Why do so many kids attend public schools out of state?

[Anonymous]

Two of DCs top three choices were OOS publics, because they had well respected programs in DCs major. DC ended up at a private in NE due to the combination of fit and cost (with merit, it was actually the least expensive of the three).

VT would have been much cheaper, but wasn't at all a good fit and my kid was desperate to get out of VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, Cal State schools are not serious contenders for us, but I just want to have as many options as possible on our list, especially with the scotus disaster looming. I think I have Dominguez Hills and San Jose on there? I’m not done researching.

I also need to go back through the list for New York schools, which would be a much more serious contender.

Hell, I’m so desperate for a “safe” place for my daughter, I added Winnipeg to the list

Only about 18% of freshmen live on campus at Cal State Dominguez Hills. About 56% of freshmen live on campus at San Jose.

I don't know if you are the same poster that also mentioned Cal State Fullerton, and says it has "a lot of dorms." About 19% of freshmen live on campus.

This is where I am finding these numbers
https://www.calstate.edu/attend/campuses/fullerton/Pages/student-life.aspx

Chico and San Diego have more students (specifically freshmen) living on campus. Monterey Bay has a lot of students on campus--and it's on the smaller side (about 7,000 students.)

thank you for this

the Fullerton poster was different, although Fullerton does have the program we are looking for (NOT design like the other poster). I think I looked at San Diego, and it was way too expensive OOS. IIRC, the room and board were close to $20k.

Again, we are probably good with the East Coast schools on our list, but I don't want to leave any stone unturned. I even looked at Hawaii last night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

VT would have been much cheaper, but wasn't at all a good fit and my kid was desperate to get out of VA.

Tech doesn't even have the program we're looking for, so I don't even have to worry if my kid can get in

[Anonymous]

Because they are good fits for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are in VA, most probably could not get into UVA, especially if they are in NOVA. They may or may not have gotten into WM. WM is a great school but expensive for an in state school and somewhat quirky/bookish. It might not be a fit for everyone. They were probably waitlisted at VA Tech because their scores were too HIGH!

We have two out of state and both got enough merit where it was significantly cheaper than WM. A tad more than VA Tech.

Neither applied to UVA

One got into WM, one did not (waitlist). The one who got into WM was adamant about not going there and would have gone to JMU before WM (which we would have been ok with).

Both were waitlisted at VA Tech with gpa and test scores significantly higher than the 50% mark for VA Tech. We do not know what VA Tech is doing with admissions but know of students that got into schools like UF, ND, Carnegie Mellon, GA Tech, Fordham, Villanova, BC that got waitlisted at VA Tech.

We looked at a lot of schools, including PSU and Clemson. We were really close to pulling the trigger on Clemson. The suggestion that you are slumming it to head out of state at one of those schools is ignorant. PSU main campus and Clemson will both have lower acceptance rates than VA TECH for the class of 2026. PSU is the flagship school for a bigger state with nationally recognized programs. Both have a better campus and sports than VA Tech. WM is great but not a fir for everyone.

We have two more and they will both be applying PSU and Clemson. We think they will apply to UVA but they have already said WM and VA Tech are out. WM is too small and they have no desire to play the admissions game with VA Tech.

Op here. I was curious why one would pick a public out of state vs a private out of state? Did your kids not apply to any private universities?

I am from NY and many kids went to private colleges in the Northeast. You normally wouldn’t choose public unless you couldn’t afford the better private.

My kids have gone to both private and public elementary and high schools over the years. It has never once crossed my mind to consider public vs private as a way to choose a college.

I recognize your NY private school fascination from other posts. Private is not always better (and it can be much worse.) You sound like a 12 year old who wants to be with the rich kids and looks at their uniforms with envy.

I am not fascinated with anything. I went to college and grad school in Boston. Most of my high school classmates went to private colleges in the Northeast, Chicago or California. A few went to UMich. It just seemed like a lot more kids went to out of state publics than privates. That is all. I was just curious.

[Anonymous]

I remember getting a letter in the mail from Michigan basically offering me automatic admission in the 90s

Something tells me that would NEVER happen today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just looking at some instagrams of some high schools and see so many students heading to public schools out of state. While I absolutely understand why students would choose UVA, VT, W&M, UMD, etc if you are in state, why would you pick schools like Penn State or Clemson?

Because you can't get into your top state schools.

It has become really hard to get into UVA, W&M and engineering at VT.

Yes, true. But I can't think of any good reason to go to Clemson.

Maybe that’s because you didn’t do that well in school.

? I did quite well (at a university ranked much much higher than #75 on USNWR), but we're talking about where our kids should go. Can't see any reason in the world for them to go to Clemson. I'd hope they can do a bit better than that.

You are an idiot if you focus your kid solely on school rankings. I’m sure there are plenty of super smart Clemson students and lots of grads at top law firms, doctors, etc. The same could be said about many others schools ranked (gasp) even worse than Clemson.

Yeah, just the same I'm pretty sure DC can do a but better than that. No reason to go that far down the list. Even a U.of Georgia or Florida State would be a lot better

Not if nature has anything to do with it. Actually, he's probably not going to be too well served by nurture, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are in VA, most probably could not get into UVA, especially if they are in NOVA. They may or may not have gotten into WM. WM is a great school but expensive for an in state school and somewhat quirky/bookish. It might not be a fit for everyone. They were probably waitlisted at VA Tech because their scores were too HIGH!

We have two out of state and both got enough merit where it was significantly cheaper than WM. A tad more than VA Tech.

Neither applied to UVA

One got into WM, one did not (waitlist). The one who got into WM was adamant about not going there and would have gone to JMU before WM (which we would have been ok with).

Both were waitlisted at VA Tech with gpa and test scores significantly higher than the 50% mark for VA Tech. We do not know what VA Tech is doing with admissions but know of students that got into schools like UF, ND, Carnegie Mellon, GA Tech, Fordham, Villanova, BC that got waitlisted at VA Tech.

We looked at a lot of schools, including PSU and Clemson. We were really close to pulling the trigger on Clemson. The suggestion that you are slumming it to head out of state at one of those schools is ignorant. PSU main campus and Clemson will both have lower acceptance rates than VA TECH for the class of 2026. PSU is the flagship school for a bigger state with nationally recognized programs. Both have a better campus and sports than VA Tech. WM is great but not a fir for everyone.

We have two more and they will both be applying PSU and Clemson. We think they will apply to UVA but they have already said WM and VA Tech are out. WM is too small and they have no desire to play the admissions game with VA Tech.

You can always tell the bitter posters by their insistence in slamming the schools that rejected their kids. Very transparent - and immature.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you force your teens to attend an in-state college 30 min to a couple hours from home? It's high school 2.0 with largely the same cliques and all of the same baggage and social sorting from high school. If you have the money and/or they have the stats for merit aid, you ought to nudge your teen to broaden their horizons. Go West, young man.

The VA schools are not like high school. I didn’t hang out or even see anyone from my high school in college. And two of my best college friends were OOS.

THIS. Is it the same poster who constantly repeats this nonsense? The top VA schools are large enough that you never see people from high school unless you make a point to do so. All of my kids attended VA state schools and all of them live with people from every region of the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you force your teens to attend an in-state college 30 min to a couple hours from home? It's high school 2.0 with largely the same cliques and all of the same baggage and social sorting from high school. If you have the money and/or they have the stats for merit aid, you ought to nudge your teen to broaden their horizons. Go West, young man.

I don't really follow this. Do any high schools really have a sizeable enough population at a state school from the same groups to even do this? I grew up in a midwestern state with 2 main state universities, so a ton of people from my decently large HS went to one or the other. But no one had the same friend groups beyond 2-3 people, and it was a rare enough event to encounter most of these people as to be special. If anything, it served as a bit of a reset on relationships and reduced the need for HS-type posturing (e.g., the former football players could talk to the former nerds without any social concerns because it was just 2 people who were chatting among a ton of other people).

And the social scene at the state schools was way less stratified and "high school 2.0" than the SLAC I went to.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just looking at some instagrams of some high schools and see so many students heading to public schools out of state. While I absolutely understand why students would choose UVA, VT, W&M, UMD, etc if you are in state, why would you pick schools like Penn State or Clemson?

Reason 1: Because that's where you got in. Many VA kids don't get into UVA or Virginia Tech but get into Penn State (which is a great school).

Reason 2: Because the school offers a program that levels above what is available in your state. Eg. Engineering at Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois or Georgia Tech as opposed to to UVA or Tech. Some people may think its worth paying extra to get that level of education.

And those people would be idiots. Yes, the out of state schools listed may have "better" engineering schools, but not so much better that they're worth paying extra for.

That is a pretty bold blanket statement.

+10000
If the family has the money to pay, why does it matter to the you? May not be worth it to you, so you do you and don't send your kid to a school you don't think is worth it. Each school has a different feel, and each major has a "better" program at a different school.

we personally allowed our kid turn down $150K in merit at a private school to attend another private school that is 80K/year with no merit (school doesn't give much merit) Most people wouldn't do that, but we can afford it easily and our DC wasn't really feeling the other school. Now my DC will attend the school that they have been most comfortable at except their ED choice. It is the right choice for them. Most would have made their kid pick the school with more merit as they were "similar schools" in many ways. We are able to choose otherwise so we did.

As long as the family is not taking excess loans and then complaining they need loan forgiveness afterwards, it's really none of my business why they pick an OOS school over an instate school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just looking at some instagrams of some high schools and see so many students heading to public schools out of state. While I absolutely understand why students would choose UVA, VT, W&M, UMD, etc if you are in state, why would you pick schools like Penn State or Clemson?

Reason 1: Because that's where you got in. Many VA kids don't get into UVA or Virginia Tech but get into Penn State (which is a great school).

Reason 2: Because the school offers a program that levels above what is available in your state. Eg. Engineering at Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois or Georgia Tech as opposed to to UVA or Tech. Some people may think its worth paying extra to get that level of education.

And those people would be idiots. Yes, the out of state schools listed may have "better" engineering schools, but not so much better that they're worth paying extra for.

Keep saying that to yourself. The vast majority of people that make that choice are way more financially successful than you. Wonder who the "idiot" is..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are in VA, most probably could not get into UVA, especially if they are in NOVA. They may or may not have gotten into WM. WM is a great school but expensive for an in state school and somewhat quirky/bookish. It might not be a fit for everyone. They were probably waitlisted at VA Tech because their scores were too HIGH!

We have two out of state and both got enough merit where it was significantly cheaper than WM. A tad more than VA Tech.

Neither applied to UVA

One got into WM, one did not (waitlist). The one who got into WM was adamant about not going there and would have gone to JMU before WM (which we would have been ok with).

Both were waitlisted at VA Tech with gpa and test scores significantly higher than the 50% mark for VA Tech. We do not know what VA Tech is doing with admissions but know of students that got into schools like UF, ND, Carnegie Mellon, GA Tech, Fordham, Villanova, BC that got waitlisted at VA Tech.

We looked at a lot of schools, including PSU and Clemson. We were really close to pulling the trigger on Clemson. The suggestion that you are slumming it to head out of state at one of those schools is ignorant. PSU main campus and Clemson will both have lower acceptance rates than VA TECH for the class of 2026. PSU is the flagship school for a bigger state with nationally recognized programs. Both have a better campus and sports than VA Tech. WM is great but not a fir for everyone.

We have two more and they will both be applying PSU and Clemson. We think they will apply to UVA but they have already said WM and VA Tech are out. WM is too small and they have no desire to play the admissions game with VA Tech.

You can always tell the bitter posters by their insistence in slamming the schools that rejected their kids. Very transparent - and immature.
DP

? This makes no sense. If you don't want to play the "admissions game" at Va Tech why would you apply to the even more competitive U.Va.? And please, U.Va and Clemson are - well #25 and #75 - so that's a big difference. Not really in the same ball park, but up to you and your kid of course

[Anonymous]

No way a kid seriously qualified and interested in U.Va. is also interested in Clemson. I don't believe it. Unless they're from South Carolina of course.

[Anonymous]

The mindset of the OP is the exact reason students choose to go out of state, if they can. They value broadening one's horizons.