<p>Buy your mom a copy of the book:
Letting Go</p>
<p>And tell her you love her a bunch-- but Pitt provides you with more opportunity to grow academically and emotionally and you know that is what she wants for you.</p>
<p>Yes, the nationality rooms, the Slavic cultures department, and all of the rest of it are wonderful at Pitt. But - the posters are assuming that the mother has some affection for Russia. Remember, she LEFT Russia. Her circumstances there may have been such that she has total disdain for the country. She may not be from the “majority culture” in Russia and may not want anything to do with this “majority culture”. We just don’t know based on the information given by the OP. And, there may be reasons that she is fearful for her child to be exposed to alcohol. Just saying.</p>
<p>OP, run, don’t walk, to the library and get the book “Getting to Yes.” Read it, and employ every tactic in that book. I am telling you - it works!</p>
<p>Thank you all for your help and advice, I greatly appreciate it!</p>
<p>My mom took the battle a step further today, saying that she won’t help me pay with college if I don’t go to Drexel. I’m not losing this battle, but all this pressure is slowly getting to me!</p>
<p>IPH, I don’t normally recommend that students take out any more debt than they have to for college. But you plan to major in engineering, so should get a decent job when you get out. The rule of thumb often discussed out here is don’t take out any more in loans than you expect to earn in your first year of salary out of college (just as a guideline of how much to borrow). It seems like you could take out loans for $11,000 per year to go to Pitt if you need to. And if you work summers and during the school year, you could potentially knock that down to $8,000 or so per year (not sure if you were already taking your earnings into account already, though).</p>
<p>My advice is to read the “Getting to Yes” book, and go on the Pitt tour with your mom. If you still can’t convince her… take out the loans on your own and go. Be kind to your mom, but firm… it is your life (and her money – she is not obligated to pay for your education). Tell her you respect her opinion, but this is important to you, so you plan to move forward with it. It is possible (but don’t plan on it) that she might even come around and put in some money after the first year or two if your grades are good and you have not turned into a total hoodlum from living in the dorms :)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you, OP.</p>
<p>My son goes to school 2000 miles away. And darn, it was reallllly hard to say goodbye. I told him that I enjoy having him around, and if I didn’t love him so much… I wouldn’t let him go. But it was time for him to fly.</p>
<p>Maybe the accepted student day at Pitt will help…Is it possible that you could prearrange a visit with someone from the engineering dept who can explain what the school offers you? In terms of preparation for career I mean. </p>
<p>And someone needs to get through to her who can explain that not all private schools are the greatest, and not all public univ are the worst. Someone whose opinion she will respect. Drexel is not Harvard just because it is private.</p>
<p>I think, though, that the real issue is the distance. If Pitt were as close as Drexel you would not be hearing all this objection. You’d still get pressure to commute, though! The guilt tripping by aunts & grannies, etc–they are afraid of “losing” you. </p>
<p>You have to make it clear that you want to go to Pitt for the engineering dept (and not anything else – no dorms talk, pretend girls don’t exist there, no “learn how to take care of myself” etc. That matters to you but that kind of talk scares Mom & Grandma). </p>
<p>Have you gone to the course catalogs? Have you printed them out, from the 2 schools, and shown them what courses you would be taking at each, and how Pitt has courses Drexel does not (I’m assuming this!) and so on? <em>That</em> is what you go to college for—to go to school (at least that is what they might listen to—they are not interested in your finding yourself, “fit” or any of that). </p>
<p>Can you find a mechanical engineer to talk to them? Perhaps a parent of a classmate? Someone who will say “All other things being equal, I’d hire a student who came from this program and before I’d hire one who came from that program”? Or maybe “I’d take a longer look at the resume of…”? </p>
<p>Pittsburgh is not really that far from Philly. Yeah, several hours—but you can promise up & down that when you are done with school you will come home to Philly to choose a bride & live near Mom & the family. That is what I think they are really scared about. </p>
<p>If they are worried that you will starve on the poor food & Mom needs to cook for you & all that—well, college food is not great, and dorms are not palaces, but you are there to learn what you need to, to become a successful engineer. A dorm room “like a toilet” is the price you pay for getting a terrific engineering degree (tell her Pitt puts the money into the faculty & instruction & computer resources & labs, not the dorm rooms). I think your hope of success in this is going to be convincing them that Pitt has the education that will get you there & Drexel does not offer as much in the schooling dept. </p>
<p>And, when you get to Pitt, do not forget to be very diligent about emails, photos, sending copies of your papers with As on them! Send pictures of your toughest prof–not of you making snowballs with your friends.</p>
<p>“My mom took the battle a step further today, saying that she won’t help me pay with college if I don’t go to Drexel. I’m not losing this battle, but all this pressure is slowly getting to me!”</p>
<p>Then tell her you will go to Pitt anyway. 11k/yr is not that bad. As another has said, you can do around 5-6k/loans per year, and you can do the rest with summer and part time jobs. As you get further into the engineering degree, your summer jobs might not turn out to be that bad, income-wise. </p>
<p>There are other ways to economize — cooking on your own, buying (very) used books, reading shorter assignments in the library or even bookstore. </p>
<p>If push came to shove, you could also drop out for a year or semester to earn $$ and return. There are people who do this, believe it or not. </p>
<p>Tell her you will go to Pitt because it is the best place academically for you --you are her child; you can be at least as stubborn as she is.</p>
<p>We will be visiting Pitt next Saturday, my mom is clearly voicing her displeasure about how bad it will be, how we are only visiting so she can prove that its worse than Drexel, etc; its ridiculous. </p>
<p>She knows like 10 Russian people who went to college here, and since most of them went to Drexel and/or commuted, she thinks that everyone commutes. How do 10 people represent everyone? She thinks that living on campus is an “American” thing. My mom’s boss, the sole American she knows, told her that Pitt isn’t a good school, so she trusts his opinion over mine. She thinks that just because Drexel has co-op means that I’m guaranteed a job after I graduate. I showed her that Pitt has a co-op program too, however that was ignored. </p>
<p>The real issue that my mom is hiding is that she can’t let go, and will do anything to stop me from leaving. I just want to be able to choose where to go to college, I want to go where I think is best for me, not where my mom thinks is best. All of my friends’ parents support them wherever they choose to go, and they don’t put constant pressure on them with guilt trips.</p>
<p>iPhonehacker,</p>
<p>I’ve been following this thread with interest, and I wish you the best of luck. I hope you can arrange for some members of the Russian speaking community at Pittsburgh to talk to your Mom; perhaps the Russian language professors at Pitt can help?</p>
<p>My own parents weren’t happy that I chose to attend graduate school 5 hours by car from where they were living, but over 20 years later, now they realize it all turned out for the best. I’ve never regretted my decision to move.</p>
<p>In any case please keep us posted on how the visit went! We are all rooting for you.</p>
<p>A concerned Mom</p>
<p>IPhone, are you going to Pitt on a day especially for accepted students? At the university where I teach, accepted kids and parents come to campus for a festive getting-acquainted day. There are special separate programs for the parents, showcasing how great our school is. They can attend classes, tour (nicely cleaned-up!) sample dorm rooms and the cafeterias, find out about campus safety, sit in on a class, meet with financial aid people, and so on. The parents as well as the kids are very excited and have a lot of fun. Such an atmosphere might be contagious for your mom. She would certainly meet a bunch of American parents who assume their kids are going to go off and live in dorms somewhere, and who are thrilled that they might be going to Pitt.</p>
<p>I agree with other parents that you should stand your ground. It’s insane to pay more money to go to a school that is not as good, especially when you don’t want to go there! Your mom sounds as if she is terrified that she will lose you, and just for that reason I bet any money that she will cave once she sees that you are resolved. </p>
<p>Then, once you do get to Pitt, be sure to be considerate of her feelings. Stay in touch with her, and come home on your breaks!</p>
<p>This is definitely a “foreign” attitude. I’m a parent (and also an immigrant, although my parents never discouraged me from going away to college.) I’m also a graduate of Drexel who commuted, and if I had to do it again, I would not. It’s not that I didn’t get a good education; I did, but I feel that I missed out on the college experience. Because of this I encouraged both my kids to go away, no matter how much I may miss them.</p>
<p>Your mom is right that going away for college is largely an American thing. Many, if not most, kids in Europe (at least where I came from) tend to either commute or attend a college that’s close to home. But the thing you have to gently stress to your mom is that this is not Russia. This is the U.S. and you, as an American kid, are naturally interested in doing things the way they’re done here. It’s not better or worse here, it’s just different. Tell her that this is not in any way a rejection of your heritage or a desire to abandon your family. It’s just that you feel Pitt is the better school for you. </p>
<p>(And yes, Drexel does have a very good reputation for engineering in the Philadelphia area, especially within the immigrant community. It’ll be hard for you to argue with the opinions of all those Russians!)</p>
<p>I can tell you that commuting took up a lot of my time. If I forgot to do something, it had to wait until the next day (or two) when I was on campus again. If the professor’s office hours did not coincide with when I was on campus, then I couldn’t always get the help I wanted. And I had virtually no social life on campus, because I didn’t want to take a late train home.</p>
<p>Also - since you seem to be the first child in your family to go to college in the U.S. - your mom probably thinks that she’ll never see you. That’s definitely not the case. If you’re within a few hours by car or train, your mom will see you pretty regularly. You arrive at school in late August, then there’s fall break in September/October, then it’s Thanksgiving in November, and then it’s Christmas already! You go back in January, then spring break is in March, and then it’s May and you’re home again! We were surprised how often we actually see our daughter.</p>
<p>Reassure your mom that you’ll call her regularly. Set up Skype on her computer if necessary so that she can see with her own eyes that you’re still alive and well at Pitt!</p>
<p>If the cost and quality of the schools you’re considering are comparable, as they are in this case, then I think you have a right to decide where you’d like to study. Good luck.</p>
<p>We just got back from our Pitt visit, I loved it! The campus was beautiful, there seemed to be an array of resources available to students, and we had an excellent tour guide who knew what he was talking about, so it was interesting to learn some history about the campus and the area. </p>
<p>Now as for my mom, when we first got there, she was complaining about how far we had to drive, how she doesn’t like it, etc, the usual. However, after our tour, I think she kinda changed her mind. She stopped complaining, and seemed interested. On the ride home, she did bring up the distance issue again, and how she didn’t like the dorms, however I feel that some progress was made!</p>
<p>Baby steps are better than no steps at all. </p>
<p>Keep us posted!</p>
<p>
I think that in is true that in Russia, students generally commute to campus. My daughter lived with a Russian family in high school (foreign exchange) - her host sibling attended a college campus in a neighboring town, probably about 20 miles away but at least an hour commute each way by bus. (Kids owning their own cars is also an “American” thing). My d. was there in winter, and even though my d. was supposed to be attending the high school across the street from the family home, she loved visiting and hanging out at the very beautiful college campus – so she told me plenty of stories of standing out in the freezing snow waiting an hour for the bus to arrive.</p>
<p>Later, in college, my daughter spent a semester at St. Petersburg U, where she and other Russian & American students lived in a college dorm – but the dorm wasn’t anywhere near the college – it was clear across town, 45 minutes away by bus. So even when housing is provided for students, the Russian way doesn’t have students actually living on campus.</p>
<p>Of course – the problem is that you are not Russian, you are American – thus it is more than appropriate for you to follow the American custom of choosing whatever college you can afford and living on campus. So I wish you luck. I do have to say that one way or another, this is a battle that you are going to win in the long run if not in the short run – moms can cling to the past, but they can’t prevent their babies from growing up and moving on. </p>
<p>I do think that most of your mom’s reluctance has probably been due to fear – fear of losing you, fear of the big, bad, evil world out there. So seeing the Pitt campus for herself and being able to have a picture in her mind of what your life will be like may have been a big step toward addressing that fear. I’d also suggest that you figure out now how you will be able to get back and forth from college to home for visits – other than the first trip to move out, and possibly moving home in the spring, there’s no particular reason for her to have to drive back and forth all the time. You can just hop on a bus or train for other visits, or share a ride with other students, as there must be plenty from your area attending Pitt.</p>
<p>Get your mom to talk to another adult that has sent kids away to college. My parents were giving me a hard time with graduate school. When they took the pressure off, I decided almost immediately to go to the one they preferred on its own merits, not location. I had also ruled out five other places on their merits before coming down to those two. The reason they stopped was they talked to an adult they respect very much. </p>
<p>Go to college to get an education. My suggestion is to evaluate schools on their merits alone not the location. Do not go to college to get away from family. This was something I unfortunately did for undergrad, but I don’t regret it and I am more confident in myself because of the independence, but not as much as I could be. You should talk to your mom about living in dorms at both places; I think it’s essential for developing independence. Both Drexel and Pitt are good places to be; you can’t lose. </p>
<p>Get good grades once you’re there. Your mom might be concerned about your education quality when she says she thinks living in dorms is just partying. Good grades tell her exactly what you’re doing because education is something you do YOURSELF.</p>
<p>Look at freshman retention rates and graduation rates. I’ve never heard anyone mention this, yet. They indicate student satisfaction supposedly, but certainly how many of the friends you make freshman year will be there next year. Pitt has relatively high graduation (78%) and retention (93%) rates. Since you want to go to Pitt, Drexel has a lower overall graduation (66%) and freshman retention rate (83%), explain to your mom that it is a serious concern somehow. Note that Drexel is still above average. Another thing is the relative number of students in your major. This information is available on an ed.gov website ([College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)).</p>
<p>If your mom doesn’t stop, don’t fight fire with fire. Your mom won’t trust you away from home if you do/say anything crazy.</p>
<p>Nice report! Actually, the two things your Mom mentions now most are the distance between cities and the dorm rooms, but those are things on YOUR to-do list. While she’s thinking about things, you might thank and appreciate her willingness to tour the school with you. And recognize/mention that it must be hard to make all these adjustments in a different country. </p>
<p>Stay smiley about all the nice things you saw together at Pitt. Keep coming back to how the academics will work for you there and the future will be bright. It sounds as though she was quiet and imagining you there. I always feel better about places my children move to after I’ve seen them myself. </p>
<p>Your willingness to come home for holidays is a big factor for her; it tells her you want to study there, not flee from her. You might look up bus or train routes home to see how many hours it will take you, and say now how you could study all the way home. </p>
<p>For now focus on you traveling back to her! Also, remember she has older bones and less patience than you, perhaps. When she thinks of an 8-hour ride, she groans because it sounds and is uncomfortable for her. So remind her that your body is young and it doesn’t bother/hurt you as much. My kids do that to me all the time, because I forget how easily they can endure uncomfortable train cars, all-nighters and so forth. They always say it, “I’m young” not “You’re old” but we laugh. </p>
<p>Some parents would prefer their kids travel cross-state by public transportation than imagine you piled into a car with college friends she doesn’t know.</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t mention this right now, it occurs to me that someday she might prefer to visit you by public transpo, rather than drive across PA alone herself. But that’s a later conversation, and the fact is you could go to college for 4 years without her ever coming there except drop-off and graduation, if that’s how it works out. The point is she should imagine YOU doing the hard travel, not herself, several times a year between Phila and Pitt. </p>
<p>Remember that the old Soviet Union had around 11 time zones, so when people moved to another city, they were much further away and not always well-funded to return home to visit. When she grew up there, there were landline phones but no emails, cellphones, answering machines, skype, facebook… You really can stay in touch with her better than she could have had she done this at your age in her day.</p>
<p>Compared to move from one Russian city to another, your situation is much easier. A lot of Americans would comment, “Phila to Pittsburgh?! That’s really close!”</p>
<p>Attention iPhoneHacker! Drexel is a great school! Before you shut me down and block what I have to say, listen to this: my dad, who has a genius IQ and is very bright yet came from humble beginnings (his parents were immigrants from Slovakia and he grew up as one of five kids in the slums of Brooklyn) went to Drexel to major in chemical engineering. They have a well-known engineering program; so well-known that my dad, as well as many other of his classmates who did reasonably well, was accepted to MIT, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon, among others, for grad school. Drexel’s a great school; don’t cross it off your list just yet. Go Dragons!!!</p>
<p>Babysteps, IPH… you are making progress. If your mom brings up the dorms again, let her know that after your freshman year you have more seniority and can request increasingly nicer housing each year. And make a commitment to come home one weekend a month, for ALL of your breaks freshman year, and live at home for sure next summer. And then keep your word on it with no complaint, it is a small price to pay to get win her over on this. </p>
<p>You may not want to do this, but my daughter calls me every day from college (she is a junior now and is still doing it). I think she did it at first because she knew I was sad when I dropped her off, but she kept doing it because it keeps us connected. I know every student doesn’t do this, but take it from a mom… it makes it MUCH easier to have her far away to hear her voice every day. Sometimes it is just a two minute chat. And… her boyfriend calls his mom every day, too. Believe it or not, you would not be the only kid on campus doing this. Of course, don’t promise this if you can’t do it. But something to think about.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t promise that. I might if the college was an hour or two away, but in OP’s case it’s more like 8 hours. “A weekend” for him would mean two travel days (not home visiting time) and cut into academics, social adjustments and rest.</p>
<p>I agree with some of your other ideas, just not that one because we’re talking Phila - Pittsburgh.</p>