My parents don’t want me to go far for uni. What do I do?

I had told my parents I wanted to go to London for a good uni or even oxbridge. They seemed to have understood what I wanted. Now that I’m at the end of year 12, they brought it up and told me I can’t go, and that I must go here near for eg birmingham. But my dream has always been to work so hard and go to London for uni or oxbridge , I’m not saying birmingham is not good but I like oxbridge and London . It’s not that I wanna go far from home. I tried to convince them but my dad keeps saying no, it’s not even about the money he just doesn’t want me to go far. I understand but it’s my dream , my studies and I want to fulfill them, I don’t wanna work hard and not go to the uni I want to.

I had told my parents I wanted to go to London for a good uni or even oxbridge. They seemed to have understood what I wanted. Now that I’m at the end of year 12, they brought it up and told me I can’t go, and that I must go here near for eg birmingham. But my dream has always been to work so hard and go to London for uni or oxbridge , I’m not saying birmingham is not good but I like oxbridge and London . It’s not that I wanna go far from home. I tried to convince them but my dad keeps saying no, it’s not even about the money he just doesn’t want me to go far. I understand but it’s my dream , my studies and I want to fulfill them, I don’t wanna work hard and not go to the uni I want to.

Could you ask your parents why they don’t want you to go? Maybe they have legitimate concerns that you could ally for instance if they worry you won’t eat or something because you can’t cook buy some cook books or borrow your Mums and demonstrate that although you might not know how to cook you can follow a recipe.

Open days are great if you can convince your parents to go to them they can see the areas you are interested in and that could help them with their concerns too.

You could maybe have a conversation with them about university and why going where you want is good for your future and also good for them.

If that doesn’t work you.could be a bit more assertive instead of “can I “ you could say “I will” stuff like that.

It important at this stage that your parents don’t know where your applying to so keep it as quiet as you can what your firm choice is. Your parents will need to give a couple of details about house hold income on the student loan application so ask rhea those details first before you fill in the rest of the paperwork. Also maybe get your mail sent to a friend and pick it up from them IIRC you can put a separate postal address on your UCAS form. If all else fails you might have to just dip remember you will be 18 legally am adult you don’t need their permission.

Also I’d advise getting a job if you canto afford applicant days and things so you have some autonomy at uni there is more drastic option but I won’t put it hers because it quite long if you want this last resort you can PM me or even better quote this post so everyone can see it.

You’ve posted this as anon so no one knows who you are to DM

You’ve posted this as anon so no one knows who you are to DM

Birmingham is just an hour by train from Oxford so it's not really that far. London about an hour and a half.
The only one of those which is actually that far is Cambridge.

Neither Oxford or London is far from Birmingham! My daughter is at the University of Birmingham and getting to London on the train is really easy and not too expensive at the right time of day. I am a parent and definitely wanted an input in where both my daughter (Final year at uni) and my son (just firmed his choice for this year) go at the end of the day, it was and had to be their choice. My son has chosen London, I would have preferred him to go to Warwick but he's 18 and it's his life. My daughter initially wanted New York but I talked her out of that one!! This really should be your choice, it's your life. Us parents do find it hard to accept that at some point we have to let you go and allow you to make your own decisions so I do understand where they're coming from.

Has he explained why he doesn’t want you to move far away?
Does he have any specific worries or concerns? Or something that he thinks that you will miss out on by moving further away.
You need to understand and empathise with his reasons in order to work with him towards finding out what might reassure him enough to change his mind.

roughly he did, he said because of how dangerous it is for me to stay out and also away from home, but I don’t get it because it’s just as dangerout as going by train because I might be getting home late too.

roughly he did, he said because of how dangerous it is for me to stay out and also away from home, but I don’t get it because it’s just as dangerout as going by train because I might be getting home late too.

Could you ask your parents why they don’t want you to go? Maybe they have legitimate concerns that you could ally for instance if they worry you won’t eat or something because you can’t cook buy some cook books or borrow your Mums and demonstrate that although you might not know how to cook you can follow a recipe.
Open days are great if you can convince your parents to go to them they can see the areas you are interested in and that could help them with their concerns too.
You could maybe have a conversation with them about university and why going where you want is good for your future and also good for them.
If that doesn’t work you.could be a bit more assertive instead of “can I “ you could say “I will” stuff like that.
It important at this stage that your parents don’t know where your applying to so keep it as quiet as you can what your firm choice is. Your parents will need to give a couple of details about house hold income on the student loan application so ask rhea those details first before you fill in the rest of the paperwork. Also maybe get your mail sent to a friend and pick it up from them IIRC you can put a separate postal address on your UCAS form. If all else fails you might have to just dip remember you will be 18 legally am adult you don’t need their permission.
Also I’d advise getting a job if you canto afford applicant days and things so you have some autonomy at uni there is more drastic option but I won’t put it hers because it quite long if you want this last resort you can PM me or even better quote this post so everyone can see it.

Apply to London and Oxbridge unis. When you get offers, you discuss with them. If they want you to reject an offer from Cambridge, then you know where they stand and you tell them that you are disappointed.

My older sister had this problem when applying for uni. We live in London and she wanted to study Biology at Oxford, but my dad insisted that she study medicine in London. (We're South Asian and my dad was not keen on any of us living outside the family home.) It got very heated and they didn't speak for six weeks at one point, and my school sought legal advice apparently, as to how to help my sister achieve her dreams.
In the end my sister managed to somehow compromise as follows with my dad: she would apply to Oxford for biology and everywhere else for medicine (I think. Maybe one other biology place in London max, I forget - this was 25 years ago!). If she got an offer from Oxford Biology, she'd firm it, and insure a medicine uni. My dad didn't think my sister was capable of getting her offer for Oxford, so he agreed to this. Except she did achieve the grades, and accepted the Oxford offer on UCAS whilst at school on results days, before my dad could say anything or try to interfere
Just mentioning this to you in case (a) you're also from an ethnic family and (b) in case some sort of compromise like this might appease your dad/work in your situation

Hundreds of thousands of students manage to move out and go their entire degree in those cities without experiencing any danger.
Note also if your thinking is that you would commute to Oxford that won't work, as Oxford require their students reside in the city (if not in college) during term time.
My comments about how long it takes to get there was more in terms of if you wanted to do a day trip back on the weekend to visit family now and then.

Thank youu, that gave me some hope. I will try to compromise as well, I am also south Asian so they are not keen as well. But I will compromise and apply for the unis I want and hopefully I will get to firm the choices.