Reply to So, apparently I have raised a "geography snob".

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I ask this sincerely, Op.  What does it matter the reasons he doesn't like a school?  After all, he is the one who has to live there four years.    As long as you can afford it and he gets in what is the problem?  At least he knows where he doesn't want  to be.  As for the snobbish part...he is young and perhaps he will grow out of it.  But, there are plenty of people who agree with him, unfortunately.[/quote]

I guess the problem is that it's clear that his ideas of different parts of the country are often based on stereotypes, rather than on actual information, and it's making me aware how limited his experiences are.  I don't care if he likes or rejects a school because of something accurate about the school.  For example, he told me he didn't want to look at a school in central Florida because of the heat.  He's excited about a school in Denver because he likes to snowboard.  I'm fine with that, because those feelings are based on real information.  It really is hot in central Florida, and there really are snowy mountains near Denver.  He also wants a more urban environment.  I'm fine with that, and there are schools I won't even suggest because of that.  But his rejection of other schools is based on stereotype, and not on fact, and that bothers me, because if it isn't addressed with accurate information, I can imagine the same stereotypes impacting his interactions with people he meets from Kentucky or Wisconsin or Iowa in the future.  So whether or not he actually ends up going to Kentucky for school, I'd like him to be open to the idea that Kentucky is more than just his stereotypes.[/quote]

My son was very similar when we started looking at colleges. I insisted on visiting some schools that I thought were otherwise good matches even though they were in geographically "undesirable" areas, and DS really did change his mind/broaden his thinking as the process unfolded. He ended up seriously considering one school even though it was very rural (he wanted more urban) and another school even though it was in an area of the country that he originally turned his nose up at.

It's true that in a sense it might not matter--there might be plenty of schools to choose from in the areas he does like. In my DS's case, he was looking for some particular things that meant he needed to be open-minded about the schools he considered, because the pool of schools with things he wanted was already small to begin with. So I insisted on pushing the envelope with him, and I do think it paid off, if only in terms of challenging his world view.[/quote]

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