@ChangeTheGame would know better. But I believe that many students at GWU and American will feel that he Howard students are the ones to fear. I guarantee you that they have impressive opportunities and history as the HBCUs alternative to Harvard. Ask Sen Kamela Harris if it’s been a good launching pad for someone who wants to be a leader on the world stage.
Spelman as I think I might have mentioned on another thread has a real resume wow factor. It’s counterparts are Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr.
I don’t think your parents are controlling you. It is my estimation that they are using their years of life experience and pure love to help guide you at this younger age to a long term solution that will pay you dividends for years to come. College is a significant investment in your future. Investment decisions should be made cooly and maturely. In the heat of the moment it can seem like planning a romantic 4 year vacation.
I would meet them in the middle of this one and attend Howard. It’s in the beltway area and would be the one most logical for a cross admit to GWU to choose head to head. It’s coed and will be the most affordable. It’s a real gift to be able to attend such a wonderful school.
I have only read the original post in this thread.
Huge difference between Spelman in Atlanta & USF.
The only way to convince your parents that your heart is in San Francisco is to tell them that you are taking a gap year to work in San Francisco. Of course, this is easier said than done since San Francisco is expensive. But, I feel almost certain that this will cause one side to break.
P.S. I only know USF for nursing & business programs. Are you certain that your intended major is offered ?
Also, the Foreign Services Officer’s exam is difficult. Since you were denied by GWU & thought Spelman was a reach school, is a career as a Foreign Services Officer realistic ?
Finances are the problem, otherwise they would have no issues sending you to San Francisco. Mom and Dad have veto authority, since they’re the ones paying for your college.
“I have to go HERE because I have a DREAM of being a US Diplomat.” That’s not a dream, it’s an excuse. Dreams are not colleges or occupations. They’re desires that directly convert to fruitful accomplishments later. They supersede colleges and occupations. Otherwise, you have nothing left except a fantasy.
If you want to be a diplomat, you need to go to a college which prepares people for that career. Spelman and Howard both do this, USF does not.
In the pros versus cons, Spelman and Howard have many pros, from price, to stellar reputation, to very strong programs in the major, to connections which will help your career. USF, for you, has a single pro - location.
You want to be a diplomat? First rule: you do not get to choose where you go. Get used to that.
Seriously, it’s time to grow up. All I see in your posts is “But I LOVE San Francisco!!”. That’s it. No real thought as to how that will help your career (hint - USF’s study abroad programs aren’t useful for your chosen career). “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” sounds good on a record, but it is a really bad way to run a diplomatic career, or any other career, for that matter.
USF is a great school, but not for your interests and career aspirations.
I know now that for me, when I was a child, I had the disadvantage of only seeing the world from my child perspective. Other than that, I had to guess what it was like to be an adult. Now that I am older I have the advantage of having seen things at 10, 20, 30 and now 60 years of age. This young student knows he is 18 or more and realizes his parents really can’t force him to do things now, and this attempt to limit what they will give is something he/she interprets as forcing him to do something. What the student really doesn’t see is that the parents are over 18 also. He cannot force them to give a gift they don’t want to give. They don’t have to give anything for student’s college. Whether they chip in 5%, 25%, or 95% is entirely up to parents. If they are willing to chip in more for one school than another, then so be it.
The student can go anywhere he/she can afford. Still true. Parents can’t force him in or out of any school, but he can’t force them to give a gift they don’t want to give.
It’s a difficult transition for kids to make into adulthood. They can’t wait to be able to make certain decisions on their own. But what they also don’t get, is that freedom also can break the commitment and obligations that the parents have had.
College is not a $20 bill or a $100 charge on the credit card. It’s a long hard commitment. 4 years at best and can be 10s of thousands of dollars. Hundreds of thousand even. With loans, the cost just keeps multiplied in amount and time. Some parents have trouble saying “no” to paying that tab even when they should. Others don’t want to pay it or have stipulations. Kids have a lot of problems with this situation. They don’t get the interplay between the freedom and the cost of it. See it all of the time.
It’s the parents’ money and if they feel that Spelman is the school they are willing give the money and not USF, that’s their choice. OP can state her preferences, give her rationale, but at the end of the day, it’s the parents choice. It can be take it or leave it.
And it is the end of the day and month. Decisions in the mail. Hope OP has come to sone understanding of the situation
I read a profile recently of a very successful member of our local community. His parents made him go to to a college he didn’t love. When he protested to his mother that “it’s not a good fit,” she responded that “I know it is not a good fit. And in the struggle, you will unlock your gifts.” And oh, how he did. Life is long. Be open to the journey, not just the destination.
^@Sovereigncara: Thanks for letting us know.
Also, you can be proud of your powers of persuasion!
At the same time, you need to know that it’s really not the right choice for your field.
(The Foreign Service is very specific. There are target schools, specific programs such as the critical language flagships, Middlebury, Princeton, G’Town SFS, Spelman, the Croft Institute, that prepare their students for it, and others that don’t. Spelman gives you a shot at it, USF doesn’t. )
Now, if you’re interested in business rather than diplomacy, it’s 100% cool.
Just be aware that choosing USF likely closes of the door to a diplomacy career. Obviously you can still aim an Intelligence post (in which case you’ll need to be very good at one of the critical languages such as Russian, Chinese, Korean, Urdu… or one of the languages in the Subsaharan region).
Perhaps consider combining a foreign language, international studies, and a business minor.
There’s more than one route to the foreign service. My son considered it, taking the FS test twice. Made it to round 2 the first time, and actually did less well the second time. My BIL was doing fine until he flubbed the oral exam which involved imagining scenarios and coming up with solutions on the fly. You might want to work a bit and/or go to grad school first. Both my father and FIL went into the FS after a stint in the military. Anyway good luck!
Beware that this is an anecdote, though I’m sure there’s more than one out there. I know far too many students who have gone to bad fit schools with nowhere near a good outcome. Sometimes it’s a terrible outcome. Top students in high school can end up at the end of their lives type of terrible outcome. Other times it’s merely a case of not getting a chance to do what they wanted to do (as could happen in this case with the diplomat goal) or mere boredom/overchallenge and the desire to transfer.
Regardless of dream school vs parent’s choice (or anything in between), parents should keep tabs on their youngsters as they leave and be sure they are making friends/fitting in. It wasn’t that long ago that I saw a correlation chart of students who opt to or try to end their lives in the college years and not finding a friend group was the largest predictor. I saw that in person, so don’t have a link, but if someone wants to google - it should be out there somewhere.
I agree. “bad fits” more often than not result in “bad outcomes”.
Perhaps the parent in the example was trying to put a nice face onto something that couldn’t be changed.
The issue here is that Spelman is a stellar choice for foreign affairs and USF simply isn’t on the radar for that field, which is highly selective. However if OP studies another subject (especially business) the school is well-recognized. So here USF may be a good social fit but is a bad academic fit. On the other hand if the academic fit is bad, then the student may never have had any shot at foreign service in the first place. (It’s kind of like students who say they want to be engineers and choose a college without engineering or without ABET degrees.) It’s true that military service with either excellence in a critical language or in computer science/cybersecurity can then lead to the foreign service (or politics, cf. Pete Butigieg) so @sovereigncara could stay in shape and improve physical metrics over 4 years to qualify for military service then go from there, and USF would be fine for that, lots of cool weather for running miles with enough challenge (hills), good gym, etc.
Didn’t read the whole thread as it was painful to consider the entitlement factor.
OP - it’s great to have choices (I’m sure GW would have been one of them had you been admitted). It’s also great to have supportive parents who are willing to fund your college - which they are, albeit not exclusively on your terms. Understand that many of us responding are parents with the wisdom that comes with age and experience. Although some of us might handle your situation differently, we’re pretty unanimous in our thinking that your parents are your parents. They make decisions based on what they feel is best for you all the time. You may not understand it now, but you likely will when you’re a parent. As others have said, you want something different, pay for it yourself as you’re not entitled to their money.
Wherever you attend, focus on school, ECs, friends and be happy. Let it be a great experience. Understand your generation has so much more than we had (and we had so much more than our parents - that’s what parents do, they provide for you the best they can). When I went to college, my parents essentially told me to apply to our state school as that was the only one they could afford. Good enough for my brothers, good enough for me.
I think it’s a little dangerous conflating school school fit with overall happiness. Many students that struggle their first year are also struggling with anxiety, depression, an undiagnosed learning disorder, executive function, etc. I think well adjusted students can likely succeed in a number of settings. It requires a certain level of privilege to even be able to hem and haw about fit and school choice.
If something is really a poor fit, transferring is always an option. Some students just aren’t collegiate types. I personally had much more fun after graduating, having my own space, while working professionally in my 20’s in an urban area. I rarely think an initial college choice leads to life long difficulties for emotionally healthy young people. If a kid struggles at that time with some aspect of it, there’s a good chance that would have come out in many settings.
I’m totally on board with keeping a read on student’s progress and keeping an open line of communication there. I know students who went to the “dream school” and discovered their own sets of issues and struggles there too. Including a couple kids that launched across country and were back at home before the end of the year.
This is reminding me of the “I want to be a DOCTOR!” posts I see here all the time. A lot of these smart kids wind up spending a year at community college because they can’t afford the prestigious schools they applied to. It’s nice you convinced your parents to go to the school you want, however, it only shows that one side caved to a demand, nothing more. That school is very expensive, especially if you’re coming from out of state. Would you be able to graduate without your parents co-signing large amounts to debt over to you? If that’s the case, then you can’t afford this school. Going there would financially cripple you. Money is precondition before even applying to a school.
I don’t see the connection between going to this school and being a diplomat. I’m sorry, but there’s no connection there. It sounds like an inflated excuse to me. Furthermore, you need to go into college with an open mind. Most, if not virtually all students change their major at least once before settling on something to study. That’s part of the maturation process of college.
You need to think this through. Deciding on a career is almost never done in high school, and should never be done at that age. It’s a process that takes a lot of thought, research, and adult maturity.