<p>Don't tell your parents it's your life unless you're ready to completely accept that. AKA, no longer having a home if the locks get changed, and paying for everything yourself. If you aren't ready for that, try to work with them.</p>
<p>"Icon, let us start with the basics. There are many awesome schools in your neighborhood (Emory, Vanderbilt, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, UVA, Davidson, University of the South, Washington and Lee, Georgetown, University of Georgia, University of Florida etc...). What do you wish to major in? What are your grades/SAT/class rank like? What ECs do you have? Etc..."</p>
<p>Well, I'm very interested in Film/TV and Photography. I've been in my schools Mass Media class since I was a freshman in High School and we do tons of stuff in there (Like, film/edit football games to be shown on Television in our area...Do competition features which get aired all over the area to hundreds of thousands of people...and do a daily news show for our High School) and just about everyone who goes through there has as much knowledge of the stuff as about a 2nd or 3rd year College student and some have even gotten hired over college students. So, it's a REALLY good program and then I also work at a local Camera Shop so I get a lot of hands on with Photography and Photoshop and also cameras... I do pretty good in school and usually make all A's with a few B's here and there. My GPA is around a 3.9. I'm invovled with two different clubs -- Y-Club and the National Honor Society, so with both of these I do a good deal of Volunteer work for my town.</p>
<p>Florida State is not a bad choice close to you.</p>
<p>And though it may not work, the only chance you have to get your parents on your side is to identify a few colleges and get your parents acquainted with them and why they would be good places for you to go. No hostility, no anger allowed. Just logical reasoning on why these schools would be better choices than those closest to home.</p>
<p>As I indicated, this may not work, but you have no chance if you antagonize them.</p>
<p>This is an emotionally charged issue for both you and your parents. Parents who haven't been able to save much for college sometimes feel very guilty about that. I remembering when I was your age, being aware that my parents had no savings, and considerable debts,and worrying about how I was possibly going to come up with the money to go to college. My parents had exactly the same worries. </p>
<p>My father had left school at the age of 17, after one semester of college. My mother hadn't gone to college at all. I had checked out the college guides from our local library over and over again. I remember my father having a very frank discussion with me about finances; he wanted me to live at home for the first two years, and attend our local state university. I really didn't want to live at home for two more years, and had read that there really was a lot of financial aid out there for students like me. My father wasn't so sure; my sister had applied to one school early decision, and had received minimal financial aid.</p>
<p>We negotiated back and forth for a couple of years. Once, my high school paper (I was one of the editors) published a series of articles on birth control, we had a big argument in which he announced that I couldn't ever go to any more parties with my friends, and that I would have to stay at home until I was 20, at which point he would determine if he thought I was mature enough to leave. I shouted at him for the only time in my life, through my tears. He said we'd discuss it later after we both calmed down. (I've never forgotten the date of that argument; in six weeks and three days, exactly 30 years will have passed, and neither of us ever mentioned it again to each other.)</p>
<p>College money is a big issue for parents, but it may not be the biggest issue. Seeing your children cross the threshhold into adulthood is a huge emotional passage for parents, perhaps especially so for the oldest child, and perhaps even more so for a mother who had to raise you by herself for a while. </p>
<p>So bear with them. Sure it's your life, but your life in inexorably bound to theirs. You also can't expect them to refrain from having an opinion about how to spend their money.</p>
<p>I had calm discussions about college plans with my parents, and I had the other kind, and believe me, calm is better. (Try to refrain from using terms like "self-centered idiots" to describe your parents, as it can cause them great pain, and does little to prove to them that you have the maturity to strike out on your own.)</p>
<p>I ended up starting college 50 miles or so from home. That really was far enough away to effectively break the apron strings. Two years later, when I transferred to a school across the country, it was a lot less of a shock to them than it would have been had I made that journey as a freshman. </p>
<p>You really don't have to go all the way to Australia (Australia?!) to get the distance from your parents to grow into adulthood.</p>
<p>iCon - Let me weight in as a Georgian. With a 3.9 GPA, you can go to any state university in Georgia tuition-free thanks to our state lottery. I've got to think that that's part of your parents' rationale for wanting you to stay. You might want to check out Georgia Tech - their school of arts and sciences has a highly technology-based design and media degree that you might find interesting. Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville is a public liberal arts college that has strong art and mass comm departments. And, as mentioned above, if you can get an out-of-state scholarship you can pave your own way. On the Financial Aid forum in CC you'll find lots of lists of colleges that offer big aid based on SAT and GPA.</p>
<p>icon-
I am a Ga parent who encouraged my s. to go wherever he wanted. Ga Tech was his safe school, but he really didn't want to go. He is out of state, about 2 hrs by plane. I dont know where you go to HS, but you might want to set up a meeting with your parents and your guidance counselor, who should be less busy now that applications are all in. Maybe he/she can help open up the dialogue and help all of you discuss this in a healthier fashion. Maybe there are some other issues that each of you have that can be discussed, and I am sure the guidance counselors have had this issue surface before. Good luck.</p>