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TIFU by telling my parents I was rejected from my dream school

I’m a high school senior (I am 18 though so if you see my Secret Santa posts no I didn’t lie about my age ;)) My family has always been very poor and I am the youngest of three kids. When my sister went to college, she went to one of the top schools in the country on a huge scholarship but her degree still left my family struggling financially.

I didn’t want to be like my sister. I started working when I was 16 and balanced two jobs with lots of extracurriculars and school. I worked my ass off day and night to save as much money as possible so my parents didn’t have to worry about me.

Now, I applied to three colleges on a fee waiver my school gave me. Early decision has come out for them and... I got in to all three. One of these is my absolute dream school, the same top college my sister went to. The other two are less competitive schools that I mostly applied to as a safety net in case my dream didn’t work out. One of my safety schools gave me almost a full ride worth of scholarship money.

I sat and debated this for a couple weeks. Should I pursue my dream and pay thousands of dollars that I’ve spent years saving up? Or should I take the money they’ve offered me at the safety school and go somewhere I’m not passionate about? I was also worried about what my parents would think. If they knew I got accepted to that school, they would never let me make a sacrifice like that. I know they’d take on any financial burden to let me attend.

So... I kinda did a thing. I told them I was rejected from my absolute top college, let them cry to me about how sorry they were, and then told them I got a really good scholarship to the other school.

They’re really excited for me. They can’t stop bragging to their friends how smart I have to be to get a good amount of money, but I can’t shake this feeling of dread and “I fucked up”-ness. I haven’t made my decision yet to the actual colleges so I can still change my mind but... something in me knows I’ll stick with my original plan.

I guess I’m mostly posting this to get it off my chest somewhere. I hope anyone who reads this far is having a blessed holiday season and a happy new year! Thank you for listening.

TL;DR I told my parents I was rejected from my top choice school (when I was really accepted) so they wouldn’t worry about the financial burden of me attending.

EDIT: Thank you all for the kind replies and advice! It’s appreciated more than I can express. To give some info, I plan on studying Engineering. The Big school in question is top in my state for STEM based subjects and does have good connections and resources for people studying this field. In addition, I’m in love with the area it’s in and can picture a home there better than any college I’ve been to. However, the safety school isn’t a bad school. It’s a nice education and the area is safe. I’m not unhappy with the idea of going there, it’s just not my top choice!

EDIT 2: Some people in the comments have referred to me as “man” and “bro” which is totally fine! But I wanted to maybe add to my story that I’m a teenage girl lol. The big scholarship I earned was for a women in STEM program. Exciting stuff!

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