Also, many are mentally ill - and frankly my kid is not equipped to handle that level of illness nor would I want her to become a victim or someone's illness induced behaviors. I know lot of schools are fine within the campus (even if the surrounding areas are unsafe); but we had a homeless person come up to us on campus and during an on campus tour. |
You could send them to Bates….but then they might be put on lockdown because of a shooting in the area.
Point is….bad things happen everywhere. |
Before she goes off to college or to live on her own, I suggest you equip her to deal w situations like a homeless or mentally ill person approaching her. You have to prepare her for the real world at some point.homeless and mentally ill people are a significant presence in any city or town she might live in and you can’t reasonably expect her to stay in a protected bubble all the time. She needs to learn some street smarts. |
Also, obviously no parent wants their kid to become a victim. This (my kids encountering an unstable and/or violent person) is a major concern of mine as well. But that’s the reality. The best we can do as parents is teach our kids how to deal in difficult situations. Before they go off to college is frankly the perfect time to teach/prepare them. No matter what college they go to. |
Loyola Chicago - full ride.
picked it over BC, etc. Smart! 10/10 |
I agree. Once you get above (very roughly) 12-15,000 undergrads, you reach a point where you won’t be surprised if you go all day & never run into someone you know. That seems to be a tangible difference…college goes from being a village where there is usually at least one familiar face in any large group to a city where you are just another nameless person. I think what often makes the universities with huge enrollments so overwhelming is not the number of people, but the spread-out campuses they usually have. Like Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, & Texas A&M cover enormous chunks of land, & going from place to place can be a chore. Compare the feeling on those campuses to places like Central Florida, U of Az, & U of Nebraska, which have a lot of students but their campuses are relatively compact. |
I'm sure most kids have some basic knowledge on how to handle mentally ill homeless people, but that doesn't mean that one would want to be a around it. While every school has some level of violence, some schools definitely have more of it. |
Does your kid plan to ever live in a city? They need to learn to live w it. No one wants to be around it but that’s life. |
Not now- not with these weak policies on crime. I think DC had a record number of carjackings. |
+1. This is why people move to the suburbs. The majority of people don’t want to live with people asking for money and the smell and filth of homelessness. |
Fairfax and Chantilly have had a pretty sizable influx of panhandlers in the past couple of years. Always homeless camps in wooded areas. |
Vatech and UVa have both had far more violent murders than the urban schools people on this site like to freak out about. |
CNU. A smaller school was the best fit, and they loved CNU. It was their top choice. |
Exactly this. DP |
OMG. Just stop. One-off crazy situations that occur once a decade (or longer) are in no way comparable to the daily crime found on and around many urban campuses. DP |