Applying to local uni – mess up that application too. It’s not that hard! - This is not good advice. Your parents have very right to pay nothing toward your college application and if my child did this I would pay nothing.
Better advise - give your local uni a try.
“At the end of the admissions cycle, one of your five schools will accept you and you’re good to go.”
Unless the OP chooses places with automatic admit programs, there is no guarantee that there will be even one admit out of the five.
Super bad advice here.
Do they have a list showing the top 10 colleges? Can you go down the list and show them that your stats don’t quite match those schools, but that they perfectly match, say, colleges #12 and #14 (or whichever ones you like that are still in the top 20)? Then, tell them you’re applying to the local university, a few of the top 10 colleges as reach schools, and #12 and #14. Maybe if you don’t get into the reach schools, but you do get into #12 and #14, they’ll decide to send you there after all. And if not, you’ll hopefully be accepted to the local university. You could always go there for a couple of years, save up your money, and then transfer to a school you like better.
Oh please. Don’t be so grumpy. of course the other colleges would have to be well chosen. And frankly it’s not that hard to get into most colleges @happymomof1. Only the top 25 or so are so very hard. Maybe top 50, but not that hard, really, if you’re a little creative and not just hankering after rankings
70% of colleges go unfilled! There’s a list published on this forum each year of collges that aren’t filled by May 1.
So I think a lot of the grumpy grumps on here are mainly overly sensitive parents who want to see the parents of this student force him or her to go to a school that they don’t want to go to. They seem to be threatened by a kid who wants to do something other than what the parents say. “If they’re paying the bills then they get the say” Really???
How would you like that? If it were you??
“You have to work in X job even though you hate it for four years BECAUSE THEY ARE PAYING YOU. And you will like it. And not complain.”
Really??? @123Mom456 You would just shut up and take it if someone’s paying for it??? You wouldn’t take a little control over your life? Or at least try to?
Why do that?
Why not take the kids’ side instead of the parent’s side of things? He/she can take some control overr the situation??
It’s super manipulative on the parent’s part to make him or her attend schools – there are 2000 or more schools – randomly selected and all of which the kid hates. Super. Hard-nosed. and. Manipulative.
OP: there are so many good colleges out there. Do your research well. figure out schools that are the same price that your parents want to pay, schools where you are in the top of their stats, write darn good essays, and send in the apps. Have a convo with your parents and maybe they will come around.
Best of luck to you.
@Dustyfeathers - No you don’t have to stay at a job just because they are paying you but you can’t walk into another job and demand the same salary and benefits, As an adult you make choices and live with the consequences of those choices.
OP - I’m not saying what your parents are doing makes a lot of sense but you do need to deal with this like an adult. Don’t go sabotaging an application and potentially your future. I don’t know your parents and can’t say how they would respond but I can say that chances are if you respond like a child they will treat you like one. Maybe they think you aren’t mature enough to go away. We don’t know what their logic is but a mature conversation with them might reveal something. Maybe you can talk and work something out. Maybe start at local school with an understanding you can transfer if you meet expectations. Maybe given them some mature reasons as to why another school is a good fit and I’m not sure if I would agree that it’s better just because it’s far away from home.
Reality is they are not obligated to pay anything but they are offering to. you can accept their offer and work with them or you can chose to do it on your own. Your choice.
It seems apparent that many of you are not getting past the first 2 sentences and have not carefully read the whole posting.
Again, I think that parents told OP that they would only pay for a top 10 in a tongue in cheek manner because they already know s/he does not have the grades and stats to get in
By Op’s own admission, s/he does not have the stats to get merit so is that why the OOS and privates are off the table (apparently they are not paying full freight for him to attend those school).
Maybe they think that OP did not do his/her best work, so they do not want to pay for more than the affordable option, the local university. it is OP who is not willing to go where the parents said that they are willing to pay for. That is perfectly their right, because they are not obligated to pay for anything.
Nothing wrong, with that. Again, they know their kid.
We are only hearing Op’s side of this tale of woe…
@thenerdyatheist I think that you either need to go to your local university, or you need to talk very calmly and rationally with your parents and find out what their concerns actually are. It would seem likely that the cost of education might be a significant concern. Depending upon a lot of details that we haven’t seen, it might or might not be possible to find other good universities that would cost the same as your local university.
If you can get them to pay for your to live on-campus, then you should keep in mind that attending the local university, even if it is only 10 minutes from your house, will still feel like you are in a completely different world compared to living at home. Also, there will be a lot to do on and around campus – there is on pretty much any campus. You might need to be a student there before you find out all of the various activities that the university will offer.
It sounds like you want adventure. Have you considered the military? If you sign up for a few years, you will get some pretty good benefits, and then you can choose where you go to college.
It depends what the op wants to do, what the local university is, what universities s/he can consider, whether she/he is open to automatic full ride scholarship schools as well as his/her flagship, what the budget is, not to mention, key question left unanswered whether the parents are recent immigrants who don’t understand how things work in the us (in MANY countries if you don’t attend a top 10 college you’re sunk for life), what ops stats are, etc.
@thenerdyatheist : come back, answer the questions - this thread will be more helpful if we have more specifics…
@Dustyfeathers - Some of us have posted multiple times within this past week about where to look for the threads in this forum about automatic admission and automatic merit. If the OP has the right profile, there are full rides and near full rides out there that would mean the parents needn’t have any say at all. However, we don’t know the OP’s stats, and what the OP stated about the stats could lead reasonable people to believe they aren’t all that hot. Once the stats are out of th automatic full ride range, then the parents (or whoever is footing the bill) is going to end up having a lot of control over the college list.
And there can be really ugly surprises on March 1 even for students who thought they did the research for their application list. Which is why I always recommend that the student identify at least one auto-admit that could work for them - even if that auto-admit is just the open admission community college down the street.
I told my younger daughter similar thing but in a different way. She can only apply to schools that meet our need so it would not cost much more than our in-state flagship in town. Also, the schools must be at least as good as the in-state flagship, otherwise there is no reason to apply. With these criteria, there are only private universities within the top 20 she can pick other than the in-state flagship in town which she has been already admitted in EA.
@ccprofandmomof2, The military isn’t a scholarship service or a travel agency. It’s a serious career for those who actively choose to have it as a career.
Why would you sabotage what might be the only affordable option for the family?
Was it established that the local university would not be affordable?
OP has not been back with relevant details that would clarify questions about costs and other matters.