So, I've heard this is a place to learn more about colleges and the whole admissions process and what not. Hope you people can help. This is my first time dealing with this and I don't know where to start. I know it's late, but I'm just sitting wide awake with this on my mind.
I'm having a bit of trouble talking with my eldest son about this. He's a rising senior and is in that stage where he's thinking about where he's going to apply. He's a pretty talented student with ok grades (3.6ish) and great score for this state (30). I'm proud of what he's done so far. My husband's a railroader/retired U.S. Marine and I teach at UND and a few online classes at Maryland. We have a pretty nice life, but I'm thinking we make too much money (LOL listen to me) for financial aid. Worst of all is, we won't be paying for his tuition or anything like that. We might buy a few things here and there, like a laptop, but most of his expenses are on his own. He knows this, and I get the feeling that's what's pushing him away, with the mentality of "If I'm going to have to go into debt, might as well enjoy it."
My problem is he's getting really moody about this, and just won't listen when I suggest things, which is frankly not like him. We really started this whole thing when my mother-in-law asked him, as a sophomore, where I wanted to go. He responded with "Cal, Minnesota, Ohio State, USC... either one, really. I don't like it here." So, he'd kind of been thinking about what he wants in a school. I was kind of blown away with him straight up telling his grandparents he didn't like where he lived. I understand hating where you live in high school, but so rude. She started to talk sense into him asking "How are you going to pay for that?" and the like. So from what I gathered when he tells me is he wants a big flagship school with football and culture out of this state. It honestly sounds like he just wants a normal big city experience, and is tired of living in a "backwater," as he calls it.
But he won't listen to me when I tell him to apply to a North Dakota school. He mostly berates the communities around the schools, complaining they don't have anything to offer. Just a larger version of "this hick town." After that, he starts moaning about how the only good programs at UND or NDSU are in engineering or agriculture-related fields.
After visiting Minnesota, he loves it, but I'm just concerned that he might not get in because they aren't as open as a lot of other state schools. I mean, more than half the applicants there don't get in. And he doesn't know where else to apply. All he knows is he won't stay here. I remember him saying something like "I can tolerate the cold, and I can handle the small town crap, and I've grown up around rednecks my life. But I can't keep living with all three at the same time."
I'm just worried, and I'd like to try to talk to him about this, but I'm wondering how.
↧