My Grades are good enough to get into an Ivy as well as my athletic ability, I was wondering though if they cant provide me with aid if it is possible to legally remove myself from my family so I have a low income and get aid, my family is in a very high-income bracket so I would get no aid and I really want to play for UPenn or Harvard. My parents don’t want to support me with paying for college because they want me to struggle so I can find success in the world so that why I’m wondering if this is possible. I’m also a recruited athlete but too young for any serious offer talks.
Unless you have serious savings, you likely can not go to any 4 year school without your parents help or a big merit scholarship. I believe emancipation is a lot more complicated than just being independent for FA (possibly losing parents insurance?), if it was that easy a lot more people would do it. Are you the oldest in your family? They might not understand what colleges cost and how little loans are available for undergraduates without a cosigner. If they understand and still refuse to help, with ivy league caliber grades and athletic ability you should be looking at very large merit scholarships or full rides from very good schools. If I were you, I’d focus on this option. A higher ranking is not worth emancipating yourself.
Also, if you’re too young for serious offer talks, you’re very early in the process. Have your parents run net price calculators. My suspicion is that your parents will not be looking to put you into a 250k worth of debt just for undergrad. If they want you in these schools as badly as you want to be in them, they’ll probably end up helping you out unless there are other reasons besides wanting you to struggle. If they want you to look for merit, theres nothing wrong with that and really nothing you can do about it.
Good advice from @a20171 . Ivy is D1 league but do not give athletic scholarship, so only mega-rich or mega-poor student go there. Upper-middle class is shut out. If you have Ivy grade and D1 athletic capabilities, look for other good academic D1 colleges that offer athletic scholarship, such as Ivy-caliber Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Rice, and a step below in Patriot League, such as Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette. Or go to one of the service academy for a fully paid education. Good luck!
But realize that at the D1 schools listed above, most of the athletic scholarships will not cover your costs. Most won’t be close to full rides (unless you are i a headcount sport).
@RMD_III - Yes, it is possible. I declared financial independence from my parents when I was 16. I didn’t do it so I could go to an ivy or D1 school. I did it because I had been working since middle school, because I could not rely on my parents to support me or to send me to college. It was a long time ago, so perhaps it has become more difficult legally to accomplish than when I was 16. But I know that I had to take on a lot of debt to pay for college, even with generous financial support from my school, so don’t have any fantasies about financial independence making your life easier.
How old are you? You sound very young. Perhaps there are other family members or family friends who can talk to your parents with you and help each of you to see each others’ points of view? I would try that before taking such a drastic step, which probably isn’t a real option for you anyway if you haven’t been earning a certain amount of income over a certain period of time to qualify for financial emancipation before applying to college.
Turn 24 (you are probably better off taking on a reasonable amount of debt at a state school and going straight out of high school though) or get married (alimony is probably going to be more expensive than student loans), or have a baby (but then you’ll have to pay for diapers, childcare, etc) or join the military (service academies are harder to get into than ivies and if you just enlist the pay is not great and most don’t tackle school until they are out).
What’s changed is that freshmen are limited to 5.5k in loans.
Do your parents understand that you can’t pay for college on your own?
Woukd they be willing to loan you the money directly?
What are your stats?
You cannot legally emancipate unless there is proof tour parents don’t provide for you at all - leave you outside under the rain with no food while they’re strung out on coke for instance.
Wanting to play for the Ivy league is not a good reason.
If your parents won’t pay then you are in a difficult situation. You can only borrow ($5500 as a Freshman, $6500 as a Sophomore, $750O as a Junior, $7500 as a Senior). You’d have to look for high merit at a lower level school perhaps and maybe an athletic scholarship that you maybe might be able to stack. Or you can go to community college. This isn’t the 1980s when college kids could work their way through college. You need to start now working and saving money for college. Work every summer. Maybe plan to take a gap year to work. You should be looking at earning college credit in high school. AP or community college classes that high school kids can take for free through a program like running start. Your parents need to know what a serious situation you will be in if they refuse to pay anything. If this was allowed no parent would pay. @RMD_III
@MYOS1634 OP is a sophomore football player at a prep school with a 3.9. No test scores. There are many high school athletes who have career ending injuries especially in football. Just having a 3.9 doesn’t mean that you have Ivy stats. Plenty of valedictorians with amazing ECs that do not get into Ivys or get full ride scholarships. Be careful with expectations if your parents won’t pay. Are you hooked? Luckily you are in Florida so you could have some affordable options.
Ok, I see.
Prep all you can to get the highest possible scores on the PSAT10 then the SAT and PSAT.
Will your parents pay nothing at all or will they pay cost of attendance at UF or FSU or another public university in Florida?
What if you left your current prep school, attended a public school, and with the money saved you made a budget for college?
Worriestoomuch- no judge is going to emancipate a kid who attends prep school on the grounds that his parents are unfit, abusive, or neglectful (unless there actually IS abuse going on, which the OP did not mention). Regardless of how much money the OP earns, can earn, will earn- there don’t appear to be grounds for emancipation.
OP- a lot can happen between now and college. Why not schedule a sit down to listen to your parents POV on your college education, what they expect or hope for you, how they expect or hope to help you make that happen? And then come back here.
Not sure what your parents mean by “struggle”. Not have everything handed to you on a platter? Many parents- regardless of their income- would agree with that philosophy. Do they want you to apply to West Point or the Naval Academy? (free education but then you owe many years to the armed services). Do they want you living at home and attending Community College? getting a job and postponing college until you are independent for financial aid purposes?
Few parents pay for prep school and then want their kid working in fast food for the rest of their lives because they don’t have a college education.
So ask them. What exactly is their thinking on your education?
Times have changed. Unless there is a compelling reason for emancipation…which is a serious legal process…this is virtually impossible to do NOW.
From what this kid has posted here…the ONLY reason he wants to be independent is he thinks he will get more financial aid for college. THAT is not a reason for emancipation or a dependency override…sorry…just not.
A couple of years ago, one parent of a heavily recruited athlete did post here that the family was successful at negotiating a very much improved aid package at one of the ivies. Maybe another parent here will remember the username, and post the specific link. The student in question had several admissions offers and several coaches anxious to have the student on their teams. The parent devoted a lot of time and effort to the whole process, and considered the results worthwhile. The family did not have significant financial need by any normal evaluation, however the final package was reported to have resulted in a nearly full ride.
So yes, that sort of thing can happen. Whether this can happen for you is an entirely different thing. Your best bet is to find out exactly what it is that your parents expect you to do, and what kind of money you will have to do that with. Will they continue to pay your health insurance? Will they cover your transportation costs home a couple times each year? Will they help pay for your books? Or will they truly cut you off without one cent more of support as soon as you finish high achool?
Happy- so a family not only got an athletic scholarship at an Ivy which doesn’t give athletic scholarships, and then went on a public message board to brag about it-- thereby putting both the coach AND the director of financial aid at risk of losing their jobs? The family did not have financial need and then got nearly a full ride??
Hmmm… on the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog. Calling the BS police on this story.
OP- talk to your parents. Clarify what they want for you, what they are prepared to do to help, what they think you should be putting in to the process – a strong academic record to get merit aid? An athletic scholarship at a college which offers them? Living at home and commuting to save money on a dorm?
I’d follow what others have mentioned. Keep your grades take a challenging course load and study for PSAT and SAT and hope for merit aid and an athletic scholarship at a non ivy but still awesome school. You might over time find that what an Ivy has to offer might not be what you are looking for anyway.
Even in the past, one important test for emancipation is being self supporting. If a minor needs to be removed from the home but isn’t self supporting, he’ll be made a ward of the court (probably foster care). The court is not going to emancipate anyone who can’t support himself.
Usually you see emancipation for minors who are actors, entertainers, someone who has developed a business, sports stars. Of course, those people aren’t then applying for financial aid.