<p>$3000 to have a place to live for the summer, and what, I’ll make a net $2000 to put towards college? Then I’m in the same situation as I am now. Unless I can some how get a HUGE scholarship.</p>
<p>You don’t understand that Bard is costing 24K a year because of the scholarship/aid I am on. Yes, it is hard to find schools that cost less than that. Transfers don’t get huge merit aid. Believe me, I’ve asked several state schools.</p>
<p>I have a friend who got a 4.0 at the best community college in MA and he did not get any merit aid, even at the worst state school in MA.</p>
<p>well then I guess you’re toast? </p>
<p>I’ve seen alot of attempts to provide ideas, if you don’t feel any of them will work… aw well..sorry.</p>
<p>
Then go live somewhere else! </p>
<p>I understand that you love your parents and don’t want a rift with them – but you are an adult now. You don’t have to live with them. You can visit friends during breaks, or stay on campus if they allow you – and you can rent your own room somewhere for the summer. </p>
<p>If you don’t want to do that, fine. But this is your choice. It is not something you have to do. You have the choice to stand up for yourself and say no to your parents. If you are not doing that, it is because you have made the decision not to do that.</p>
<p>So please don’t ask for our pity. You are not bound to attend Bard or BTB. I have a strong feeing that you are being disingenuous with us, and it is your own personal desire for prestige that is governing your college search. My guess is that you are claiming your mom is making you in the same way I used to hear my kids tell their friends “my mom won’t let me come” when they were turning down invitations to events they didn’t want to attend even before they asked me.</p>
<p>Privates usually award merit aid more than publics, though some publics do.</p>
<p>I am coming very late to this thread, but we seem to have split into an us against them configuration.</p>
<p>I had very problematic situations with my parents. For whatever reasons that ran them, my parents would provide anything and everything to my brother, but not to me. I don’t think it was straight sexism. They <em>said</em> they would sent me to any college I wanted to go to (top 2%, 1500 SAT’s then) but somehow made everything impossible for me. </p>
<p>I did as all advise. Got myself through state university, partially with help of OVR for very severe asthma.</p>
<p>Sure, MLEVINE07 has options, and sure, Opie, perceived whining is not attractive. However, I think when parents seem to have the means and opportunity to provide for us and then don’t, it does hurt. The psychological damage of being part of a narcissistic family is substantial.</p>
<p>We may argue that no child is “entitled” to a college education, provided by parents, that it is their choice, but it sure doesn’t feel that way when one is on the receiving end.</p>
<p>If I can make an analogy: We lived about 1/2 mile from our elementary school. My brother and I walked every day. One day, there was a hurricane-like storm. My mother was the only mother who wouldn’t drive her kids to school that day. She claimed that she was building character in us. To this day I can remember how it felt with all the other cars whizzing by with their dry children in them. No, there was no law to obligate my mom to drive us. And no, we did not get pneumonia. However, she was a healthy stay-at-home mom with an Oldsmobile in the garage.</p>
<p>Had she not had a car or had she been infirmed or working I doubt getting so wet would have felt so bleak.</p>
<p>OP: You have to rise above the situation, find a way to cope, and plot out a plan for yourself that is best for you. That’s really your only option. Don’t focus on what you can’t do; focus on what you can.</p>
<p>
Merit aid does not have to be tied to EFC or qualifying for need based aid. I don’t know whether you qualify for merit aid or not anywhere – but I do know that there are colleges you could attend where the cost of tuition is a lot less than Bard, and there are things you can do to reduce living expenses to significantly less than colleges project in figuring COA. All it requires is choosing a college in a community where rents are relatively low and there are plenty of options for off campus living-- which is true of many public colleges, though definitely not the case for the colleges where you have applied as a transfer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Considering I’m a philosophy major with a concentration on Ethics, you’ll palate my question: Why? In what way is it unethical?</p>
<p>“The psychological damage of being part of a narcissistic family is substantial.”</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>In other words, life is unfair. Your parents can help you but refuse. But you now have choices to make and you don’t have to dance to the tune played by your parents. </p>
<p>It doesn’t sound easy and it probably feels awful. But you can make it in your own way. Do you have a friend’s parent or professor or counselor or pastor to talk with? Someone who can help you put together a plan?</p>
<p>Mythmom, I agree with you that it feels bad when parents are unsupportive, but MLevine hasn’t been entirely honest about the situation.</p>
<p>Earlier in this thread, MLevine posted, *Educate yourself; my mom assumed she could emancipate me and then found out she couldn’t. She then decided on her own that I would get loads of aid and pay close to nothing, but guess what? She was wrong. She then told me I would get scholarship at my safeties and I could go there for cheap. Well, again she was wrong. *</p>
<p>So it doesn’t look like this parent has deliberately cut off MLevine – it looks like the parent did not fully anticipate the costs and can’t afford to contribute more. MLevine sometimes mentions “parents” but usually refers only to “Mom” in terms of his options – which leads me to suspect that the parents could be divorced or separated – so that $19K EFC may not be derived solely from the mom’s income. I don’t believe that the same person who was encouraging MLevine to go to safeties for cheap with a scholarship last year is now standing in the way of transfer to a less costly school – I think its more likely that the mom has said that MLevine shouldn’t transfer to a school that costs more unless the school is better than Bard.</p>
<p>MLevine keeps claiming that he couldn’t get into UMass Honors because of some sort of testing problem at his private school – but I checked online and found out that the honors college requires:
combined (critical reasoning & math) SAT-I scores above 1300,
a high school GPA of 3.8 or higher, and
a high school class rank in the top 10 percent</p>
<p>So I checked MLevine’s high school stats (posted repeatedly on the board) – MLevine had a 3.2 GPA, class rank of about 18% level (32/177), and SAT of 1870, which probably means that the 1300 mark wasn’t hit (unless writing score was 560 or below). In other words, MLevine didn’t get into UMass honors because he didn’t qualify. </p>
<p>MLevine was accepted to the regular program at UMass, however, where tuition would have been several thousand cheaper. In this thread there has been a lot of rationalization as to why Bard is worth a few thousand more… but last year when it was time to sign the dotted line, there was a slightly different take: I know that for me, I was lower-middle and it turns out my instate school (UMASS Amh) cost just $5,000 less then my first choice (Bard). I’m going to go to Bard despite that my parents will only pay that $5,000, and then take out the loans I need to.</p>
<p>So to me it looks like MLevine is a B student who wasn’t happy with college choices and whose “lower middle class” mom can’t come up with much. (MLevine also wrote last year, I work and make about 8K a year…I’m in highschool. - so some of the EFC is attributable to MLevine’s own earnings and savings). When there was a $5K difference between the public and private, the mom offered to pay the difference – so contrary to what we are told, there is a little bit of money coming from mom. </p>
<p>What disturbs me is the pattern of “can’t” as a response to every suggestion, blame-the-mom, and blame-everybody-else. At the same time, MLevine wrote that due to loans, I’ll be living at home for a long time, even after graduate school. This is a kid whose college options were limited by a lackluster high school performance, and has a parent who is apparently willing to let him live at home indefinitely – and we know the mom is putting in $5000 this year plus paying for books – which may very well be all she has. </p>
<p>Does it suck that the mom doesn’t have more? yes. But the current situation does not really look like the mom’s fault. (I even found a post from last year that said Bard College…my first choice. I got a 29K package here. I really like the intellectual atmosphere and the small class sizes. My mom wrote an appeal letter for more money. - so we know that the mom went to bat for the kid to try to get more aid last year. )</p>
<p>We don’t know what the financial situation is other than the characterization of “lower middle class” – but I do see an angry kid with unrealistic expectations and an unwillingness to take the steps needed to improve the situation.</p>
<p>calmom: I’m sure you’re right in this case. I will let my post stand as is for those cases that do actually involve non-supportive parents because I know they do exist, even if this mom doesn’t fit into that category.</p>
<p>On the opposite end of the spectrum: everyday I teach kids who are happy to be in community college. They have very large hopes and dreams and don’t bemoan their fate at all. In fact, many of them feel quite clever to be saving money for their first two years.</p>
<p>mythmom</p>
<p>If I had you for a teacher in CC (or anywhere) I’d feel clever and happy too!</p>
<p>I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–I had some wonderful experiences as an undergrad student at the U of MN back in the 70’s. Some huge classes, but they were good too and I even started discussions in a class of 800-plus. And in the summer, I got into graduate level classes in medical anthropology and medical sociology. Also English Lit.</p>
<p>Don’t assume you need a certain school to have a great experience. Go for a great experience at your school and make it happen. Your profs will be so happy to see you coming.</p>
<p>I plan on studying to be a psychopharmacologist, so I don’t have many non-degree option in the field. </p>
<p>Excellent field, MLevine, but you will need an MD too…</p>
<p>I know this is off topic, but Psychiatry is excellent; I think "psychopharmacologists " trivialize the human experience.</p>
<p>I don’t think Parents are obligated to pay for College, although when they don’t/can’t it’s hard on the student, because the government expects them to do so. The schools expect them to do so. When parents are rolling in money and refuse because they believe their kids need to do it on their own, or believe that college isn’t necessary, or whatever other reason, I think it’s a little wrong and cruel to put their kid among the lower priorities.</p>
<p>Personally, I know now that I’m going to have to pay for college on my own, and that might mean three jobs and doing a lot of things that I don’t want to do. I can’t make my mom pay, even if she could afford to. My family had the “She’s so smart, any school would love to have her!” mentality. It didn’t happen, and no one even knew why or saw it coming until April when no money came in and all the dreams collapsed.</p>
<p>True dat, Shrink. However, if pharmaceuticals are involved (and the percentage of people who believe there is better living through chemistry seems to be growing exponentially…or maybe people can simply no longer cope with the slightest emotional discomfort) it certainly behooves them to employ the services of a psychopharm. The family doc writes scripts too, but also diagnoses athlete’s foot, ear infections and the common cold; the brain requires its own specialists, particularly when mind altering pharmeceuticals are considered or employed. (my off topic 2 cents)</p>
<p>
You call this research? Your advisor is wrong. But I think you WANT to find roadblocks because it feeds your negtivity, which you seem to enjoy for some perverse reason. </p>
<p>What a Debbie Downer.</p>
<p>MLevine, no law firm’s going to pay for me to go to undergrad or law school. Clearly I’m in the worse situation here. Although my dad has graciously offered to pay for law school should I choose to go, and I’m thankful for that.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I’ll have spent enough money on tuition to equal the GDP of a small third world country (~$500k, factoring in inflation).</p>
<p>I have had friends whose undergrad and law school expenses were paid by the firms they worked for.</p>
<p>Yes, this is a risk, and not the traditional process, but I known people who got jobs at law firms, were liked, and then had expenses paid educations. So post #259 is not correct.</p>
<p>Well, if they don’t like me enough, I’ll end up being a legal secretary or a paralegal forever. Or until I’m 30. Or something. I want to go to law school and practice as soon as I’m able. That’s why I orginally planned to work before law school (not for a firm, but in business), but gave that up because law schools don’t consider that leverage, and the leverage is minimal for law firms if I go to a top10 school.</p>
<p>nyu - it won’t count against you in admissions if you work before law school. Anyway, private law school is so expensive that you need to be sure a legal career is what you want. You might get a job in investment banking or something after college and enjoy it so much that there is no point in going to law school. Some non-law large employers will pay tuition for night school if the courses somehow relate to the company’s purpose. I know someone who went to Fordham Law at night that way.</p>