Good morning, all. Quick (and possibly dumb) question that will inevitably be answered at our upcoming college weekend in February, but thought I’d ask here as well. When BS kids are looking at colleges, do schools consider their home state the state of their school as residency?
@itcannotbetrue: Your home state is considered the state of residency and is what will count toward any particular school’s geographic diversity bucket, if that is your question, but the student’s application is read in the context of their peers at the school they attend.
@itcannotbetrue If you want the benefit of applying from the boonies, my offer from 3-4 years ago still stands: will register your kid in my house in exchange for a one year of tuition :))
@itcannotbetrue: Not a dumb question at all. Arises in a lot of contexts. For example, for National Merit qualifying & for US citizens on assignment overseas.
@itcannotbetrue I would ask the question directly of your college counselors. Ours shared that home state is not a factor for admissions. This was of particular importance for us as I moved from a smaller west coast state to be close to kids in BS. Their dad still resides in our former state, so we had options on where primary address would be.
@GoatMama Ahaha! We may just take you up on that! 
@vegas1 – so your kids’ school’s college office said that it is the BS state that counts as their state of residency? I will definitely ask next month at our college weekend (which I attended last year but apparently missed this quite important point. LOL:)
For college admissions, the home state is the state (or country) of permanent residency. The BS state comes into play (usually in a negative way) for NMSF.
That said, for US citizens applying to T20 (and probably T50) colleges who think that geographic diversity matters in admissions, it just doesn’t (or very very insignificantly). (A)These schools with <20% acceptance rates have more than enough applications and (B)none of these schools is going to admit a subpar applicant just to say they have all 50 states covered.
“will register your kid in my house in exchange for a one year of tuition”
Do you live in Colorado, qualify for any amount of FAFSA benefit, and will you legally adopt my child? That will be automatic full tuition + $5000/yr stipend for her.
“Ours shared that home state is not a factor for admissions.”
It totally makes sense for private colleges. A student who spent 4 years of high school at a NE boarding school is less likely to bring real diversity benefits from her home state benefit. And as skieurope mentioned, they are less likely to accept a student just to cover all 50 states.
On the other hand, it could make a significant factor for public universities where admission preference to instate students is mandated by policy, even though the student attended a out of state boarding school. For example, a couple of UC admission officers have confirmed that to me. However, the student will not benefit from specific districts boonies within the state even if he home is in that district, as that benefit is based on attending a high school in those districts (usually in a low SES concentrated area) and not based on home address.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
So, Grier wanted to officially confirm me if DD was really going to start college early and not coming back for her senior year, last Friday. And I confirmed it.
Yesterday, DD called me for her having a second thought. I was neutral as I have always been, but I answered her question on my honest opinion of her prospect on top college admission.
Today, she changed her mind. We accepted Grier’s offer for next year, and everything went back to as before. Was the timing coincidental, or Grier’s counseling needed only a day or two to do what my wife and relatives couldn’t do in months - making her more ambitious? I don’t know. But I agree that it is the right decision and now I am back to research for her Summer plan to help her application this Fall.
@SculptorDad What a dramatic change of events!
Best of Luck to you and DD on your journey!
Definitely, look beyond the usual suspects and apply broadly just as you did in BS search.
PS. CO SOM will be there again next year. It is a great school and in a great place to spend four years. One thing that concerned me though is lack of diversity. Colorado as a state is very very white. I would have preferred either coasts due to diversity. Texas is more diverse than Colorado, lol.
@SculptorDad Congrats on the exciting turn of events. I just now realized my dd has enough credits to graduate this year (she repeated freshman year and has done summer programs) and I feel terrible that I didn’t know this a few months back. She is so ready to graduate! If any parents here have children who did gap programs or exchanges senior year, I am all ears. She needs to apply to colleges in the fall because it is too late to start that process now for next year.
@payn4ward Thanks. Mines already replied to DD that they will be there for her next year.
@chemmchimney Good luck with your daughter’s plan!
Anyone else whose kiddo is “Adulting” over the Winter Long Weekend? Ours has pretty much been up and down 1-95 in the last three days with her “Adult” school friends. Yikes!
Mine has been busting her chops at the NERVA qualifiers, so no adulting at this time.
BTW, I was in Boston last week and checked her out of school to spend the weekend with me. She asked - and I allowed - that she go out for a few hours with a guy friend from Boston while we were there. The day after I checked her back into school, I got a call from her advisor to let me know that my kid has been hanging out with a boy in Boston (oh the horror!!) An interesting tidbit on the heels of the discussion on the other thread. That’s one airtight ship. I think I had more freedom in 7th grade, let alone high school.
Chimneykid2.0 now set to graduate next January and then do a gap program or possibly start college 2nd semester next year. We’ve been looking at programs and there are some very cool options.
Oh wow! Can you tell us more about it, @chemmchimney ?
@goatmama we are just starting to look at actual programs but because Chimneykid2 will be 18 and have graduated, I high school in December, she qualifies for college gap semester programs that start in January. Some colleges are now offering freshman the option of starting spring semester instead of the fall as well. (Cornell just started doing this however for competitive schools like Cornell I don’t know if they would allow a fall applicant to start the spring of the same year they apply - generally it would be the following spring I would think). The plan is to have her enrolled in a spring 2020 program by the time she submits her college applications this fall. Once she sees where she is accepted, she can either go straight to college in January for colleges that offer this or do a gap semester and start at her college of choice in the fall with the rest of the 2020 class (or do a January-January gap year program but I think that may not be as appealing to our dd)
DD repeated 1 year and also did a pre-college program last summer that gave her college credit so she has the required years in her subjects to graduate “early” and is ready to move on. Her college counselor enthusiastically supports this plan too. It is really great that her school can be flexible like this.
Think of it like a PG year spent travelling or working or studying abroad instead of at another boarding school. Some programs include college counseling and one we saw included a guaranteed admission to schools like University of Washington for accepted applicants. Who knew! I think this is as a result of colleges wanting to maximize their beds and accommodate less traditional students who may have been homeschooled or abroad etc. Middlebury College has a list of gap year programs on their website which has been helpful to us in our search.
I looked up the list of gap programs on Middlebury’s website. So cool! Thanks for the tip. We’ll be visiting a few colleges next week. I just wish the weather would warm up.
We’ve been visiting some colleges and have a few more planned over the next two months! We’ve been really lucky with weather! We were at Duke this weekend and it was in the 60’s!