leave it home and done be afraid of the snow. snow wont hurt it as long as it sits, its when you go out driving in the snow with all the salt, thats bad lol
i wonder if i should take pics of my gf's car the way it is after 4 years in Scranton, PA while she was at college...when she left it was decent, only a couple normal door dings from 8 years and 90k miles. the car was hit no fewer than three times in the parking lot at her school and there were cars getting broken into every month just in her one small lot! (not sure why they didnt target her 95 Camry...thieves love toyotas)...not to mention being hit with other car doors and people dragging their bags and whatever else along the side of it. to most people its just andother car and they are inconsiderate...if they bump into it with the zipper on their jacket or backpack they dont care. but its not worth it to subject your car to that. and chances are that you wont be able to do anything about it when it does happen.
i actually found the car that did the most damage hitting her car, and i wanted to kick the headlight in but she stopped me...
find yourself a clean 10 or so year old car, regardless of what the make is. remember toyotas and hondas tend to cost a little more but when it comes to flat-out reliability (thats all you are looking for here) its worth it.
i would trust a 95-ish civic on your school commute if its in decent shape before the mustang!!!
If its left at home, it'll be just like you left it. If you leave it at school, it'll be just like the last punk who resented you for having a nice car at school and had some beer muscle leaves it. Do whatever you want, but I sure as hell wouldn't gamble my 5.0 that way. Civic is a great DD for what you want, I have a Corolla with 245K for work/mall/kid duty, ricers are great for that. Your dad is like any parent, tell them they're right, they'll be eating out of your hand, ask my daughter.
BTW my friends clean 5.0 hatch got every panel keyed one random afternoon. Kid had no enemies, never did anything to piss anyone off, the person just keyed it because he's a "cool" college kid. I drove mine there for a while when it had stock paint and wasnt the nicest car and it got its share of dings and dents. My Reef Blue DD has also been hit by doors, dented found bottles broken under it, sitting on it, etc...