like Grove City is in a tiny PA town with not much to do, has mandatory chapel, single sex dorms, strict behavior rules…almost parental…</p>
<p>Are you one of Leah’s kids? (How could I resist?)</p>
<p>Any other young women you know a year or so ahead of you? Could be helpful to say “Man, I don’t want to end up like Suzy. She was so bored at being at home that now she’s a meth addict and has a gambling addiction. I’d like to be like Beth at Happy College. She’s getting her teaching certificate for math and should have lots of job offers. You know, could we have Beth over for dinner to learn more about her major?”</p>
<p>Note: No fighting. No threats. Just observations out loud.</p>
<p>You might also want to talk with students who attend your local university, including those who commute and those who live on campus. Do you know anyone who goes to school there now, perhaps from your high school? They might be able to give you and your parents some perspective on the differences between the commuter experience and the living-on-campus experience.</p>
<p>My son attended a large state university that happens to be located in the most heavily populated area of the state, so there is a large commuter population, as well as a large on-campus population. He lived on-campus, but he had high school classmates who commuted.</p>
<p>The commuters missed out on a lot of things. They rarely went back to campus for club meetings or cultural events in the evenings or on the weekends because it was inconvenient. Also, they found it difficult to participate in study groups or project groups because the on-campus members of those groups often wanted to meet late in the evening, when nobody had other commitments. Commuting to college limits a student’s academic, extracurricular, and cultural experience. (It also limits the student’s social and dating life, but perhaps it would not be the best idea to mention that part to your parents.)</p>
<p>first, apply to the school they want you to attend. It sounds pretty great, and you can delay the argument about living at home versus the dorms until the spring. Plus, a lot can change in a year and by next spring you might have a reason for wanting to stay close to home (money, illness, whatever). </p>
<p>next, they understand that it’s a good idea to apply to more than one school, right? If not, perhaps your guidance counselor could discuss that with them. Hopefully you can find some schools a little further from home (maybe not across the country, but an hour or two away) that have some of the things you want (you need to think about what you want–not just “getting away” but specific majors, urban/rural, large/small)–perhaps some that are more prestigious than your local school so if you get in you can use the prestige as a reason to go, and some that offer lots of merit aid so you can use the affordability as a way of convincing your parents–or you can do it on your own if you decide you need to go away without parental support. </p>
<p>Right now, that’s all you need–to apply to the school they want and some schools you want. The rest of the battles about which school to attend and whether to live on campus can wait til you hear back. There’s no point in fixating on some school and trying to convince your parents to let you go there until you’ve been admitted and can see the financial aid packages. </p>
<p>Once you do need to start working on where you’re going and where you’ll live, are there members of your ethnic or faith community who might be helpful in talking with your parents? You and they could explain about the cultural resources available at the college and its surrounding community (might be good to pick a school where these resources are prevalent!) and discuss people from your community who went off to college and are still good kids with strong ties to their heritage.</p>
<p>I’m sure no one would suggest that your essay(s) for the nearby school(s) be along the lines of “I don’t want to attend [your] U, am applying only because my parents have insisted that I do and please do not accept me; take a kid who really WANTS to go to your school instead.” No, no, that would be an underhanded and sneaky way of dealing with the situation and getting acceptances only at colleges that are far away. What a terrible idea! And this is why no one would possibly suggest it!</p>