college is fast approaching

Ever felt like someone else’s life changing decision is your own? My students are just starting to get the second and third wave of acceptance letters. Most have been waiting to hear from all of their universities before making a decision. Then they come to Steff (other tutor) and me to help them figure it out.

She always pitches FSU because it’s her alma mater. They know I attend USF and recommend it. But I have been learning about lots of other colleges lately, and going to bat for them, against USF. Normally it happens the same way. They come to me with ridiculous smiles on their faces, and I know the received an e-mail the night before. Which kills me, we had to wait the extra week to hear, now they get an e-mail the second their status changes on the school’s website. Whatever happened to wanting to throw up just looking at the letter from the university not knowing what the first word after your name would be? Making your best friend, or parents open it because you can’t STAND to see it if it isn’t “Congratulations!” I feel like they are getting gyped. Oh well. So they come to me with two or three choices. I normally want to make a list. Not one student has come to me and said, “Money doesn’t matter, let’s just look at everything else.”

So I normally start with what school is giving them more money. Then what do they have to do for the money. There is this program called “HOPE”, I don’t know anything about it, other than they get accepted for summer classes and have to maintain certain grades and live certain places and a few other things. So if they are going under HOPE, is getting there a semester earlier and taking summer classes something they are really willing to do. Is work study something they are interested in? Where are they living? On campus, off, co-ed dorm, pledging in the spring and living in the house? I make them look at prices and decide from there how much they are looking at. Or if they are going to USF or HCC and allowed to stay at home. Some of these kids are getting kicked out. Some can no longer live in the conditions in which they are currently living and want to get out, yesterday.

Which really kills me. My parents always said we (brothers included) could stay at home, as long as we are in school. My oldest brother included grad school when I don’t really think that’s what Daddy had in mind. But at 27, he finally left. I don’t know what I would do if I had to leave. I mean, my mom can be a little annoying, but I don’t think I have ever seriously considered moving out. Yeah, she likes to know where I am, but I haven’t had a curfew since I was 16. But then again, I don’t have a child of my own, or an arrest record, so maybe I can understand some of these parents/grandparents and their rules.

So after we decide the money situation and if they are going to have to have jobs their first semester, and where they will be living, we look at their college at the university and see who has the better program for their major, or what they think their major might be. Normally we have an answer by then. But sometimes they include who else is going to what college. I can understand wanting to be with a friend, or boyfriend. So after all of that if we still don’t have a decision-I get rid of the list and tell them not to think about anything. Not money, not location, not friends, not parents. But when they visited the campuses, which one had their heart? Which one did they dream of going to for the last four years? Which one convinced them that they really wanted to go to college?

Sometimes that still doesn’t get us an answer. I find myself losing sleep over four students in particular. Both are couples. I don’t know how to tell them that deciding on a college because a boyfriend or girlfriend is going there may not be the best way to decide. Especially since one of the couples has physical fights.