<p>"I told them that I am an adult and I will make my own decision, ultimately. "</p>
<p>-Well, if you are in position to be on your own, it is not clear, why are you asking your parents? According to your statements above, you are going to provide for your living, tuition, all other expenses. So, basically parents are more or less shut out of your decision. They have no leverage. The best wishes no matter where you are going.</p>
<p>If you study in the US, you can still aim for a year abroad in Ireland at the prices of and with the finaid offered by your US university.</p>
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<p>9 weeks??! Maybe your parents are still concerned about your health.</p>
<p>It may seem that I am just picking on you, jheri, but having read your other posts, I think your scheme is even more unrealistic than I previously thought. </p>
<p>According to your posts, you currently have a 2.5 gpa, but think that you can somehow get it up to the minimum of 3.3 by graduation day. You seem to think that Trinity will “weight” your gpa and that 3.3 is the “weighted” average you need. Before you go much further with your planning, you should check with Trinity to see if that’s the case. </p>
<p>The course you want is highly competitive. There are 15 places a year. I don’t think you should assume that you’ll get one of those 15 spots. The only way to know is to apply. I’m not discouraging you from doing so. I’m just saying that you should have a back up plan.</p>
<p>Your current plan is to get on a plane and go to Ireland and establish residence there for a year before entering Trinity. If you try to do that, please understand that you will be engaging in illegal conduct and if you are caught you will be deported. When you land in Ireland as a tourist, you get a stamp on your passport that allows you to stay for a maximum of 90 days. You can NOT work legally during the 90 days. When the 90 days (or lesser period) is up, you must leave Ireland and you can’t come back for some period of time. </p>
<p>If you want to be able to work during the year before you enter Trinity, you have to apply to immigrate. I don’t know the specifics, but do know that Ireland has skills-based immigration. As a high school graduate, you will be ineligible, unless you have found an Irish employer who has hired you at a sum not less than 30,000 Euros a year. (Check for yourself with the consulate of course; that’s just info I got by googling.) If this is your plan, you should be focused on finding a job that pays at least that much.</p>
<p>Understand that because Ireland is part of the EU, anyone from an EU nation and even the associated nations has greater rights to a job than you do. This will hit you at the airport when you will see two lines–one for EU citizens and the other for everybody else, which includes Americans.</p>
<p>Now on to Trinity…assuming you can get in, before you get the magic student stamp on your passport, you have to be able to prove that you have already paid at least 6,000 Euros towards the cost of the fees for a year, have a reasonable plan for paying the blalance and that you or your sponsor has a minimum of 7,000 Euros in readily accessible funds to support you during each year of your course. So, for a 4 year course, you must have 28,000 Euros. See [Irish</a> Naturalisation and Immigration Service Student Visa Guidelines](<a href=“Home - Immigration Service Delivery”>Home - Immigration Service Delivery) </p>
<p>Have you really worked everything out? I doubt it. </p>
<p>BTW, when trying to google things in ireland, go to [url=<a href=“http://www.google.ie%5DGoogle%5B/url”>http://www.google.ie]Google[/url</a>].</p>
<p>If you don’t have everything worked out, have a back up plan. It’s getting late to get into a college by next fall. Even if you think you can work it all out, just in case, have a back up plan. Apply to some colleges here that you can afford to pay for or which provide financial aid. If you get a job in Ireland and get into Trinity that would be wonderful. But make some other plans just in case.</p>
<p>As a parent who is not your parent I would suggest:</p>
<p>1) Don’t make YOUR college plans based on your friends or boyfriends. What happens when you get to Ireland and they don’t want to pay for your housing for free? What if they have other friends? What if your boy friend gets another girlfriend?</p>
<p>2) Don’t “run away to Ireland” and have to pay for it all yourself. You can, (if you get admitted), but why take on all that student loan?</p>
<p>3) Figure out your real issue. Do you REALLY think Ireland is better than the US? Or is a top Irish Univ. better than rural Mich. Univ? Do you just want to get out of under your parent’s thumb? Do you want to get out of rural Mich.? Do you want to be near the boyfriend? </p>
<p>4) Consider a semester/year abroad. Find out which colleges have a year abroad in which you can go to Ireland.</p>
<p>5) Ignore what your Dad says about not being intelligent, but do look at what your GPA/ACT scores reflect. Are you trying your hardest? Are you slacking? Are you studying? Are you doing all your homework?
To give yourself the most options for college, I would suggest to work as hard as you can in HS. Your study habits are not going to get magically better in college unless you make an effort to change them. There will be classes you have to take that you don’t like all that much in college too.</p>
<p>6) Why is your Dad suggesting Community College? Is it because your grades aren’t that great? You seem to indicate that they could be better if you wanted. Do great now and show him that you can do the work for a 4 year college. Also, if you were in the hospital for 9 weeks then he may be worried that you going to a 4 year college may be too hard on your physically or he is worried that it is too risky given your health to pay for a semester of college and then you couldn’t finish it.</p>
<p>7) Major in what you love. You will do the best if you can study something you are interested in.</p>
<p>8) College is a time to become independent. You are going from HS student to wanting to live in a foreign country. You may be thinking “my friend did it”, but if he was an exchange student, he had his parent behind him and had a host family. He had a school that supported him on both ends and a exchange program to lean on. He also knew he would go back afterwards. Maybe now is the time to start on that road to independence by going to a 4 yr. college and living on campus. Then do the year abroad and maybe after that try for grad school abroad or be an au pair or something to get a taste of life in a different country without being totally on your own.</p>