<p>As many of you know, my son is a HS senior and is going out of state to school. The good: he's in a great program; the bad: it's far, far away. It's been somewhat interesting to watch his friends over the past year as they've visited schools, had early favorites, and are now making decisions about where to go. But a strange thing is happening... their once-higher aspirations are evaporating as many choose to stay in state, attending the flagship U, the second large state U, or smaller schools that even people here in state don't know much about.</p>
<p>These are not the "average" kids. These are the valedictorians and near-valedictorians and the NM Finalists/Commended of the school. So far, I only know one (1)(uno)(un) ONE! friend of his who is going away - far away - to UVa. His GF, who just got her first B EVER (in an AP class) is ending up at a private school less than an hour away (unless the USAFA nomination comes through, but the AFA is less than 10 MINUTES away from the HS). Another friend who visited schools all over the country is ending up at one of the smaller state colleges. </p>
<p>I confess, I don't know all the decisions, but it suddenly seems that no one wants to get very far from home. I talked to some of these kids earlier and they told me about how much they LOVED Stanford or Wisconsin or Grinnell or MIT or Lawrence or _____, but now when I ask about some of those places, I get, "I don't know... I think I'll stay close to home." Many did not even apply to their dream school.</p>
<p>Is this a new trend, or is it just our school (or just the people I know)?</p>
<p>No, the same thing is already happening with daughter's group of friends who are all juniors. And, I suspect my daughter may have a bout with this along the way as well. I have read that the vast majority of kids go to a school less than 250 miles from home.</p>
<p>Is your son having second thoughts? Mine has always wanted to stay in Ca if possible, which is too bad, because he'd have a lot more choices if he were willing to go east.</p>
<p>money?
our state offers incentives to top students who stay in state
Money may also come into play when thinking about trips home, or trips to visit.
While I know students who want to go as far away as possible without considering closer schools, students who make a calculated decision IMO are not limiting themselves just because they choose to attend an instate school.
You can always travel after school or for graduate school.
What I think is more limiting is restricting prospective schools that only get instate students.
To attend a school such as AFA, that has students from all over, is much different than attending UC Greeley.</p>
<p>If you look at the numbers, a huge majority go to a State school or community college. There is also a large correlation between income and going further away for college. I guess that can be read as that it's a money issue, or that kids of high income parents are more likely to have left home for travel and summer programs so that they are more comfortable with the concept.</p>
<p>digmedia I'm finding a lot of the same. In fact, I asked S (HS jr) just the other day where his friends are planning to go to school. One may go to Oregon....the others are all planning to stay in state. And as you mentioned, these are friends from his AP chem study group with great grades! </p>
<p>I wonder if some of this is parent-influenced. Even if not meant to be. I know for myself (when I was that age) my dad responded pretty negatively if I mentioned any out of state schools. Sigh. In his mind, this only made visiting inconvenient for him.
I even recently mentioned to my dad some of the schools that S is interested in and my dad's comment was something along the lines of "well, it won't be as easy for you to go see him if he's in X state instead of Y state". It kind of irritated me that he would say that. I'm encouraging my kids to go where they want! I am adult enough to live with their decisions. Sure, it would be nice if they were closer, but I would never want to "guilt" them into choosing a school just for my sake!</p>
<p>Another interesting thing is happening to my son's HS friends who attend out of state schools. Three are transferring back in-state next year. In fact one did not go back this spring, opting to stay at home and work until next fall. Both did fine academically but they found that it was difficult to be so far from family and friends. Interestingly all three are girls.</p>
<p>In his circle of HS friends, only one is attending a school more than 5 hours away. Most of the others are w/i one hours distance.</p>
<p>In our area, that is COMPLETELY the norm. Each year I am flabbergasted as I watch the little blurbs that the local T.V. stations run with the area's valedictorians telling where they plan to attend college. With the EXTREMELY rare exception, the VAST MAJORITY stay not only in the state, but generally in the immediate surrounding area. The flagship U's here are fine and certainly more than adequate for most students, but I'll be darned if most of the very top students don't even go to those! I know a girl who two years ago was the valedictorian of the most prestigious private school in the area (whatever that may mean...), but she chose to stay and attend the local school. I found myself thinking, "And those parents 'wasted' all that money on a prestigious and expensive private school for WHAT??" Before I get flamed for that remark, please know that I DO believe in education as a goal in itself. It's just that the whole 13+ years of private school seemed a bit of overkill for the college choice/result. </p>
<p>My own son, who has never wavered in his desire to attend an out-of-state school has received VERY little support for his desires (from the administration/counselors) at his high school. It seems they think that he is a bit pretentious for even entertaining this thought: that maybe, just maybe, all that he could ever want or need may NOT be contained within the state of Kansas!! OH MY! In fact he is finding his own yellow brick road extending out in all sorts of new and exciting directions, and where it will finally take him, we are not yet sure.</p>
<p>I will not lie and say that I am thrilled that my son will likely be out of state for the next four years and maybe for many beyond that. But it is what HE wants, and I feel my job as a parent is to support him in those ambitions and desires.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think this is more prevalent in some areas than in others, but I'll be interested to see what everyone else says about this.</p>
<p>My kid does NOT want to stay near home. As a matter of fact, the only reason he applied to our state U is because I forced him to. I agree about the AFA, and - to be fair - some of the decisions are for specific purposes. One friend wants to major in music education and THE education school here in CO is UNC in Greeley. It does make sense that if you want to teach in CO, you go to a CO school and make the certification process simpler.</p>
<p>I mentioned to him (jokingly) that with my job it doesn't matter where we live, so I thought I'd look at housing near his college in Ohio. "CU Boulder," he said, "is looking better and better!"</p>
<p>Most of the bright kids from my daughter's high school stay in state. I find it interesting when I see the college ranking wars on this BB and it is argued how all the smart students are at 8 schools. :) From the kids I see, that isn't the case. If enough people see it like Digimedia, and others, maybe we are seeing it the way it is. </p>
<p>Maybe, many bright students are staying close to home. Maybe, you can get a good education with good professors and fellow bright students close to home. Maybe....there are like-minded extremely bright students close to home that you can associate with, learn with, make connections with, and you don't have to pay $45,000 a year to make this happen.</p>
<p>My daughter is very interested in going out of state. She believes it is her opportunity to experience something new and different. So I was rather surprised when she added a few closer schools to her list of where she would apply. What she told me is that if she got down to making the final decision and changed her mind she wanted something to fall back on. </p>
<p>I think the prospects of going to a school far away sometimes sound intriguing, but when the reality of what it means hits home, it may be hard for some to make that choice, especially if they know no one else who will be going there.</p>
<p>My D did not apply to any in-state schools. The closest one she applied to is about an eight hour drive. I believe out of her class of 215 only 3 kids have even applied to out of state schools. Can't really explain it either except to say that my observation has been that parents in my area have been living their lives through their kids lives for so long that they would probably be completely lost should their children actually leave the state, LOL! However, when I talk to D's friends they basically say "what's the difference, college is college, why not stay close to home?".. dunno.. BUT I am excited for D to experience other places, environments, etc. Although I will never say never, I really don't think that D will change her mind (YIKES! that would be bad.. since she hasn't applied anyplace local!) Okay, another thing to worry about ; )</p>
<p>Digmedia, I couldn't get my daughter to apply anywhere instate even as a backup. "I don't want to find myself sitting in a college class next to a bunch of kids from my high school." She also wanted to relocate to a "real city" (and it took a little bit of exposure for her to convince herself that Providence was "enough" of a real city -- and not that far from Boston or NYC. So . . . RISD it was).</p>
<p>My son did apply to the flagship university in my state (MI) and was offered a large merit scholarship. But like for my daughter my son preferred to be in a real city, but in addition a "major league city" (read: sports). And Chicago had everything he wanted.</p>
<p>MOST kids in their graduating classes from our suburban high school stayed instate. A few, however, ventured out and around. And there seems to be a certain group that really wanted the large city life that a Chicago or New York could offer -- and, alas, Detroit could not. So a lot migrated for school or after school to NY and Chicago, and a few to DC and the west coast.</p>
<p>We have one local kid, terrifically smart, and "Ta-dah!" - she is the dream "Oboe/English Horn" player (she even owns the latter!) She plays professionally with the local opera company, and the local symphony (and has since the age of 15), and could likely go to any college or university in the country (or at least most). She's going to Western Washington University.</p>
<p>This is news? I went to college back in the '70's and most of the kids in my HS class ended up either commuting to a big private U. a few miles away (easy public transportation and chronic housing shortages), the Flagship State U a few hours drive away, or some variant thereof. I was the brave one, attending college out of state.</p>
<p>I think what's changed is the availability of information.... in my day, you had to send away for brochures, wait by the mailbox, take a long series of busrides on Greyhound to visit schools if you were that ambitious, so going far away was limited to the really motivated. Nowadays, you log on, click through, etc.... but it doesn't make the distance any easier to navigate.</p>
<p>I saw statistics a few years ago from one of the major news magazines or papers that gave a huge percentage for kids going to school within an hour of home. By the time you got the circle to within the state, or within 4 hours, it was well over the 90% range. And this an increase from years past, generations past.</p>
<p>One reason I would love to see narrative guides like the Princeton Review or Fiske for the less well known colleges is in hopes that kids will venture further. When I lived in Westchester, families would pay a pretty penny for their kids to go to Concordia or Manhattan colleges, both great school, but basically in their back yards. Why not got to Ohio Wesleyan or Bennington or Drake, and get some exposure to the world? It would also improve these schools as the primary drawback to them is that many of them are suitcase or commuter schools which really limits on campus life, and this atmosphere is not conducive to kids coming from non local areas. </p>
<p>Parents also enter into this. So many kids, again in Westchester, would go to Iona or Manhattanville or Fairfield because they were close and the parents like that. Open your horizons a bit and go to Loyola, Stonehill, St Joseph. Going away is not just for the HPY crowd. </p>
<p>"Colleges That Change Lives" really helped this group of kids whose grades or testscores did not give them much chance to get into the highly selective, better known schools or even the flagship state schools , but could benefit from going away to college. Why go to South East State College without much campus life when you can look at schools such as Flagler in Florida, York in Pa, and some southern state schools that don't cost so much for out of staters. It opens the horizons up.</p>
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Maybe, many bright students are staying close to home. Maybe, you can get a good education with good professors and fellow bright students close to home.
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</p>
<p>Um, yeah...that is, IF there is a good school in your city that offers the program you're interested in ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, I think that many kids fall into the "comfort level" way of thinking when push comes to shove, which is unfortunate but not uncommon. When talking to kids about colleges, I think it's important to reinforce the idea of thinking outside the box, and that there are a lot of great schools in parts of they country that they know nothing about. One of them might be "the one", and they shouldn't be afraid to find out. </p>
<p>Well, I talk a good game. But right now I'm losing the battle -- my Sophomore S is pretty adamant that he wants to look ONLY in "the South". Now "the South" sounds like a pretty large geographical area, but my DW is also pretty adamant that S can't go more than a a 10-hour drive from home (now how much sense does that make?). </p>
<p>Sigh. At least VA, NC and SC have some good schools, but it's nowhere near as fun for me.</p>
<p>I think there are many reasons most stay close to home. When I headed back East to college, my parents nearly had heart attacks. They were afraid of the unknown, of planes, of the rich people they thought would eat me alive. My mother thought I'd be home in no time. Imagine the shock of my staying for grad school, moving to that dangerous New York City and then, gasp, to Europe. I'm still not sure my mother is over it.</p>
<p>My oldest went to public school in an upper middle class area. Most of his friends went to State schools, thought to be a good value in CA. Money matters here. Almost everyone seems to be house poor. They qualify for little aid due to their home equity. I see kids who would have liked to consider private colleges who just can't. But mostly I think these kids have parents who went to UCs and they have never thought of going anywhere else.</p>
<p>At the private schools in the same area my younger children attend, it could not be more different. Almost no grads go to UCs. While Stanford, a 7 hour drive is probably the most popular destination, East coast schools are not far behind. As another poster said, these are kids for whom leaving home is old news. Summer camp in Maine, language programs in Europe, these kids do not seem to feel the pull to stay near home that others do. Their parents either have no problem with financing private colleges or they will have large scholarships as they have at the schools they go to now. </p>
<p>So it's probably largely a function of money and exposure on the part of both parents and kids.</p>