I live in a surrounding city around the University of TN at Martin, so my parents want me to commute because it’s a twenty minute drive. They also tell me that it’s a lot cheaper and there’s no point in staying in dorms in college because you’re there to get your education only.
I’m a junior in high school and ever since sixth grade I have known that UTM was not the school for me, but they never listen to me. I really want to attend UT Knoxville, which is only a five hour drive. I recently took my ACT and before the test everybody was talking about the colleges they wanted to attend and how their parents supported them and how they did not want to attend UTM and it made me feel like I didn’t have the same choice as them.
I’ve worked really hard throughout high school and I’ve even already gotten a few of my college classes out of the way. I feel like attending a college that accepts students with a ACT score of 19 would mock my intelligence and hard work. I’m guaranteed to be accepted so it’s really not the college acceptance experience that everyone else has. I try to talk to them but it just results in them yelling at me and telling me my uncle, aunt, cousin, and doctor all went to UTM. I feel trapped and like they just want to keep me home until I’m 25. They’ve even been talking about what grad school I will attend, which will be Nashville because it’s close. NO!!! It’s one thing to tell me what undergrad I’m going to, which is awful already, BUT GRAD SCHOOL? I’m so tired of this! What do I do?
Is your ACT high enough to get you a full scholarship anywhere?
Get a full ride where you are funding your own education and not expecting them to foot the bill.
Who is going to pay for your college expenses? If your parents don’t want to pay for more than whatever tuition bill you would have at UTM, start searching for options that match that cost or less. Ask them if they are willing to discuss them with you.
Fwiw, avg ACT acceptance score does not translate into no exisiting peer group. There are top students at most universities. Does UTM have an honors program? undergrad research opportunities?
Well, it wouldn’t mock your intelligence to attend that college. A lot of students choose a school because of it’s location and it doesn’t mean they are stupid. It would be good for you if you could stop that kind of thinking. But I do understand where you are coming from since my daughter had a bit of that attitude herself. We told her that we’d help her get into the best college that was affordable to us, but she wasn’t allowed to think she was too good to attend the state schools. If you have great grades and can get a high ACT score you might create some options that will make it possible for you to attend a school more to your liking at the same price as UTM. What is going to be hard is getting your parents to think that living on campus and moving away is part of college.
Take a look at these for some other possible options if you have the stats for them:
@LeoPride, it’s not too late to start looking for merit money. Are you a National Merit Finalist or Commended student? If so, plenty of schools will offer you full rides. You may have to go out of state, but there is money for top students. Don’t apply to the elite schools (Ivies, Duke, etc.) because they only give financial aid, not merit scholarships. Start looking at the schools that offer full rides for good grades/test scores. You may have to take and do well on the SAT to qualify for some of these, but you have time. With your parents digging in like this, your only hope is to pay for college yourself using scholarship money, so get going!
Echoing what @Mom2aphysicsgeek said, what about UTM’s honors program. Just eyeballing it (link at http://www.utm.edu/departments/honors/), it looks like a good way to provide a thoroughly solid undergrad education at an otherwise decent but not spectacular institution—unsurprising, since it’s one of the ways public regionals like UTM are marketing themselves to better students.
Not saying to resign yourself to your lot, but saying that if that’s the way it ends up having to be, well, there are still good possibilities for you.
@leopride: The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, may be an option if your GPA and ACT are high enough. Also, in Tennessee, check the state university honors programs. ETSU, APSU, MTSU and U of M have excellent honors programs that provide enough funding to cover tuition and potentially room and board and would also provide the on-campus experience at a bargain. These honors programs attract high capability students with credentials way beyond the 19 ACT crowd. Good luck!
If your parents are only willing to pay for that school and they can’t be convinced otherwise, you’ll have to qualify for a full ride scholarship if you want to go elsewhere. If you cannot do that, then make the best of UTM. If you think you are that much more qualified than the rest of the student body then you should graduate at the top of the class with very nice ECs with leadership on your resume.
So one thing you can do is ask them if they are willing to pay for a school that is the same cost as UTM. If not, then ask why not?
You could qualify for financial aid as well, but that depends on your family finances.
Leo. First…stop talking to others about your college choices and plans. And stop comparing your own situation to the situation of others. It’s not relevant.
Please sit down and get a budget for college from your parents. It’s nice that you want to go to a school farther from home, but maybe, just maybe this is not affordable for your family.
There is a pinned thread above for guaranteed scholarships at various schools. I would urge you to read that thread and see if you have the requisite SAT or ACT score and GPA to qualify for any of these scholarships.
And once you get your bachelors degree, move elsewhere. Get a job, and work. When it comes time for grad school, make your own decisions…unless you are planning that your parents will pay for this.
Is their objection to other schools mainly cost-based, or something else (i.e. they do not want you to go elsewhere even if it costs less)?
You could also consider military options, either as a student in an academy or ROTC, or joining and then using the GI bill. You’d be in control then.
We also wanted our children to commute to college as a way to save on college costs. I just don’t see that as an unreasonable request. Two of our children ended up at a so called third tier uni. Their entry stats (SAT scores) put them in the top 10% of their freshman class. They also brought in quite a lot of college credit that was earned in high school.
Turned out to be a great place for them as they ended up as the big fish in a small pond. They were in the top of all their classes and their teachers noticed them. This lead to opportunities that the ‘smaller fish’ did not receive - including scholarships for grad school.
Choose to bloom where you are planted. You really can flourish at any school if you choose to do so.
What’s your ACT score? Are you taking AP classes? What do you want to major in?
Do you have an idea of how much your parents make? 65K? Less? More? How much more (125k? 250k?)
At UT Martin, not only is the ACT 19, but 60% students aren’t college-ready, meaning they’re in remedial classes for some subjects. It does affect the level of the classes, their pace, their depth, the quality of discussions. If your ACT is 21, you’ll be fine, but if it’s 27, the disconnect is real. The issue isnt what your relatives did, but how big the difference was between the average UTM student and themselves, vs. the difference between the average UTM student and yourself. If there’s a big gap, the risk is high that you won’t be challenged enough and will take on bad habits because you’ll be one of the best students in your class (note however that some students will have scores in the 30+ range, and each year there’s a literal handful of vals/sals). People above are optimistic, as this situation can turn to your advantage (you become the star student and your professors help you get as many opportunities as they can) but I’ve seen so many young people who were genuinely unhappy with the lack of class discussion, engagement, pace, etc., in classes, struggling with an environment not conducive to intellectual pursuits or classmates for whom college isn’t about academic exploration but about parties, realizing that their university lacked the resources they’d have needed and would have had if they’d attended the flagship or another college… And transfers receive very little financial aid, so it’s really tough then.
What you need to to create opportunities for you to attend another school.
Keep UTM in play, of course, but work hard on your ACT and look for universities with full rides. Dont fixate on UT-K, try everything. Could U Cincinnati or UAlabama or Howard or UMN-Twin Cities work? What about your EFC - how much CAN your parents pay (regardless of whether they will) - would the 100% need colleges be good? Would you qualify for Berea? Investigate everything.
Use the links provided above, scour the Financial Aid forum.
Ask your parents: are they willing to invest in your education the amount that UTMartin would cost them, and how much is that? If they say they won’t contribute to any school beside UTM, you know you’re on your own and need to find a full ride. If they give you an amount, work from there - does it mean you have to earn a full tuition scholarship? A ful ride regardless? Where will you find that?
Some students really want the going-away-to-college experience.
But if there’s a suitable college that they can commute to, it can be hard to justify the expense.
One solution that has worked for some families I know is for the student to commute to a local college – perhaps a community college – for the first two years and then transfer to a four-year school where they would live on campus (or in off-campus housing) for the final two years.
This is probably more expensive than four years as a commuter, but it also gives the student two years of the kind of life they’re looking for – and it may allow them to spend those years at a more academically rigorous college as well.
Another solution is almost the opposite: Attend the local college but live on campus for the first year. This gives the student the maximum opportunity to make friends and get involved in campus life. After that, the student could live at home to save money but keep up those friendships and that campus involvement. A lot of upperclassmen don’t live on campus anyway, but they manage to stay involved.
To the OP: Is your objection primarily to the idea of living at home and the isolation from college life it involves? If it is, then perhaps taking on a small amount of debt so that you can spend your first year living on campus would be the solution. If your objection is primarily to the college, maybe spending your first two years there and your last two elsewhere would work.
Some students, in fact, need the going-away-to-college experience. The difficulty, of course, is figuring out whether it’s a need or a want for any specific student.
And sometimes “need” or “want” is completely immaterial given the family’s financial situation.
^Yes: if that’s what it has to be, that’s it.
But since OP is a junior, there may be several venues for him (? her?) to explore that would make it possible for him/her to go away for college.
UTM sits near the borders of several other states - are there colleges in the neighboring states that offer in-state tuition to you where you also qualify for merit aid? If you earn enough in merit aid combined with an OOS tuition waiver, perhaps your parents would consider a university other than UTM.