My dad is giving me the ultimatum

College Search & Selection
161

Lying is never a good ide in general. Since your dad has a PhD, clearly he is a really smart guy in certain areas. But he might not be making entirely logical decisions in this arena.

Just to put things into perspective, it might seem right now like this college choice decision is a do or die sort of thing. Like everything in your life is depending on it. But consider that both schools are excellent universities and you will get a good education at either one. I could even argue that going to Berkeley might be good for you because you’ll be a bit out of your comfort zone. And having grown up in the SF Bay Area, I’ve got to say that you would be a short BART ride away from the biggest Chinatown in the US. The dim sum in SF Chinatown is out of this world. But of course food is a dumb reason to pick a college. I’m just trying to offer up a silver lining to the cloud.

162

It would be best if the OP can clarify the financial situation. Because if she has to take out loans, and if this step puts her sibling’s college situation and her parent’s retirement at risk, then this becomes more than just a push and pull over which college the OP prefers.

163

You probably won’t ever be able to win your dad over on the money argument. IF you do decide to go to Berkeley, you could use that unique part of the country to your advantage. For example, go to your public health professors’ office hours frequently. As a sophomore or junior, approach them with an idea for an undergrad research project. If you speak Mandarin or Cantonese, you could even do a public health research project in SF Chinatown. Chinatown has a Chinese hospital. You could do some really interesting project comparing traditional Western medicine against Chinese medicine (herbal medicine, acupuncture, etc). Do your homework and find a professor at Berkeley who is doing public health research that you’re interested in. Show some initiative. And if you get lucky and do enough leg work, you might luck out and get your professor to agree to submit it for publication with your name on the research article.

164

Where do you think the loans are going to come from, @tucsonmom? The parent can’t take out federal loans without cooperation from the student, as they are in her name.

165

@intparent I also rely on CC to get opinions and advice. It is very helpful to get a third party view for this stressful period of time. But most of time, there is not a family dispute involved. It is sad that this family has communication issues when communication is most needed. To resolve a dispute, unilaterally blaming one side without hearing the other side is never effective. We are talking about a father who has sacrificed a lot to raise OP up. He is having a hard time understanding her choice from HIS perspective or HIS value system. It is obvious to me that both colleges are great options and would not make too big of a difference for OP to get a great education. However ruining a relationship between a child and a father and the family unity will definitely make OP and the rest of the family extremely unhappy in the future. As we are hearing only her side of the story (even that is very vague), I just can’t see anyone’s advice here can be very helpful. I still believe if the dad truly loves his child, he will eventually turn around. Right now he is just using whatever power he has to force her to pick a college that HE believes is the best for her.

166

I’m following this to see how you do as 5/1 approaches…I have no advice other than to be as open and honest w/ dad as you can. Perhaps the eventual demise of your major a UCB will sway him, or maybe he dislikes that major? Maybe add up 4 years UCB (no FA I would imagine from OOS?) and 4 years UVa. Difference in red!! What can he do with that? What if you promise grad school?

I won’t judge him, and I’m certainly happy to see you don’t either, OP. Parents do the best they can. Sometimes our best just isn’t vey good. Good parents can admit that…eventually. We all come with our baggage. Some of us relive what we couldn’t do bc of circumstances ($), and some bc they could not have done it (grades). It’s just a fact of life. Keep working within his mindset. I think you’ll get there!!

167

@TigerBeach: I agree with many of the things you say. This is an unfortunate situation, and keeping the family together, communicating, and with good feelings towards each other is one of the most important considerations. It’s true that the entire situation is not clear. But the OP has presented the situation respectfully (i.e., towards her father) and in a fairly even way. And I don’t think (most of) the responses here are unilaterally blaming one side. Going to Berkeley may be an option that the OP needs to seriously consider. But it is not that simple – if it involves significant debt – for her family, or even worse, for her – it may not be a workable solution.

We don’t fully know the situation. People may be projecting their experience and knowledge onto it. (I, perhaps fortunately, don’t have any direct experience with this type of situation.) Maybe the control/manipulation isn’t as extreme as some are concerned about. But I think it’s important that the OP be made aware of potential serious complications that may arise, and options she may have.

168

Then pick Virginia and see if that’s true. If you submit, you will never know, until you disobey next time.

For the record, I’m unilaterally blaming one side and have zero sympathy for the total disregard that this father has for both his wife’s and his adult or soon-to-be adult daughter’s opinion and feelings. The father has said that he prefers in the following order

  1. total submission of his wife and daughter
  2. a BMW for himself
  3. his daughter’s happiness.

Daughter comes last.

I am a father too, and so help me God, I hope and pray that I could never hurt my children in that fashion.

169

Let’s not leave out the part about requiring her to take out loans of ~$80k or more – not talking to her and requiring her to take on massive debt. If their relationship is ruined, it won’t be the daughter’s fault.

170

1)DO NOT cosign any loan. Period. Be firm and don’t budge. Those would sink you and your family. If you don’t cosign, at least ucb costs won’t derail everyone’s life if something goes wrong.
2) ask your mom to fill out fafsa, indicating both ucb and uva on the form. Please have her do that today.
3) ask your father point blank how much in Parent PLUS loans you’re talking about. You need to know because his choice is going to affect the family. (BTW The enormity of the amount might sway your mother to help you for uva. ) Ask your parents if they’ve looked into the renewal process and if they’re confident they’ll be able to pay that for 5years (due to the budget cuts leading to enrollment issues, expect to need 5years to graduate.)
4) research whether the budget cuts affect your chosen major. Show your dad all kinds of articles from reliable papers highlighting the budget issues in the past 2-3years. Point out that the news may not have reached China yet but at some point it will, and then it’ll look bad to be attending there for undergrad. (graduate programs are safer than undergrad programs but some might be cut altogether.)
5) explain, again, that there are five ‘public ivies’ in the Us: Berkeley, UCLA, umichigan, uva, and uncChapel Hill. Some people add a sixth with Uwisconsin or uWashington, but the five are definite and seen as equals. However, uva is considered better for anything Washington - related. Repeat with me: On the East Coast, for anything politics or policy related, uva enjoys greater prestige. Public policy thinkable tanks are often in the DC area and their employees as well as government employees teach at uva, recruit at uva, cross polinate with uva simply because it’s rather close and it’s a powerful school. They DO NOT teach, recruit, or consult at Berkeley. It’s just too far. If you want to get into California politics, ucb is perfect. But for Washington jobs, uva is seen as much better - he can ask the prestige question to his colleagues, there’s simply no way ucb comes out on top for policy internships or DC prestige. Surely your dad can see that wanting to work in dc/nova, uva makes sense. He can even tell the people he wants to impress, it’s due to DC contacts that you ended up choosing that university, IE., special access to power.

What I worry about is the worst case scenario : dad forces daughter to cosign loans for 30or 40k a year, or, the family takes on unsustainable parent plus loans, and halfway through the degree the family’s unable to take on more loans, the student can’t graduate, and siblings are forced to attend community college (which would certainly be an even greater 'shame’for a Chinese family then having a daughter in Public Policy at uva o_O)

BTW, if you need to cosign loans, it means your father CANNOT pay for ucb.
But even if he threatens you, do not cosign loans. You have that power. If he refuses to talk to you, tell him you’re doing it to be the adult and refuse to hurt your mothers’s, siblings ', and even his, credit record.
(give him the article discussed in thread about ‘secret shame of the middle class’)

171

Since they haven’t filled out FAFSA, my guess is that the dad does not even know what the various loan options are, including Parent Plus loans. Maybe he thinks he should take a HELOC on his house or something.

172

^ how will that fly with the mother? HELOC is serious.
We’re talking a cost to degree of 300k in all likelihood (the budget cuts are going to make it almost impossible to graduate in 4years.) can HELOC withstand even half that? Can he decide to jeopardize so much just to send his daughter to a university that’s fighting a budget hydra?

173

Sorry, I haven’t read the whole thread. Has your dad visited Berkeley? If you had more time and didn’t want to go to Berkeley, I’d recommend visiting, staying in a hotel south of the campus, and wandering around late in the evening on Telegraph Ave and People’s Park to get a feel for the city. It is not the nicest environment.

174

Too late for that, I expect… decisions are due this weekend. :frowning:

175

It is unlikely that budget cuts will prevent the student from graduating in four years. They may, however, result in not being able to study a desired major (note that public health is a limited-enrollment major, as are many other popular majors) or choose some desired out-of-major breadth or free electives (because the spaces in those courses are first given to students in the majors that require them).

176

I agree many of you have offered your opinions and advice that cover all possible angles. It is up to OP to decide what to listen. She can only be happy if she goes to UVA. But her father will not be. She will not be happy at UCB but her father will be. She is forcing herself to pick between a college and her father. She believes she will still be happy at UVA AFTER she loses her father? If my child acts like I am less important than a college, it will totally break my heart. Again very unfortunate situation. Many kids would like to have the options to pick between the two great schools. I believe one of them will back down in the end, either the daughter or the father. If not, something is seriously wrong in this family. But I still believe the father will back down.

177

It looks like her father is forcing her to pick between a college and her father.

178

From the financial perspective, did the daughter ever calculate how much it has costed the parents to raise her up and gave her the excellent HS education and all support to her ECs to get accepted into the two great schools?

179

“did the daughter ever calculate.” Why the heck should she? Parents are SUPPOSED to support their kids financially.

180

[QUOTE=""]
did the daughter ever calculate how much it has costed the parents to raise her up and gave her the excellent HS education and all support to her ECs to get accepted into the two great schools?<<

[/QUOTE]

if you are a parent that is what you’re SUPPOSED to do. it does not give him the right to act like a raging jacka*** toward her for the rest of her life.

and how did he “give her” an excellent HS education? seems to me she might have had more to do with that than he did.