<p>I didn’t read the whole thread, but OP, it is very hard in this region to convince folks Drexel is not the best engineering school on the planet. I recommend not trying. Focus on why Pitt fits you better and offers more. I don’t know much about it, but as I understood it Pitt students can cross register some courses with Carnegie – This is a selling point as you may have access to 2 outstanding facilities and facilities.</p>
<p>And I agree with your Mom - The drive to Pitt is long. Consider flying. My neighbor (current) and my boss’ daughter (a few years back) each travel to Pitt by plane. You can get some cheap ($39-$69) flights PHL to PITT. Promise her you will fly home every 4 - 6 weeks when you can catch these flights at great prices. That may ease her mind to see you without the pressure of the long drive. But, also let her know these prices will be higher at the big travel times (Thanksgiving, etc)</p>
<p>Good luck. You are handling this is a mature manner. Just keep reinforcing the positives and let her know you are hearing her concerns.</p>
<p>Sorry, thought I had seen a reference somewhere above about it being a 4 hour drive. But… do go home for all your breaks (including any 4 day weekends if you have them). Let your mom know that you will miss her, and will want to come see her. </p>
<p>Tell her she can send you care packages with any favorite foods (that ship well), too I like to send packages to my D, makes me feel useful. I am actually serious about this, it is a way for her to feel connected to you from her side and like she can still do “mom” things for you. You can make it kind of a joke, but she will feel good if she thinks you still need her even if you are not living at home.</p>
<p>^ it’s okay; most accurate statistic is: 300 miles. </p>
<p>So the travel time varies with highway driving speed, food stops, time of day, traffic… I even count the wait-time at the bus, train or airport terminals as travel time. </p>
<p>Flying is indeed a good option, with discount fares bought in advance. Some college students make a little business of driving students to/from airports, or there may be subways from city to airport.</p>
<p>Also it takes longer to leave a Mom’s house so add in the time when she makes sure he has the right travel food, etc. My Mom used to sit at the doorway and think of reasons I shouldn’t quite yet go. :)</p>
<p>Google maps says 304 miles, 5.5 to 6 hours driving time. Not easy for a regular weekend, but certainly ok for holidays and long weekends. Amtrak is 7.5 hours.</p>
<p>You might check the Megabus schedules, OP. They are cheap. Pitt also runs buses for holidays, which is something else to investigate. Glad to hear that your mom found some good things about Pitt. </p>
<p>I know that your choice is dorms or home, but when my daughter was looking at colleges, we did not even make an effort to look at dorms. Dorms are dorms. You may be able to study there or not. My daughter has not had a room where she could study (sometimes sleeping was even a problem because of the social butterflies), but you can adjust for those things.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the entire thread but I noticed your parents immigrated from Russia. My daughter’s best friend in high school had parents who also had immigrated in the '90’s.
They were lovely people but extremely protective. It took a couple years before they would even let her stay overnight for a slumber party. We spoke with them often (though never pushing) about being a bit more lenient for their daughter’s sake. It eventually did make inroads. Do you hsve any friends whose parents would be able to make a little headway for you?
It’s hard to go against family especially when they are so close, but remember you won’t be with them forever and you need to do what’s best for you.</p>
<p>This thread is fascinating and I hope things work out. My son is at Pitt and stays in a dorm, even though we live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Both of his parents went away to school and firmly believe in the growing-up value of going away to school.</p>
<p>Just considering engineering, Pitt and Drexel are probably equivalent. If you consider the whole school and/or asked outside of this region, more people have heard of Pitt, and it’s not just for sports. Only people living in the Philly area could think that Drexel is overall more prestigious than Pitt. This could be why your Mom gets that feedback when she asks her boss. Do you know working engineers in the Philly area who could give a more balanced view? I would be happy if my second kid (interested in engineering) attended either Drexel or Pitt. It would come down to cost, fit, and the opportunity to grow by living on campus.</p>
<p>There is another possible reason for your Mom’s view and the feedback she gets. Pitt’s academic reputation has steadily improved over the last few decades. I can see it since moving here, and believe me, I was not a Pitt fan initially. People near Philly may still see Pitt as the equivalent of Temple.</p>
<p>What would happen if you were accepted to MIT and could afford it? Your Mom wouldn’t let you go because of the commuting distance? Would she still say Drexel is just as good? </p>
<p>Hopefully you can keep wearing her down. Of course I don’t know your Mom, but have to think that the threat of not helping financially is just a bluff.</p>
<p>Where is this 8 hour drive coming from? I live another 30-45 min. E of Philly than OP does, and when we drove to Pittsburgh this summer it did not take anywhere near that long! And we drove into the middle of downtown; for Pitt you get off at an earlier exit. </p>
<p>It took us 6 - 6.5 hr total, but that is because we stopped each way for lunch/dinner. </p>
<p>Flying takes less time for the flight, but you have to get there 2 hour early, deal with parking/drop off at the airport, etc plus getting the ride from the airport to the school once landed. And if you are bringing anything, such as your winter clothes, the car is better—certainly once at the school you will be able to find friends who are driving home to Philly for break & can share a ride & kick in gas $$$.</p>
<p>OP, I’m glad to hear your Mom quieted down once she saw the place. I think another poster was correct; she was imagining you at the school & whether it is a good place for you–not from the American parents’ perspective—we concern ourselves with “fit”----I bet she was listening to the things they were saying about their student services, career counseling & all that. </p>
<p>Did you get to show her those international rooms?</p>
<p>Yeah, we did get to see the international rooms on our tour, and luckily for me, our tour guide showed us the Russian classroom. My mom liked Pitt, she even told me that she liked it, so I figured finally this Drexel talk would stop, boy was I wrong. </p>
<p>My mom talked to a mom of a girl I know in my grade, who happens to be Russian too, and her mom told her that the girl would be commuting. My mom immediately let me know, and all the pro-Pitt talk was thrown out the window.</p>
<p>Then today, in the middle of class, my mom emailed me reviews of both schools from a student review website. Except she didn’t send positive and negative reviews of both schools, she sent me only positive Drexel reviews, and only negative Pitt reviews. She completely ignored the negatives of Drexel, and the positives of Pitt! I hit my breaking point when my mom flat out told me “You will not go to Pitt.”</p>
<p>Needless to say, I had a very “emotional” conversation with my mom, I told her how I’m tired of always being pressured, guilt tripped, and how I just want to be able to choose my future.</p>
<p>Well… push is coming to shove now. You have a couple more weeks to decide. You can pay your own way (via loans/working) for that 11K for Pitt. No one here can tell you whether that is worth it to you or not (or if your mom is likely to back down and help out at any point). Let me just say this… even if you decide to go to Pitt and handle it financially yourself, try not to let this destroy your relationship with your mom. Either way this goes, one off you is going to be angry with the other. Just try to keep a connection on topics other than college as you work through this and live with your final decision over the next few years… don’t burn your bridges… be the bigger person if you can, even if she says some things you really find upsetting.</p>
<p>And… you can keep working on it up until the end. Turn around and send her the opposite reviews (bad Drexel/good Pitt).</p>
<p>Nothing will get through to my parents, nothing. We had another “emotional” dinner, where my parents said their ignorant opinions, about how the American lifestyle is stupid, and how Americans don’t know how to live, and how only “idiots” live at college because only “prostitution, drinking and alcohol” occur there. They think that the only reason I want to go to Pitt is to run away from them, which to be honest after this whole situation isn’t far from the truth, and to top everything off, my dad told me that my opinion about where I want to go to college doesn’t matter. I feel like I’m in a trap, I want to get out of here!</p>
<p>They are afraid of losing you. They are afraid that you will become the kind of American that they dislike and fear. </p>
<p>This story is as old as the history of this country. There is nothing you can do that will make things different. Right now they hate Pitt. In four years the won’t want you to take a job that is in Ohio.</p>
<p>You can arm yourself with strength and love and do your best to get along with them when you are together, but you can never do anything about their fear of losing you. Even staying home with them forever won’t change that.</p>
<p>I am so sorry to hear about this disagreement with your parents. I know this is a very trying time for you. There are times when I still feel upset that my own immigrant parents pressured me to finish college at a “public Ivy” in the south which I realized was a poor fit after one year at the said college. </p>
<p>As intparent said, try not to burn your bridges with your parents. But keep sticking up for yourself and your own goals to attend Pitt, since apparently you won’t be able to grow as a person living at home while commuting to Drexel.</p>
<p>I and probably many of the parents who has followed this thread are all pulling for you.</p>
<p>iphonehacker-- Ah, what can I say? My immigrant mom bitterly complained that this country “steals people’s children.” There were many battles about living at college, among other issues in late adolescence/early adulthood. She has been deceased all these many years, and I miss her so much. But, your story brings it all back, the anger, the hurt, the misunderstandings. Same sort of reaction to living on campus, that it was just to party and sleep around. Very hurtful to a straight-arrow, great student, responsible and sensible type of kid that I was, never ever gave them a moment’s worry. Anyway, my heart goes out to you. </p>
<p>You are in no way a bad person for wanting to go to Pitt over Drexel, or for wanting to live at school rather than commute. Nor are your parents bad people; you are just in a particularly difficult, seemingly unbridgeable, cultural struggle. They see it from their cultural lenses, and you from yours. Try, hard as it may, to heed the advice not to burn bridges, to maintain your relationship, to try to be the better person… </p>
<p>Make your best decision, but from a place of calm, rather than out of anger or in opposition. </p>
<p>OP … just wishing you the best … it sounds like you will do great wherever you go to school … and, even it does not seem so now, things with you parents will improve from the current mess after you know where you’re going (either choice) … I know this situation stinks for you but there are only a couple more weeks to go and it will get better.</p>
<p>(PS - I totally understand how you feel … when I picked my school my Mom did not speak to me for about a week because I picked the wrong school in her opinion … (she was raised in an immigrant family and I was supposed to go to the best/most practical school) … things sucked for awhile but soon returned to normal and years later my Mom does not remember her objections!)</p>
<p>The way to get out of a trap is to start laying down the plans, piece by piece, to make the changes needed.</p>
<p>Will your parents support you financially if you got to Pitt? You’ve detailed the ways that they have vented their dissatisfaction and anger, but I don’t think you’ve posted that that they have said they absolutely refuse to pay. So all of the emotion may simply be their way of getting used to the idea – after all, your mom did actually drive you to Pitt’s admitted student session, when it came down to it.</p>
<p>In the short term, you need one thing: the deposit money for Pitt, due on May 1st. Do you have money of your own to cover that? A job where you can earn the money? </p>
<p>Break things down into incremental steps, figure out how to meet each step, and try to stay firm without arguing with your parents. If things are getting too emotional, that’s your signal to just withdraw from the situation and give the parents time to cool off. </p>
<p>If your parents have told you that they will withdraw all financial support if you go to Pitt … that’s another story – but I don’t think they’ve said that. If you confront them head on, then you certainly might provoke them into saying that. But if you stop fighting but keep on focusing on your goals, you may find in the end that they are the ones who give in. </p>
<p>They might feel kind of “trapped” as well – “trapped” in the inevitable result of raising an American child, and coming face-to-face with American cultural views of college study and adulthood. The best way to confront that feeling might be to find other ways to reassure them that going away to college is not a permanent rift.</p>
<p>Okay, I know this is bad advice, OP, but I really feel your frustration and can’t come up with any more reasonable suggestions: Deposit at Pitt yourself, inform Drexel, and tell your parents after the fact. Ta da. Problem solved (by creating more problems, granted, but seriously, your parents need a reality check).</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, my parents are Eastern European too, and they’re very excited about me going to college–even though in our case we’ll be two continents apart (they even think that Reed’s reputation for casual drug use, which I’ve actually tried to educate them about, is “cool,” and like the fact that it’s known as a hotbed of ‘communism, atheism, and free love’–they’re bigger hippies than me sometimes). So I don’t think cultural differences are a solid justification for this sort of behavior. I mean, I know coming to terms with your child’s inevitable transition into adulthood must be very hard, and I’ve already started to feel pangs of regret and preemptive nostalgia myself, but the OP’s parents are just not acting rationally.</p>
<p>Can you compromise by living in the dorms at Drexel, thus staying close to home but still having a more typical “away” college experience? Obviously it would cost more that commuting (which deprives you of a typical college life) and may not be possible, but to me, the biggest thing you are being deprived of is the college experience overall, not one school over another when they seem comparable (from what people here say). Treat Drexel like an "away: school. We live in LA, and my son goes to USC - he lives in the dorms and next year he will live in apartment. We do save a fortune in travel, and it’s the best of both worlds. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>I really feel for you. Your parents are in danger of winning the battle but losing the war. And by that I mean… your relationship with them. They’ve got to learn to let go and just be supportive.</p>
<p>Thank you all very much for your help and advice, I greatly appreciate it!</p>
<p>@jazz/shreddermom Living at Drexel would cost 14k more than living at Pitt. As is currently with my financial aid packages, Pitt costs me 11k with room and board, where as Drexel costs 11k commuting. Basically by going to Drexel, I’d be paying more to commute, especially when I don’t want to commute.</p>
<p>@calmom My mom has said that she would support me financially at Drexel, but not at Pitt, but it’s a bluff. But that’s what gets me, because Pitt is cheaper to live on campus, than Drexel is to commute!</p>
<p>Going away to school is virtually an American rite of passage (for those who can swing it). The “away at college” experience brings maturity and growth that are priceless. And to think that you’re paying more NOT to get this… it’s insane.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to you. If cost is not the issue (as in many kids commute because it’s cheaper), you have earned the right to make this decision for yourself. Perhaps there is some adult who “gets it” who will talk to your mom? Although perhaps you’ve tried this. Again, I really feel for you.</p>
I like to send packages to my D, makes me feel useful. I am actually serious about this, it is a way for her to feel connected to you from her side and like she can still do “mom” things for you. You can make it kind of a joke, but she will feel good if she thinks you still need her even if you are not living at home.</p>