<p>Hello everyone! Bear with me because my situation is pretty unique (and thus also hard to explain). Here it is: I am a senior this year. I have applied and got in to U of M and UChicago. Waiting on admissions decisions from Columbia, UC Berkeley, NYU. I have already won several scholarships to pay for my education: 2 $1000 dollar local ones, MSYSA (1000), Best Buy (1000) and Coca Cola (10,000 or 20,000) and applied for any possible merit based scholarships I could find where I met criterion (maybe around 50+) and am still waiting for possible others wins- I am anticipating a few more at least locally, national ones are more of a draw. My parents are fairly paranoid and thus I cant apply for any FAFSA or need based scholarships at all because they all require disclosing information like income, tax forms, etc. which my parents absolutely refuse to do. I have tried for about 4 years plus to convince them otherwise (it is secure, other arguments, etc.) but with no success. Also, they will only fund me at all if I attend a Michigan public university. I know it makes me sound spoiled because they are willing to pay for an education but I have visited U of M multiple times (only Michigan public that fits all my needs) and my sister goes there, and I have researched a lot, etc. but I really hate the campus, attitude, etc. I would prefer an urban environment, lots of volunteering/internships in social justice arenas, etc. along with a whole other litany of things. Anyway, my parents recently as of like yesterday changed their minds totally making me freak out because I had pretty much resigned myself to U of M at least for freshmen year (and then maybe a transfer if I could scrape money together) and said that if I can fund my whole entire freshmen year at Uchicago I can go there if costs because of scholarships for the other years equal U of M's. The problem it that w/o any FAFSA package freshmen year there verges on (w/ rooms, etc. included) over 50,000. I work a low paying job but right now with that income and my scholarships I dont have enough money to fund it and probably cant count on more scholarships coming in to cover that deficit. So here are my choices:
A. Suck it up and go to U of M
B. Count on the fact that a whole ton of scholarships will come in even past May 1 commitment deadline and just commit to Uchicago anyway (not sure if parents will allow me to do this)
C. Take a gap year and probably lose some scholarship money I have accumulated but work either a full time or multiple part time jobs to try to make up the deficit---Id really like to do this so I could go to Uchicago but honestly at the end of the gap with the scholarships I lose couldnt my situation be worse?</p>
<p>So, yeah I dont know what to do at all. UChicago has been my dream school for like 10+ years and I really dont want to give up the dream so if anyone has any suggestions I am all ears! And sorry for this being so long. Hopefully someone takes the time to read it all and helps.</p>