Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to school in NW Indiana (originally from Northern VA) and I did NOT get used to it. It was a major factor that affects your day-to-day life. Furthermore, I was an RA and saw that Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) hit a lot of my girls hard for the first time in their lives, esp. if they came from more temperate climes. I had to help a lot of them get themselves to resources who could help them. I would say this is a consideration not to be taken lightly.

A wretched part of the country!

OP, you and your daughter know better than us. Some people can deal with wintry weather. Others are weak in that regard.

Go Irish! I hated South Bend. It is truly a pit and the weather is even worse. The wind off of the lake and the frigid temperatures severely impacted my attitude throughout the winter. Still, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Serious bonding times on those -10 February nights. Still, I'd never move back to that part of the midwest.

Whoops - too many "stills." One other thing I just thought of was that the cold weather did force me to buckle down and study. If I had been in a warmer climate, I might never have stopped running around to come inside and read!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to school in NW Indiana (originally from Northern VA) and I did NOT get used to it. It was a major factor that affects your day-to-day life. Furthermore, I was an RA and saw that Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) hit a lot of my girls hard for the first time in their lives, esp. if they came from more temperate climes. I had to help a lot of them get themselves to resources who could help them. I would say this is a consideration not to be taken lightly.

A wretched part of the country!

OP, you and your daughter know better than us. Some people can deal with wintry weather. Others are weak in that regard.

Go Irish! I hated South Bend. It is truly a pit and the weather is even worse. The wind off of the lake and the frigid temperatures severely impacted my attitude throughout the winter. Still, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Serious bonding times on those -10 February nights. Still, I'd never move back to that part of the midwest.

Like everything else, I think weather goes on the list of pros and cons. For DD, it was a huge consideration (which I thought was shallow and ridiculous). In her second year at a beautiful school in a sunny location, she is the happiest college kid on earth. She says her friends in cold climate schools are so tired of the cold and snow and being indoors and they're depressed and sick etc etc. So if your kid thinks it matters, it probably does.

Grew up in DC, went to UW for undergrad. I would not change it for the world. The winters are not that bad and you get used to it. Really, not a better place to go to school.

Some people's moods are very much affected by weather. There's enough challenges going off to college for the first time, if your child seems to tick down in the winter I would very much consider this.

Anonymous wrote:I went to school in NW Indiana (originally from Northern VA) and I did NOT get used to it. It was a major factor that affects your day-to-day life. Furthermore, I was an RA and saw that Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) hit a lot of my girls hard for the first time in their lives, esp. if they came from more temperate climes. I had to help a lot of them get themselves to resources who could help them. I would say this is a consideration not to be taken lightly.

A wretched part of the country!

OP, you and your daughter know better than us. Some people can deal with wintry weather. Others are weak in that regard.

09:14 former RA here:

the PP who posted about the weather affecting one's will to go to class is spot-on and this is a very valid point to consider as well. The yuckier the weather is, the more apt one is to just want to stay inside. Then this leads to academic problems and things can just snowball (no pun intended). Freshman do have a lot to adjust to if they are on their own for the first time, and getting up and going to class can be a big one, if kids are out partying and drinking, waking up hung-over, etc. It just becomes too easy to have one more excuse not to drag oneself out of bed, exhausted and hung-over, and traipse through snow and muck if it's the 90th dark, freezing, depressing, and gray day in a row.

I went to high school in Boston and the winters just made me weary! My mother made me apply to BC, but I had no intention of ever going there. Ended up in Georgia and Loved it. I think it snowed 3 times in 4 years and paralyzed the whole state.

I went to school in NW Indiana (originally from Northern VA) and I did NOT get used to it. It was a major factor that affects your day-to-day life. Furthermore, I was an RA and saw that Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) hit a lot of my girls hard for the first time in their lives, esp. if they came from more temperate climes. I had to help a lot of them get themselves to resources who could help them. I would say this is a consideration not to be taken lightly.

I only think weather should factor in if the student suffers from severe SAD.

Didn't choose a college based on weather, but moved at the age of 30 due to weather.

Wish I had chosen a college based on weather a bit more (especially if I was going out of state anyway). Where you go to college often starts to lay down a lot of your roots, friendships, job opportunities, etc. Nasty winters are brutal for me, just don't enjoy them. So much happier now that I moved somewhere warmer.

My DC will not consider anything in the south and southwest because he can't stand the heat. He is focused on the north.

I went to Duke because I grew up in the Northeast and I was sick of harsh winters. I even wrote about it in a factor on my application! But, the school was such a bad fit for me, it didn't matter. I should have gone somewhere cold where I would have fit in!

Anonymous wrote:I'm not gonna lie, I didn't realize how much weather had an impact on if I attended class.

When your in college, your motivation to attend class many times can already be low (esp at a big state school).

Cold weather absolutely kills that motivation and makes you say 'fuck it' when you are warm and decide it isn't worth getting bundled up to trudge through snow for it.

+1
This was me. Some people adjust but not everyone. There are enough things to adjust to at that time of life, I wouldn't introduce poor weather as a factor unless absolutely had to

Anonymous wrote:I went to school in CT and honestly if I had to do it over again I would go someplace warmer

CT sucks. There's nothing awesome about that State.

If you're somewhere cold and dumb, it's miserable.

If you're somewhere cold and cool (like Vermont or Madison) you adapt.