<p>I really want to go to UVa. I visited twice (once last week for the Days on the Lawn) and truly decided that UVa was the place for me. Low and behold, I was under the impression that it would not be any significant financial hardship for my parents to pay for UVa (I am OOS, and at 46k a year for a public school is slightly crazy), but I found out that this was not the case when OOS Virginia was the equivalent to me going to some private college. I am in state UNC-Chapel Hill, but I have never felt like I wanted to go there, and I am just not generally enthused about going there (I already live in Chapel Hill.....). What should I do? I can choose UVa, but I would end up having little to no available money for Grad/Med school afterwords and would have to do it purely off loans/whatever I can make working, or save the money and go to a school I don't really want to go to in UNC?</p>
<p>PorterV, in this economy I would encourage you to consider the finances. And, if you choose UNC, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stay for four years if you end up hating it. You could go to UNC for a couple of years and then transfer to UVA midway through your college experience if you are unhappy. I live in VA, and in our town we have an excellent community college that some of our young people are choosing to attend for financial reasons. They know that UVA has an agreement with our community colleges and that if they keep their grades up they are guaranteed admission to UVA in their third year. It’s a wonderful backup plan for those students with financial constraints. </p>
<p>In any event, no matter what you decide, it doesn’t have to be a permanent decision. You are allowed to change your mind if the school doesn’t fit for whatever reason.</p>
<p>PorterV, last summer, my son felt the same way about UVA that you feel about UNC Chapel Hill–it’s an incredibly good deal for instate residents, but he’s spent his whole life in Charlottesville and wanted to go away and do something new. However, this year, as a senior in HS, he’s taken three classes at UVA, one an upper-level class that’s involved a lot of collaborative projects with current students. He’s realized that UVA is a different world from what he has already experienced–it’s not just high school continuing on a few miles away. </p>
<p>Anyhow, my son has decided to attend UVA and my husband and I will leave it entirely up to him whether he wants to acknowledge our in-town existence or not. We’ve also pointed out that with the money he saves by not going out of state or to a private school, he can study abroad or do some travelling.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of UVA but I don’t think the difference between it and UNC Chapel Hill are worth the difference between instate and out of state tuition–in either direction.</p>