HELP! My parents want me to go a college I don't want to go to!

What if you meet a most amazing person in the next few months and you yourself want to be closer to home, to be closer to them?

What other schools in MN might you like and be accepted to? You should have some choices in case you don’t get off the waitlist at the other schools.

Total estimated COA for UW Madison is almost $26k for in-state, and almost $27k for the U of MN in-state (with reciprocity for WI residents). Those will no doubt rise next year (and each year after). Out-of-state COA for USF is upwards of $30k+.

I don’t recall if OP has any scholarship or grant aid from USF, but he would not get much if any gift aid at either the U or UW, especially since OP would have to get in at either off the waitlist.

Spring term senior year young love is unlikely to move anyone in that dispute. :slight_smile:

USF is better than Towson. UMN and U Wisconsin are indeed better but OP has been wait listed at both and is this admitted to two universities his parents can’t afford or don’t want him to go to.

OP : apply to UMN Morris and UWisconsin EauClaire quickly (if it’s even still possible).

I was deferred at Madison and waitlisted at Twin cities, I’ll have a Madison decision by end of march and a Minnesota decision by mid April. Any advice as to how to boost my chances of acceptance? Whatever school I go to I’ll be able to afford.

To @MYOS1634 's point, UM Morris is a lovely small public LAC that is several thousand dollars cheaper than UM Twin Cities. UM Duluth is also a lovely school in a cool city with abundant natural recreation opportunities. They are likely to both be accepting applications, I bet.

OP, what are you interested in studying?

The OP wrote, “The thing is though I have been accepted to USF and both Madison and Twin Cities put me on the wait list. I can’t really wait until April to make a college decision.”

According to my research (shameless nod to Magic School Bus), a bajillion students decide where to go to college in April (shameless nod to hyperbole). Why can’t you wait? Is it due to stress and anxiety, or to something else? I may have missed you answering this question. There are parents who interfere with the process a ton (some for kind reasons, some for less than kind reasons). I’m just a bit of a loss to understand the stress/anxiety here.

By what rubric have you determined that USF is a highly ranked school? As compared to what? I certainly don’t want to suggest that USNWR is the be all and end all of college rankings or indicators of quality, but Minnesota and Wisconsin outrank USF by quite a bit on USNWR. What do you like so much about USF? In what way would a worse school that’s much more expensive be better than the ones your parents prefer? You may have perfectly good, rational answers to these questions. If so, maybe try them out here and see if you’re convincing the CC parents and let it be practice for persuading your parents.

As a parent, better academic quality for substantially less money seems like a very good idea.

As for future employers, I’m only one person and I’ve spent most of my life in the northeast, so that’s the perspective I bring, but if I received resumes with those 3 schools, my reactions would be

Wisconsin - hmm, good state school
Minnesota - shrug, don’t know anything, I’d have to look into it a bit if I cared
University of South Florida - SOUTH Florida? A directional school? Couldn’t even get into University of Florida?

Maybe an employer in florida would have a different perspective.

You can’t wait until April to decide? Why not?

@Millie210, What’s wrong with directional schools? Sometimes, that’s all a family can afford. How do you determine which applicants couldn’t afford a “better” school from the ones who either couldn’t get into one or didn’t know there was a difference?

Employers rarely react like #26 to the name of a school. What will matter is what the student does there, not the name of the school.
In addition, USF is a very good school - the fact random people have no idea wrt UF vs. FSU vs. USF means nothing at all, as random people also haven’t heard of Grinnell or Hamilton…
More concerning is that apparently OP applied to Towson and USF as safeties, got waitlisted at UMN and UWisconsin, and his/her parents don’t want him/her to go to the universities s/he’s been admitted to, perhaps because they’re unaffordable. Consequently, this student has very little time to apply to a few other colleges.
As for “I can’t wait till April”… well, since the deferred/WL decisions come in April, the student has to wait till then to hear whether they get into these universities, BUT can’t wait till April to apply to more schools if his/her parents won’t/can’t pay for the universities s/he got into and doesn’t get into other schools.