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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mother believed in going out of state to go to college - she felt it was important to be far enough away that things were different and you had to be independent for the small stuff. Eg, no coming home on the weekends to do laundry. We lived on the West Coast, so I went to a college 800 miles away from home and my sister to one over 200 miles away.

How small was your state?? You don't have to go OOS for this. My son is in-state and about a 4-5 hr drive away. He applied to OOS schools that were closer.

Many people on this board are from a place called Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Th WUE in the western states is such a great deal

Yes! We are moving to AZ and I was so happy to see that my child will have the opportunity to attend Cal Poly, UDub, or Colorado, as long as their intended major is on the list

[Anonymous]

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?

no good reason I can think of if you're in Va.

Those schools have lower standards.

[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?

no good reason I can think of if you're in Va.

Those schools have lower standards.

None of these schools are "slam dunk" acceptances.

[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?

no good reason I can think of if you're in Va.

Those schools have lower standards.

It’s so easy to tell whose kids did not get in.

[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?

no good reason I can think of if you're in Va.

Those schools have lower standards.

It’s so easy to tell whose kids did not get in.

+1! lol! Or a student from a rival university

[Anonymous]

My DC preferred Purdue over VT. The difference was about $5k a year when he went. He is now a graduate and has a fantastic job. It was a great choice for him.

My other DC wanted to major in physics and the state schools are so so in physics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Th WUE in the western states is such a great deal

Yes! We are moving to AZ and I was so happy to see that my child will have the opportunity to attend Cal Poly, UDub, or Colorado, as long as their intended major is on the list

FYI----
CalPoly SLO (the "main campus") is not on the WUE. Only the Pomona campus is.

UDub is also not part of WUE.

[Anonymous]

to get away and we planned accordingly so they can go where they wanted.

you can either stay at a holiday in or a four seasons you sometimes like to do things to enjoy them more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Example B : Another friends daughter - got into UMD but not in Honors or Scholars program. Also got in UMass Amherst in Honors program. With UMass scholarship tuition become almost same as UMD. She picked UMass

UMass also gives you access to the Five College Consortium, which expands options

[Anonymous]

i didn't read all the replies, but many students can go OOS for cheaper than staying in their own state.

my state has a couple great in-state options. mine went OOS for a full ride and smaller school than he in-state option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

FYI----
CalPoly SLO (the "main campus") is not on the WUE. Only the Pomona campus is.

A random aside, but Humboldt State is now a CalPoly campus. I stumbled upon this while looking across the country for possible schools for my daughter in states unlikely to have abortion bans. I have zero connection to CA and it is unlikely my child will go that far (her strongest options are from MA to NC), but I am leaving no stone unturned.

[Anonymous]

Because it’s crazy hard to get into UVA and DC didn’t like any of the other VA options. A great OOS public they really liked turned out to be less than anything in state anyway. Win-win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because it’s crazy hard to get into UVA and DC didn’t like any of the other VA options. A great OOS public they really liked turned out to be less than anything in state anyway. Win-win.

Same. UMD has gotten tough to get into. Penn state and Indiana were the other options, and good ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Op here. I think people are misunderstanding what I meant. I don’t understand why anyone would go to a mediocre public school and pay out of state tuition for a mediocre school. I would pick a better private school out of state vs a mediocre public school.

I got multiple answers. That may have been their best option. The cost of OOS public is still lower than cost of private. The OOS public may be larger and attractive. OOS public may have more majors and options.

I was wondering why one would pick a large public and pay OOS tuition. I didn’t realize some people want to go to a school with 50,000 students.

Thanks for confirming you are indeed a troll.

I was genuinely curious and got several answers on why one would choose an OOS public.

I grew up in an affluent suburb and was part of the AP/honors crowd. Everyone sought the ivy, Stanford, mit, Carnegie Mellon, Cooper union, Amherst, Swarthmore, nyu, tufts, Wellesley, etc type schools.

After going to a private high school, my DS really wanted to go to a large public university. We could not persuade him to go to a small private college (and he didn't get admitted to an Ivy League school). He was not interested in the SLACs because he thought that they would be similar to the small feel of his private high school (even though I disagree with his assessment).

We can easily afford the cost of an OOS public college.

And so he is currently at an OOS public college.

Different people have different choices and paths.