If you have a certain ‘radius’ for colleges…

[Anonymous]

The farther away, and the more money spent on travel, means less money for tuition and housing.

[Anonymous]

I see my offspring as an adult. So does the law.

It's up to her. I will support it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won't let my child go to school closer than 60 miles from our house - he needs to be at least that far away.

I haven't limited him, but we have steered him gently towards places that are, at most, a short, direct plane flight away.

Who knows where he will end up - but I hope he stay son the East Coast.

Really strange. So the kid can’t go to Johns Hopkins which is only 47 miles away from DC?

PP with the 60 mile radius here. My child can't go to Hopkins because his grades and scores are nowhere near good enough to get into Hopkins, so this is a moot point

But my thinking in general is that my child has grown up in a bubble in DC. I hope that he returns to this area when he is done with college, but, at least for four years, it will be good for him to get out of the bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won't let my child go to school closer than 60 miles from our house - he needs to be at least that far away.

I haven't limited him, but we have steered him gently towards places that are, at most, a short, direct plane flight away.

Who knows where he will end up - but I hope he stay son the East Coast.

Really strange. So the kid can’t go to Johns Hopkins which is only 47 miles away from DC?

I don't find that strange. I grew up outside of Philly, and set my own geo restrictions that there was no way I was looking at Swarthmore or Haverford or Penn. There is a geo element to all colleges, even Princeton has more students from NJ than any other. So if one wants to break out of their bubble, which I did, it makes sense to go farther even if there are great local options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:kids must go more than 250 miles away

My mom insisted that we go out of state for college -she felt being away from home in a real sense was important. And from where we lived, “out of state” meant at least 150 miles away. My sister ended up going to a SLAC about 200 miles away, and I went to a T10 private that was about 750 miles away.

[Anonymous]

I refused to apply to the state school down the street. It was 15-20 minutes from home, and that held absolutely no appeal to me. I probably could have gone for almost free, too. My parents luckily told me to go to the best school I wanted, and they would figure out finances. Crazy that we are now looking at paying more for in state tuition than they paid for my fancy private school ;p

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who have a certain distance within which you will permit your kid to attend college….. what is your thinking? If your child applies to school across the country would you see that as fleeing the homestead, abandonment?… would you even permit the application? Or did you let your kid apply freely anywhere ? If so what is your thinking as well? I feel like there are two kinds of parents on this thread. The ones who will let their kids go absolutely anywhere. And those who have communicated a radius.

I feel 3-6 hr drive works out best, far enough distance for kid to be independent but close enough to come home once a month if they want and parents to go if there is an emergency or another need. They can take and bring back dorm stuff easily. No worry about cost or scheduling flights.

[Anonymous]

What I won’t recommend is staying home and attending nearby college where whole high school class is going. It’s a time to go try new things. Undergrad within 6 hours drive or 2 hr flight. Anywhere for grad school, by 21 and after 4 years of college, they grow a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I refused to apply to the state school down the street. It was 15-20 minutes from home, and that held absolutely no appeal to me. I probably could have gone for almost free, too. My parents luckily told me to go to the best school I wanted, and they would figure out finances. Crazy that we are now looking at paying more for in state tuition than they paid for my fancy private school ;p

If this were my scenario, the decision wouldn’t have been left up to my kid.

[Anonymous]

Our kids are smart enough to figure out the logistics on their own. We are full-pay and placed no restrictions on their school choices.

They watched older schoolmates and saw/heard about some of their successes and travails with close-by and far-away schools. In a couple of situations, they saw that their friends who attended schools requiring a plane trip had more difficulties getting support in emergencies than their friends who could be reached by a reasonable car drive. In one case, a friend was seriously hurt and it took his parents a full 24-28 hours to be able to get to their kid's side. Our kids really reacted negatively to that and discussed how upsetting it was that the logistics of getting to and fro during an emergency were so difficult that it meant the kid was alone (friends were there but that is not the same thing) during the most scary and painful time of his life.

Additionally, all of our kids are D1 athletes. They know that if they want us at their games, then they need to go to schools (and in a league) that are close enough for us to get to easily. This means that they self-identified the schools that they were interested in, and worked their recruitment with that lens.

The outcome of all of this is that our closest kid is 2-3 hours away and no kid is further away than a 5-7 hour (depending on traffic) car ride. That works for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shocked you did not mention cost of travel as a deciding factor.

Southwest Airlines makes the air travel relatively affordable for our two DS's (each of whom are at college in California). We often find low fares, and then they can take 2 bags without paying a bag fee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who have a certain distance within which you will permit your kid to attend college….. what is your thinking? If your child applies to school across the country would you see that as fleeing the homestead, abandonment?… would you even permit the application? Or did you let your kid apply freely anywhere ? If so what is your thinking as well? I feel like there are two kinds of parents on this thread. The ones who will let their kids go absolutely anywhere. And those who have communicated a radius.

My kid placed his own geographic radius around where his gf is attending college in NC. I tried to extend the radius and he would not budge. He did say he had to get out of the NoVA bubble as he could not put up with the people around here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I refused to apply to the state school down the street. It was 15-20 minutes from home, and that held absolutely no appeal to me. I probably could have gone for almost free, too. My parents luckily told me to go to the best school I wanted, and they would figure out finances. Crazy that we are now looking at paying more for in state tuition than they paid for my fancy private school ;p

If this were my scenario, the decision wouldn’t have been left up to my kid.

What do you mean? My parents never pushed the state school on me (my HS did, though-kept getting yanked out of classes for presentations for the school and their honors program). They didn’t want me to go to school in my hometown either. The closest school I applied to was about an hour away and I wound up going to the one that was the farthest from home (8 hour drive), because it was the best school I was accepted to. I think I was the only person in my class that did not use the state school as my safety, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won't let my child go to school closer than 60 miles from our house - he needs to be at least that far away.

I haven't limited him, but we have steered him gently towards places that are, at most, a short, direct plane flight away.

Who knows where he will end up - but I hope he stay son the East Coast.

Really strange. So the kid can’t go to Johns Hopkins which is only 47 miles away from DC?

PP with the 60 mile radius here. My child can't go to Hopkins because his grades and scores are nowhere near good enough to get into Hopkins, so this is a moot point

But my thinking in general is that my child has grown up in a bubble in DC. I hope that he returns to this area when he is done with college, but, at least for four years, it will be good for him to get out of the bubble.

Ha. Fair enough. I grew up here. I went to a State school. Husband went to Hopkins.

I did not feel 'in the bubble' by any means. I lived abroad post-college. I traveled extensively. This is a very International area. There are so many cultures here. My kids go to school with kids from all over the world and who encompass many different nationalities. They have also been out of the country many times.

I just think---leave it up to the kid. I'm not putting a quota on miles. If my kid wants to go to Georgetown which is 2 miles away, go to Georgetown. I know kids that did and were actually home less than kids 2 hours away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I refused to apply to the state school down the street. It was 15-20 minutes from home, and that held absolutely no appeal to me. I probably could have gone for almost free, too. My parents luckily told me to go to the best school I wanted, and they would figure out finances. Crazy that we are now looking at paying more for in state tuition than they paid for my fancy private school ;p

If this were my scenario, the decision wouldn’t have been left up to my kid.

What do you mean? My parents never pushed the state school on me (my HS did, though-kept getting yanked out of classes for presentations for the school and their honors program). They didn’t want me to go to school in my hometown either. The closest school I applied to was about an hour away and I wound up going to the one that was the farthest from home (8 hour drive), because it was the best school I was accepted to. I think I was the only person in my class that did not use the state school as my safety, though.

ETA - I was an only child and my mother had to turn down Columbia because her dad said state school was good enough for girls. That also factored into their thinking.