<p>Most of the kids I know go to school on the west coast (I live in CA). Many in the "800 club" go to a UC here, or even (gasp!) a Cal State. Many Californians I know think this is the best place on earth to live, so why go anywhere else to school? California does have a number of fine schools, though, so I don't think anyone is compromising the quality of their education by sticking close to home. I am encouraging my own to get out of state for a few years, because they should experience other parts of the country/world, IMO. Nevertheless, my oldest is at a California school (but it is six hours from home). The second oldest is at Chicago. People really don't get the Chicago thing around here, though three of S's classmates ended up going there as well, which is unusual. They sort of understand going to a prestigious East Coast college (that they may have actually heard of), but why Chicago? (Since I sort of like going against the grain, I actually enjoy that aspect of Chicago--it is like being part of a secret society or something--"Californians who know what UChicago is"). </p>
<p>My husband had lunch last week with an old friend and rattled off the names of schools his friend's daughter is interested in, and they were all names of schools on the East Coast. And that was unusual. But then he mentioned that the girl attends a certain private high school in Oakland, so that's why--her peer group is different from the norm around here. </p>
<p>When I was growing up in the midwest, it was very unusual for anyone to go to a school more than 2 hours away from home. I ended up at UChicago (where my boyfriend was) after transferring from somewhere much closer to home. But I was discouraged by many from going there. It was a radical thing for a girl from a small town in South Dakota to do! The only reason my husband ended up at UChicago was because he went to math camp at Ohio State and one of the teachers was a grad student at Chicago who encouraged him to go there.</p>
<p>digmedia, my older 2 went 8-9 hours away and not both to the same place. While they have gotten/are getting great educations (and both wanted to experience a new area) I'm sure they could have found the same educational opportunities closer to home. D #2's friends are freshmen scattered all over and several have decided to transfer to local state U (variety of reasons, money, adjustment issues, missing the familiar.) </p>
<p>I guess I would caution those thinking that far away/somewhere new might generally be better with this thought: logistics. Getting them and their stuff to and fro can be an issue, especially when they decide to move off-campus and need more stuff! For our youngest, we are setting a 4 hour limit which is probably even too far away for her. And her choice: local state U will not be on the list. A little change is good.</p>
<p>I have been reading/posting on this forum for over a year now, and I can't say that I've taken the same message away regarding most of the bright students. On the contrary, I am so impressed by those who have sought specific lesser-known schools on the basis of what the student was looking for in a program, school size, geographical area, etc. I have learned about many schools that I did not know even existed. I already knew that there are bright students are EVERYWHERE. As I said above, nearly all of our state's bright students decided to stay very close to home.</p>
<p>I think it is pretty widely known that a good education can be had in any number of places both near and far from home. That someone decides to apply to an expensive, elite school does not necessarily mean that they are not cognizant of those choices...it just means they have their own reasons for their decisions. If my son were to be accepted at one of the Ivy League schools to which he's applied or to any of the other upper tier schools, and IF I could get the money together, I'd send him in a minute, but that doesn't mean that I will think he is getting "less" if he ends up somewhere else. </p>
<p>In the case of my own child, he is adamant about leaving this state because he is weary of dealing with the too-common anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia. He desires the experience of living in a place where those types of things do not define a person. I don't blame him at all.</p>
<p>I guess the bottom line is, there is something out there for everyone. In two years, I think I will be looking within our state because I doubt if my daughter will be ready to go out of state. It will be her choice, and I will support her either way.</p>
<p>Looking back, I probably came close to letting my parents' fear of my leaving home become my fear. I wavered with a Harvard acceptance and one from UCLA, just down the road. My school counselor pulled me into her office and pulled out some maps. She told me stories of her travels and what was out there. Sold!! So I didn't have all the dorm furnishings, just one suitcase, but Mrs. Shaw is still in my prayers!</p>
<p>When I went to college back in the day, my parents and I didn't even consider schools LESS than 3 hours away from home. D (now a college soph) was insistent that she would never come back to Texas for college (she was at boarding school in Michigan). When we visited Rice, at her music teacher's urging, I knew instantly it was a perfect fit. I had to fight to keep my normally big mouth shut, and let her come to that conclusion herself. A particularly hard winter in upper Michigan her senior year, coupled with an audition trip to Rice in February where she could wear flip-flops, sealed the deal. S talks about UT, but my money is on a smaller, east coast school at the end of the day.</p>
<p>One of my goals for my kids is for them to use their educations to get outside their comfort zones, or, more correctly, to make as much of the world as possible -- geographically, linguistically, and intellectually -- part of their comfort zones. I not only want them to travel away to school, I want them to spend significant time abroad, speak several languages, and make friends everywhere they go. I will help my kids choose schools accordingly - and have. They can choose otherwise, of course, but I've made my own preferences very clear. (And I look for schools that exhibit this same value set, which eliminates lots of them very quickly.)</p>
<p>Berurah, I agree there is something out there for everyone. I actually think there are many choices out there. </p>
<p>I don't understand your second paragraph at all if it pertains to what I wrote.</p>
<p>So just to be clear, I think you can get a good education at many places.
For many, locally works. For many it doesn't. I don't hold up my nose at those that choose locally. I don't criticize those that send their kids away (Unless it puts the family in financial jeopardy).</p>
<p>My daughter did not choose locally.</p>
<p>Your third paragraph makes me ill and I would leave too.</p>
<p>My D wanted to stay in state initially. She went through a major change of heart in the fall, after Thanksgiving Vacation which was a bit of a wake up call for her.</p>
<p>She was imagining staying connected with her HS friends by being within a drive of home... That, even if everyone scattered to different school, if they were all in Calif they would all be reconvening frequently & keeping in touch. </p>
<p>At Thanksgiving vacation, when all college freshman pals came home, she saw they were mentally and emotionally already way into their "new lives," planning to spend time with kids they'd met in college, going on and on about their new friends, new boyfriends, etc. She felt a little 'out of phase' with some of them, who had been very close the prior year when they were all in HS together living the same daily life.</p>
<p>I think this sent the message to her that life moves on inexorably and that staying near home does not guarantee remaninging close or connected with one's hometown friends. Friends come home changed, evolving (or don't come home at all); that's normal and can't be stopped so you may as well "join 'em" by having your own adventure. </p>
<p>She began being really excited about going away when she realized that staying was not going to prevent these changes.</p>
<p>"Not in Texas, not touching Texas" ....of course our flagship state unis are huge and my sons both wanted something smaller than 55,000. ;)</p>
<p>But my oldest was one of six of over 700 (we can never get the school to actually pin down the number of graduates) that left the state, and there will be about that many from my second sons class this year. Of course there are only about 300 that actually attend a college (two or four year) from each class. Interestingly enough, the top val/sal and summas stay in state, no correlation there. I think the kids that do tend to leave have lived elsewhere for some length of time before moving to Texas.</p>
<p>Anyway, with only six per year going out of state, I feel that's why is it next to impossible to get adcoms from out of state to visit our school.</p>
<p>O.K., dstark, maybe I was mistaken, but I read this:</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>and interpreted it to mean that you felt like the majority of CCers did not believe this to be the case. I was just trying to say that I did not have the same take on this forum--that I felt that many here didn't see that as a "maybe", but rather as an "of course!", which is what I personally believe also.</p>
<p>I am very sorry if I have offended you. It was not my intent at all. </p>
<p>Well, yeah, but then again your state is larger than several countries! I think a student from Amarillo who attends Rice or someone from El Paso who goes to SMU doesn't count as staying close to home. </p>
<p>Delaware, on the other hand, can be be crossed at it's largest points in about 90 minutes. Surprisingly enough, however, a lot of Delaware students stay home. UD is a good school, DSU is okay -- and both are fairly large. And my S has absolutely no interest in either. Go figure.</p>
<p>I am very ambivilant about my son going out of state to college. He says he doesn't care where he goes, he just wants a good comp sci program in a good college. My daughter is 17 hours away at college. </p>
<p>We have a sort of family tradition of going to college/getting married and then moving out of the home state, and staying out of the home state. After we had kids I wished that we lived closer to my folks, or my husbands parents, and that I had grown up close to some relatives. Don't you all think about that part of it? It's not the 4 years out of state that bothers me (apart from missing performances) it's the very good chance that afterwards they won't come back to this state. I have friends that know my kids better then either set of grandparents. </p>
<p>The kicker is that both sets of grandparents moved away from their home states when they married, raised their kids and then moved BACK to where they grew up. So neither my husband nor I have family in our hometowns. Of course, keeping with the family tradition, our siblings moved away also. </p>
<p>Like Heidi said, we are lucky that we have excellent state schools and many, many colleges that are within 4 hours. What is the reason for going more then a days drive away if one can find a college that fits within that distance? While I would very much like my son to go to a school with a diverse population, he could care less about that.</p>
<p>What particularly struck me about the kids I mentioned was that they DID have schools out of state that they talked about applying to. I'm wondering where those thoughts went... did parents discourage them? Did they think that the cost was going to be too high? My feeling is that the kids I'm talking about would have been in line for merit money and could have had a wider range on options.</p>
<p>I was still take aback by the comment of one of my son's friends as I described the program he was going into: that she thought it would have been PERFECT for her (it would have been) and that she was sad she didn't know about it in time to do anything.</p>
<p>But, like I said, some of these kids DID visit various colleges and it seemed like they found places that would have been great fits. So, I'm still in the dark about what happened.....</p>
<p>Very good point and probably its-own-thread worthy.... there are definitely costs to a family being scattered to the four winds. </p>
<p>My H & I have made up our minds that if our kids scatter, if we have to we'll sell our house & live part-time in the areas they live, in order to really know our grandkids. My H's mother lives on the opposite coast, but sees grandkids more than my parents, who are driving distance; if you have physical health, it's all about will.</p>
<p>My grandparents were phenomenal-- very loving & very involved in our lives. My grandmother lived to 96 and was also very connected to my kids, particularly the older ones, as a great-grandma. </p>
<p>I told my grandmother on her deathbed just how much her grandmothering had meant to me, and I promised her that my grandkids will get just as wonderful a grandmother as I had. She smiled, took my hand and said, "you kids were so much fun."</p>
<p>Kathiep, my fiance has a theory that seems to be true. There are some kids who will seek bigger adventures and bigger opportunities. They are the ones who do not even consider local colleges. We have 2 of those to date. We also each have sons who did not consider leaving the State. He expects they will be here forever. Probably true.</p>
<p>I think it is difficult today to expect that an ambitious kid will stay close to home as they chase careers. We live in a rapidly increasing global economy. All of these ambitious CC kids are unlikely to find their best opportunities where we wish they would! Really, I'm just joking, I've really enjoyed my life living in many different places and know most of our kids will too. But my grandkids...................................</p>
<p>There's something about this 'far away' vs 'close to home' discussion that I don't get: do people who advocate sending kids to colleges far away from home really think that a college's geographical location is a major factor in what kind of a person their child will turn out to be? Or do you really believe that in order to grow up a responsible and independent adult a young person needs to cut family ties to three or four holiday visits a year?</p>
<p>I think you can grow up to be a responsible and independent adult without going far from home from college. However, in some cases you could be missing the opportunity to meet a wider range of people and to experience a different part of the country. For winter break from boarding school, S went home with a classmate from Germany! The airfare was amazingly cheap and he had an incredible experience. College offers even more of that kind of thing. This can occur at close-to-home places, but I see many advantages in trying out a new locale.</p>
<p>Interesting question mamochka. What we found is that what was close by didn't suit either son's needs. What was further away did. I don't think the location of my children's schools will be a major factor in who they turn out to be, but it may impact where they look for their first jobs and homes. Our town here does not have many employment opportunities. I don't think there is anything wrong with going or staying. Whatever works best. I might add that being geographically different from the applicant pool did help our first son in the admission's process. But I would not have discouraged him from a Texas school if that is what he wanted. As lderochi points out, you can be far away and still in our same state! Dallas is six hours away, Lubbock is 10 hours. That would be several states along the east coast.</p>
<p>Cutting family ties and cutting apron strings are two different things. I am from a scattered to the winds family and so is my husband. We live among a lot of folks who are all related in some fashion. There are pros and cons to both!</p>