My impression was the transfer counselor at the cc. It needs clarification. But if so, a resource that could have been used earlier.
Sure, I’d like to see this work out, one way or another. But the response was so overwhelmingly that Mom was being arbitrarily harsh. There’s more to consider than the dream and a satisfactory gpa. That includes maturity, responsibility, and back story details. And finances.
I have one who tended to promise everything was in order, first, and verify later. Very stressful.
The OP states she was rejected at every UC. Presumably she could take one additional CC semester and then transfer. That does not seem like an undue burden.
In most cases, it wouldn’t be, but there could be exceptions. For example, the parent may be waiting for the child to finish college so that she (the mom) can move out of state to a place with better job opportunities or a lower cost of living. Or the parent may want the student out of the house on schedule so that her room can be given to an elderly relative who’s having trouble living alone or to a roommate who would share expenses. (In such situations, presumably the student would share the mom’s room during school breaks, which is OK for short periods but might be unbearable as a full-time arrangement.) Or there may be other reasons why it’s important for the student to finish college on schedule.
But for most families, if a parent says “I’ll only pay for 4 years of college,” the parent does not necessarily mean that they have to be four consecutive years, starting immediately after high school graduation.
Another vote for unreasonable. Sounds like a hard-working, persevering kid who had bad advising or couldn’t make her way through the thicket of requirements. I actually think the parent should have helped with that. I had a pretty strong reaction to the post, so perhaps it isn’t a real one but one intended to get a reaction.
If she doesn’t go to a CSU, are you really okay with her working at McDonald’s the rest of her life? Even if she doesn’t get into Berkeley, surely another year of trying (and a potential admission to another UC) will give her more of a future than a job flipping burgers.
And as a fellow “owner” of a 20 year old, I know they don’t have all their ducks in a row. Even the brilliant ones are still half kid, half adult.
RE: “I feel like not getting to go to her dream college will really teach her to be more responsible. As her mother, I feel like it’s my job to teach her to irresponsibility has consequences”
I felt this way with my own kids. I let them get drunk, run red lights and stop signs, hoping that they would get into a crash, kill someone, and go to jail for life. Then they would KNOW, by God, that their irresponsibility has consequences.
You don’t teach the consequences of irresponsibility by changing the trajectory of the rest of someone’s entire life. Berkeley vs. any other institution will change her trajectory substantially for the better. You need to decide, as a mother, whether you want to live with killing your daughter’s chances in life vs. the satisfaction of the “irresponsibility” lesson which, by the way, I think she has learned due to the fact that she has had to delay her dream because of it!
I’m in the “totally unreasonable” camp, too, but I find #45 a bit much.
It would be nice if that were true, but I really don’t think it is. Certainly not “vs. any other institution,” even if we limit other institutions to other UCs. Much as I think Berkeley is one of the great universities of the world, for any particular undergraduate going there vs. UCLA probably means nothing, and going there vs. Riverside probably means close to nothing. And by the same token, the kid is who she is, and if she would be a winner at Berkeley she is sure as heck going to be a winner at Northridge or wherever else she would go if her mother had her way. Her career this far does not indicate that she’s the kind of kid whose trajectory in life would really be limited by the difference in resources, faculty quality, and peer student quality between Berkeley and CSU Wherever.
CSU Wherever is pretty good – kids who want a good education there and work to get a good education there get a good education there. It probably isn’t the place to start if you want to wind up as an English professor at Harvard or a Physics professor at Caltech, but that’s not what most 20-year-olds want. And in most ways it’s probably more advantageous to be a top student at a CSU than a mediocre student at Berkeley.
The advantage of Berkeley is that maybe it inspires her to demand more of herself, and she tries and accomplishes more than she would elsewhere. And encouraging her to try for Berkeley (or UCLA, UCSD, UCI, any of them, really) has some of the same value – teaching her persistence and grit, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and going back into the fray, etc. To my mind, that’s better than teaching her “you screwed up so forget your ambitions, you’re a permanent screw-up.” That’s a terrible message, and a good way to turn a successful kid into an unsuccessful one.
@JHS She didn’t apply to Northridge. I have a friend who teaches there and there have been at-least 3 on-campus crimes there within this past year. My daughter’s safety is my top priority. Plus, I hear that the advisement there is terrible. I don’t want to punish her THAT badly.
“Note: If all courses are completed at one or more 2-year (community) colleges, a student would never be in danger of having too many (excessive) units.”
I’m sorry. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here. Thank you for all of your responses. I just want to address some of the things that I have been told on here.
Some of you have said that she’s already paying the consequences in that she has to wait a year before she go to Berkeley. The thing is, she doesn’t mind having to wait a year. It’s not a consequence if you’re okay with it. At 20, it’s easy to think that you’re going to live forever and that you have all the time world. But I, at the age of 48, realize what it means to have a limited time on this earth. There are countless of people who’ve delayed their ambitions because they thought they had forever, and before they knew it, their life was over. Remember the poem about a Dream Deferred from a Raisin in the Sun?
Another thing I never mentioned is that I would rather she go to a CSU than Berkeley. For one, the CSU’s are much cheaper. Another reason is because I think it will make her realize how privileged she is. CSU students tend to be from poor families and have to work full-time while in school. If she goes to a CSU, she’ll not only appreciate how difficult other people’s can be, but she’s focus more on her studies as it’ll be hard for her to find classmates who have the time to go party with her.
Other people on here have said that I should let her do this because she worked really hard for her grades. Well, the thing is, she’s never had to work hard to get good grades. Academics have always come very easily to her, especially in college. I don’t see why she should get rewarded for accomplishing something that she hardly had to work for.
It would also be in her own interest to do things my way. She may love the college life now, but that is because she is 20 years old. By the time she’s 22/23, she’ll have outgrown it. However, if she takes an extra year of community college and goes to Berkeley, she’ll be a college senior at a non-undergrad age, and she’ll be over all the partying and will feel out of place being 23 and graduating with her 21/22 year old classmates. I loved college, but by the time I was 23, I was over all the undergrad stuff I had done at 21/22. It’s hard for her, now, to see that she’ll outgrow it, because it’s 3 years away, but I, as her mother who has been through it all, know better.
You asked if you are being unreasonable. Even after reading your post of #52, I believe you are being unreasonable. Have her pay for her 3rd year of CC and let her choose her own path. I believe she is acting like an adult. Your experience in college is not relevant, in my opinion.
Not everyone parties their way through college. If I were you I’d be encouraging my D to be as ambitious as she can at this point-- doing the CC route is not for everyone, and a lot of kids end up getting their AA, then getting certification as an CNA or LPN and grinding their way through life making $12/hour.
If your D has set her sights on Berkeley, figure out how to best make that happen- encourage her to have a plan B, and then step back.
You seem to feel that the top priority is for her to feel punished. Most people here feel that the top priority is for her to get a good college education.
Must all consequences involve suffering? I had intended to bring my lunch to work today, but I forgot. So I bought lunch in the company cafeteria instead. Would you rather that I had gone hungry so that I would feel punished for my forgetfulness? Do you apply this same sort of thinking to your own life every day?
This isn’t a choice between delaying ambitions and pursuing them right away. It’s a choice between delaying an ambition (your daughter’s ambition to finish her college education at a UC, preferably Berkeley) and giving up that ambition forever.
Not necessarily. At a UC, she is likely to be surrounded by many very smart and accomplished students who take their studies seriously. She may have to scramble to keep up with this ambitious population. Also, I think that she has probably learned as much as she’s likely to learn about less privileged students at the community college. A CSU doesn’t offer anything new in that regard.
Not necessarily. There are many students who are 23 or older on university campuses. Some were redshirted in kindergarten. Some delayed or interrupted their undergraduate education for a year or more. Some are graduate students. My husband, my son, my daughter, and I all have graduate degrees. All of us spent time being university students at 23 or older. My husband (who got a PhD) and my daughter (who worked for a few years before going back to school to get a master’s degree) were university students at 26. None of us felt out of place. All of us had friends (and some of those friends were older than we were).
I think you simply want her to go to a CSU and you’re looking for an excuse to force it on her.
There are plenty of undergrads in college who are over 22 years old.
If you are the parent…you ARE being unreasonable. Your daughter is going to college…not you. It’s fine that you think that the CSUs are fine…but your kid doesn’t share that view.
How are you paying for this? If costs are not a consideration…let your kid choose.
@singlemomof1 I have to be honest, it sounds like you are purposely trying to make her life more difficult. I was also going to go point by point, but @Marian hit the nail on the head!
–You’re not asking her not to delay her dream, you’re asking her to give up her dream.
–I’m fairly certain she met less privileged kids already at CC - more than she would at CSU.
–There is not much difference between a 22 and 23 year old and clearly your daughter is not you, why can’t you let her decide?
Wow this is really a negative view, obviously she’s smart and whether or not it came easy, she still had to work hard to get where she is. Unless she never had to write a paper or turn in homework assignments, etc, I have no idea where you are coming from. Give your daughter some credit!
I really have no idea where you are coming from. At all. What’s the harm in taking additional classes at CC? Is it just you don’t want her living at home? Is it that you can’t afford the UC’s and didn’t have the heart to tell her and now don’t know how to tell her? I’m racking my brain trying to figure it out.
It’s your daughter’s life - let her make her own decisions. How is she supposed to grow as a person? What’s the worst that can happen?