Do remember that you have the rest of your life not to live in North Carolina…you may have to do what you have to do to get a college education…but after that you can go whereever you want.
Do you qualify for Questbridge? Someone i know got a full ride to Duke through that program. Also many other top schools are part of it. Your family income has to be below a certain level . please research.
@turtletime “the best of my siblings” was actually sarcasm but okay lol
OP’s situation is one that seems to come up often on CC: “I have worked too hard in hs to settle for [insert name of in-state public state university] …” The poster wants to go out of state but cannot afford to do so without hefty financial aid.
Facts in all these situations:
- Many states have programs for low income state residents to make in-state public college more affordable. That aid is maybe what OP’s siblings received. It’s from the state government , not the federal government. OOS public institutions generally treat OOS students as full pay cash cows, and so have very limited fin aid for OOS students.
- The Federal government awards Pell grants , for those who qualify, max is around $5000. In addition federal government caps loans at $5k or so per year. This is what @austinmshauri was also referring to earlier
- Elite privates offer lots of aid, but they don’t have a lot of spots. It’s competitive for everyone. Do look into Questbridge (also suggested by another post) and other similar program for low income students. They help qualified students with apps for these universities
- And keep in mind that the much maligned flagship in-state university often has much higher entrance requirements for its engineering program. This is definitely true of NC State (which is ranked #34 for undergrad engineering by US News) and many others.
That type of sarcasm is a sign of immaturity, when posted to a forum where others don’t know you.
You’re getting a bunch of different advice here, but it boils down to two options - go against your mother’s wish and find a way to finance an out of state school, or work with your mother to find a compromise. I think you would be better served with the latter option, particularly since you clearly haven’t thought through all the issues with the former option. If your are in fact the best student among your siblings, and even they had most of their costs covered through aid, then you’re from a low income family, and you’re lucky your parents are providing the support they are. Many students in your position get little to no family support. Attending an elite school on a full scholarship is tough enough WITH full family support, due to culture shock.
But there is a reason, which I mentioned in my post:
Getting into an elite college is only one outcome, and while that may be the desirable one for you, there are MANY reasons to work hard in high school. A student who took AP Calculus and worked their butt off to understand the material and get an A is probably going to do a lot better in their engineering courses than a student who only got to precalculus or took an easier version of calculus. If you understand the material better in cal I, you’re probably more likely to get good grades in cal II and III, which may mean better internships and other opportunities for you.
I didn’t say that you should work hard without any goals or clear motivations. On the contrary, what I’m saying is that there should be more than one goal or clear motivation for you, that you should broaden your horizons and think about the multiple ways in which being a good student and learning a lot can be beneficial for your future. The danger of getting fixated on one outcome is that if you don’t get that outcome, you start to think all your hard work was for naught.
When you’re a high-achieving high school student, sometimes, getting into an elite college is all you see. When you’ve had the benefit of some years of experience, you realize that 1) NCSU is an excellent engineering institution (and university in general, but especially for engineering) and 2) your life’s chances and salary are not dependent on where you went to college, particularly in engineering. You could go to NCSU and work hard and do well and end up working right alongside someone who went to MIT or Duke or wherever else.
However, again, you’re a sophomore - who knows what might change in the next year or so. Your mother may become satisfied with your maturation and relent a little bit. You may be able to convince her to look in neighboring states or within a certain distance from home. I agree with calmom; it sounds like you are already stressed enough and arguing about your mom with this right now won’t help you.
Also, get some sleep!
You’re parents are carrying all the power. All they have to do is refuse to put their information in the FAFSA application. Even if you got a scholarship, you won’t get a penny until the FAFSA is filled out in it’s entirety. Don’t get to hung up on it. There’s plenty of options in NC. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to expand yourself after you graduate.
Just a couple bits of reality testing. I think I read that you are a sophomore in high school. If that is true, you really have not worked hard yet. You are just 1/3 of the way through high school. By definition, you don’t have the stats to go anywhere. You still have to earn it and a sense of entitlement is a bad sign for a happy outcome.
You are at odds with your parents. Your mother sounds unreasonable. However, her simple logic might be that going elsewhere is simply unaffordable. You won’t talk her into it by simply talking as a high school sophomore. If you in fact earn acceptances to colleges out of state with acceptable aid offers then you will have some basis for discussion with your parents. Until then, it is just bickering. Even then, she might refuse to budge in which case your options are limited as many have pointed out.
You are getting advice here from many ostensibly reasonable and experienced parents here. You should consider that your best advice!
My kids had gave us very good reasons for applying to the colleges. And those reasons were more about the quality of the school and what the school offered…not about how wonderful and hardworking my kid were as HS students.
Frankly, attending college out of state should not be a “reward” for hard work and good grades in HS.
And getting good grades and working hard in high school should not be an entitlement to do something you think is important…when, it really isn’t.
You are so lucky to live on NC which had some excellent and highly regarded, and modestly priced for instate students…public universities.
This sounds like a “grass is greener” thread.
Again-- these parents aren’t paying, whether the student goes in-state or out. I agree that the discussions are premature for a sophomore, who really doesn’t know his stats yet – and that the current obsession with elite colleges might turn out to be unrealistic. But it very well might turn out that in the end there will free ride, full tuition options in other states, especially if the student does well enough on next year’s PSAT to make NMF, or has very high SAT/ACT scores. And if he is self-financing either way… then it may make a lot of sense to look beyond home state boundaries.
I think this threads ready to close