<p>OP- you have a lot of learning to do and a lot of maturity needed. Your definition of a tier for a school is way off. Go across the lake and you will find many UW system schools that are tier 3. MSU is so far above them… Also- UW-Madison (the flagship) does “holistic” admissions so not everyone in the top quartile gets in either. Don’t count on getting into MSU based on your stats. Would it embarrass you to be rejected when someone with lesser stats gets accepted? It could happen.</p>
<p>You lost your audience with your insistence that MSU is not a good school. If your point was the legacy issue, even for Harvard, you would have had sympathy. Instead you think your HS level knowledge outranks all of the many more knowledgeable parents you asked advice of.</p>
<p>The smart thing to do is to apply to MSU and some other schools you would prefer. Be sure to show interest in any essays- just awhile ago on the UW thread a student explained how he was not accepted despite very good stats and he thinks his noncaring essays may have been the reason. Of course, that is one way of insuring you don’t go to MSU. I presume you would rather reject them than have them reject you, however.</p>
<p>Parents are people. At this stage they are excited about the possibility than their child could start a legacy tradition. If you are mature about colleges and have good reasons to attend another school you have been accepted to next spring they most likely will understand. It is possible that if you have an open mind (your comments show a very closed mind regarding MSU- quality) you may actually realize it is a good choice. You are lucky your state also has U of Michigan- set your sites on that as the alternative to MSU along with others.</p>
<p>Kalamazoo, Hillsdale, Hope, Calvin, Kenyon, Oberlin, Denison, Case Western, and Wooster are all within a five hour drive of the Detroit metro area. Despite what many of y’all out east think, most of those places even have running water and 'lectric (though I can’t swear to either in Gambier)</p>
<p>-Agree romanig. really the kind of baloney that goes on in a state with two flagships. There’s 40,000 kids at each school, the sports teams are equal and compete against one another, the engineers get recruited by identical companies, They both have residential colleges, they both attract internationals, MSU has a better physics program, but UofM has aerospace engineering. They both have medical schools. I’d tip the business college to Ross, but State’s got an amazing Veterinary school if that is someone’s interest.I could go on and on. The OP is acting like the world is crashing down because he’s being “forced” to attend a world-class university. Life should be so tough. And remember my family bleeds blue but I’m not so partisan i can’t recognize how lucky we are with our two Big 10 schools. </p>
<p>Figure out what the real world problem is by asking your parents if they will pay for UofM if you get accepted. Then you’ll know for certain if it’s a finance thing or a “legacy” thing but the woe is me, MSU is so inferior is really not a “real” problem…only in the minds of young Michiganders and people that don’t live in the midwest and aren’t familiar with the caliber of the original Big 10 schools and it doesn’t “cut it” as an excuse to “prefer Notre Dame” 'that’s apples and oranges financially.</p>
<p>Frankly if you don’t like MSU or UofM but want to stay closer to home, Purdue probably is a stronger consideration that ND or Northwestern for Engineering in my humble opinion. </p>
<p>OP, I’ll answer your question: yes, I think it is both selfish and shortsighted for parents to insist on kids attending their alma mater unless there are solid financial or other non-emotional reasons. Granted the kid’s objections to the alma mater may be just as stupidly prejudiced as the parents’ preference for it, still, if the finances are equal, parents should not try to make their kid’s college choice for them. </p>
<p>Are you happy, OP? Yes, I think your parents are being unreasonable.</p>
<p>This does not change the fact that you seem to be stuck with unreasonable parents. And unfortunately there is no Unreasonable Parents Police who can force your folks to see reason. The practical result for you, if your dad really carries through on what sounds like it might be a facetious threat not to pay for any other school, is that you may simply not have a choice here. You can’t take out big loans in your own name without your parents co-signing, so unless you’re willing to do something like delay college until you’ve earned enough money on your own to pay for it yourself, what are you going to do? Yes, as other posters have mentioned, you could find full ride scholarships at other schools, but if you’re turning up your nose at Michigan State, I doubt you’d find those other schools acceptable.</p>
<p>So, first, face reality: MSU may be your future. Second, listen to what others here are saying about its caliber as a school. I agree with others who say that you sound very immature when you sneer at a school that is going to have a pretty big percentage of students with comparable stats to yours, just because it will also have a significant percentage of students with lower stats. News flash: unless you are a recruited athlete or have some other “hook,” this will be true of any school. Basically, you have created a mental association between MSU and those low-stats girls from your HS who are there now, and when you think of MSU you just see those girls in your mind.</p>
<p>I have two pieces of advice for you. First, see if you can learn more about whatever honors program MSU might have. Can you sit in on a class? You might feel better if you can see that there are in fact serious students there. Second, go ahead and apply to other schools – but do not turn this into a battle with your parents. You will not convince them to pay for U of M by telling them that you think you’re too good for MSU (which is basically what you’re saying here). If you’re accepted elsewhere, have the discussion with them at that time. And as others have said, do not assume you are a lock at MSU or you will be really humiliated if you half-ass your application and you get rejected because your disdain for the school shows through.</p>
<p>How about using logic vs. emotion? While overall reputation is a factor, it’s actually best to have your major in mind and look at which schools in your budget range are ranked higher in that area. It means better job prospects, and you can tell your parents that means (1) you’ll be off their payroll sooner and (2) you can help them in their old age.</p>
<p>Yeah, you disagree about MSU being third-tier or not based on your vast experience in the world and deep knowledge of American universities. BTW, a bunch of us parents telling you to drop the attitude attended those schools that you adore and some of us respect (at least some) of the MSU grads we’ve met quite a bit.</p>
<p>Look, if your parents are reasonable, you can try to articulate the reasons why another school is better for you or why you feel that trying to establish a tradition is not the best way to make a college choice. However, “MSU is beneath me” is likely not a winning argument.</p>
<p>OP, I am on your side. I understand what you are looking for here. You know you have to apply to your parent’s school, you really don’ t have a choice. You also need to limit your other applications to schools that you have a good chance of getting a full ride to. (If your parents won’t pay, you need to focus on schools that will GIVE you an education.)</p>
<p>Is it possible to get your parents to sit down and have a serious conversation about colleges? To let you show them reasons why you like other schools on your list. You really need to find out if it is their way or nothing. You could try to bluff them, and register for your local community college, if they refuse to pay and you don’t end up with a full ride anywhere. Hey, be sure to check out Univ of Alabama, they give great merit aid to OOS students.</p>
<p>I have sympathy for your desire to go to a more consistently intellectually/academically challenging and engaged school. I have known MSU grads who are intellectual and very bright. I have also met an MSU grad–business major–who bragged about never having read an actual book during his 4 years there. (Other than textbooks.) A lot of people here would laud him as very successful. My S was so revolted by this that he refused to apply to any Michigan schools, including U of M, which was obviously a gross over-reaction. (I didn’t press the matter because as an OOS student S was unlikely to get sufficient money to make U of M, a great school, feasible for us.)</p>
<p>From your initial description, I thought you were talking about Western or one of the other directionals. (The alma maters of some of H’s dim-to-mediocre and distinctly UN-intellectual family members.) MSU is a different kettle of fish.</p>
<p>Here’s my suggestion: get into U of M. They will be hard-pressed to deny you the opportunity to go there, since it is financially equivalent to MSU. If I had a kid who could go to U of M, especially honors, I would see no reason to pay for ND</p>
<p>You said in post # 11 that your dad says “tongue in cheek” that the only school he’ll pay for is MSU. You need to get that straight . Your parents may very well want you to go to MSU (and you would do yourself a favor by at least trying to understand why that is not that crazy) but also may be willing to pay for a school like Michigan if you can clearly explain why you prefer it. You don’t help your cause by denigrating a school they clearly love.</p>
<p>“At this stage they are excited about the possibility than their child could start a legacy tradition.” What is exciting about this legacy thing? I really don’t get it. It’s not Notre Dame or Harvard. Their alma mater’s rep is a party/Veterinarian/farm school. Are legacy families hoping us, the next gen, changes the rep of State by sending their over qualified kids there? Well, I didn’t sign up for that. And people out of state will always assume it’s a party school because it’s a “State” school. Please tell me a state school that’s prestigious. I want to experience new people and make a variety of friends, which isn’t possible when like 95% of the kids at their alma mater are in-state residents. It served my parents well but I feel like our family is in a different place, a different level and my needs won’t be met at the same school that fit their needs 30 years ago.</p>
<p>According to MSU’s data set on their website, the bottom 30% of incomings have <23 ACT scores and <3.5 GPAs. I’d prefer to go to a college with a more consistent student body. I just don’t get why you wouldn’t want BETTER for your children.</p>
<p>Rationally, they want better for you, but emotionally, they probably have warm fuzzies about their alma mater and want you to feel the same.
And they may actually think that MSU would be better for you. In terms of the education, they’re probably right (at least, other research universities won’t be orders of magnitude better, since college really is what you make of it).</p>
<p>Also, you’re not mature enough to realize this yet, but when you’ve been out in the world awhile, you’ll realize that people will judge you by your characteristics and actions, not your school (though I’m not sure why I keep repeating this since your brain seems impervious to the idea). Folks who have experienced the world beyond HS understand that some brilliant people come from State and some doofuses come from UMich (or even more prestigious schools).</p>
<p>In any case, I keep asking you what ideas you have on major or careers and you don’t respond (even though that’s actually important because I would recommend MSU over UMich for some career paths, and UMich over MSU for others). Instead, you’re hung up on stupid facile things like where the mediocre girls in your school went to college rather than considering important questions like “what am I interested in, and why?” Or “what do I want to be when I grow up and why?”. On the one hand, I understand how you can be how you are, since you’re in HS, and HS girls obsess over whether they’re with the popular girls or not (and your self-esteem may actually be affected by whether you hang with the “cool” UMich kids or the “loser” MSU kids), but from an adult perspective, like I said, if you want to articulate a convincing reason to avoid MSU, saying essentially that MSU is beneath you or that you’re a snob who doesn’t want to go to school with kids with less-than-stellar test scores or that you don’t want to be with so many MI kids to your MI-native MSU-alum parents (who likely had lower test scores as well) probably will not do the trick.</p>
<p>College is NOT like high school. Schools like UMich, MSU, etc are huge and you are not going to school with the entire student body. </p>
<p>I suspect that you attend a smallish high school, perhaps a private one. If so, then a number of your classes have had a cross-section of the student body in them. College wont be that way for you. </p>
<p>I am guessing that you will come into college with some/many AP credits. You will likely be skipping many/most Core/GenEd classes. You will likely be taking academically-challenging classes required by your (difficult) major.</p>
<p>GUESS WHAT? Those “bottom 30%” that you distain will NOT be in your classes. Even more sore, it is very likely that the bottom 66% will not be in your classes. How do I know this? Because my kids went to a similarly ranked school, our flagship. They entered with 45 AP credits and were Math and Chemical Engineering majors. They skipped past most of the Core/GenEds and went right into the classes that those kids you look down upon DO NOT TAKE. </p>
<p>If you are selecting a challenging major, then your classmates will be be a cross-section of the student body. No. Your classmates will come from the top. Maybe a few “modest stats” students will attempt that major, and they will either be late-bloomers or they will crash&burn and quickly change majors. </p>
<p>I have news for you…the bottom quartile of ANY SCHOOL is going to have many lowish stats students. Why? Because those are the athletes and special admits. If you can be ND’s starting quarterback, they’ll accept you with a very modest ACT. </p>
<p>You need to stop obsessing about the lowish stats students. They will be in buildings across campus. They won’t be in your DifEq class or your Physics w/ Calc class. </p>
<p>I have sympathy for the OP. I do think Michigan is a fair cut above Michigan State, and all these college rivalries (UM vs MSU, USC vs UCLA) where parents do t want the kid attending the rival are stupid. </p>
<p>As someone who prefers schools “thick” with smarter kids, the issue isn’t that the less-smart kids will be in the DifEQ classes and drag down the academics. It’s a social issue IMO - who you hang out with, and the ease of finding your tribe. </p>
<p>Sparty has nearly 37,000 undergrads and one of the older, better developed honors colleges in the country. As long as you’re looking for a “tribe” and not a full panzer division, you can probably find it in East Lansing. </p>
<p>It does sound like the your parents may not be looking after your best interests when it comes to college selection. If there aren’t any cost issues, in my opinion, you’re right to be perplexed at their apparent obsession with the legacy thing. I also agree that, for many top students seeking a high-quality liberal education in the arts & sciences, the alternatives include schools with much smaller average class sizes than MSU, higher concentrations of top students from all over the country and the world, less partying and sports-focus, perhaps better facilities, higher ratios of students in arts & science majors v. preprofessional education/business/agriculture/communications/nursing, etc.</p>
<p>That said, if your parents are footing the bill and won’t yield, you may not have any good options other than to make the best of MSU. MSU is large enough that you should be able to find a tribe of serious students with similar academic (and other) interests. I do see strong positive comments about MSU on one of the student review sites.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, would your Dad (or Mom) go with you on a few visits to the kinds of schools you’d prefer? Maybe start with a school that is dramatically different but not too far away, with an attractive campus. Like Kenyon College maybe. Or Northwestern, if you want a larger school that has some of the same qualities your parents seem to like about MSU (strong sports programs, along with top-notch academics and all the benefits - internship opportunities etc - of being right outside Chicago). </p>
<p>Hey OP, don’t give up now! Yes, it appears your situation is hard right now, but any transfer is going to have its issues. One semester of not getting the classes you want is the price you pay for transferring into a school.</p>
<p>The whole experience you have at a new school is more than just what classes you take first semester. Use this transition time to join clubs, meet people, figure out if you want to look for a part time job, etc. Without the normal stress of a tough course load, you can have a bit of freedom to enjoy your new town. Take advantage of what the school and surrounding area have to offer.</p>
<p>OP, you have really worked hard so far to make the best of your college experience. You are in a good position now, don’t give up on your dreams! There are going to be people looking for a roommate, even at the last minute. People have major life events that cause them to cancel, and you can be there to fit right in and save the day for someone needing a roomie. Call the school and find out several ways you can get info on housing off campus, and ask about last minute opportunities. Contact local realtors and ask them also. Post on your college’s FB page for incoming students. Use every possible resource to find a place to live.</p>
<p>Lots of schools are party schools, including those with high prestige levels. Prestigious state schools include many state flagships and other state universities, particularly for engineering.</p>
<p>Of course, if your definition of “prestigious” means only super-selective schools that are reach-for-everyone, then you need to adjust your expectations, since even high achieving students usually get into zero such schools.</p>
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<p>Students who take courses that less-smart students fear to take should be able to find their tribes in those courses.</p>
<p>The OP’s other posts seem to include posts about engineering, and preferences for other big sports schools like Notre Dame and Northwestern.</p>
<p>It does not look like anyone really agrees with the OP’s parents’ reason for pushing MSU. But most seem to disagree with the OP’s apparently extreme disdain for MSU.</p>