“Stanford is down the street, if admitted, he is going (cause he wants to).”
If it weren’t down the street and he were admitted, would you let him go? I’m guessing the answer is yes. In my family’s case, Stanford isn’t down the street and my daughter who applied wasn’t admitted. She might have gone there if she had been admitted, despite it being 2000 miles from home. My older daughter, who did go to college 2000 miles from home, went to a school I’d never heard of before she applied; she had a wonderful experience, and I’m so glad that she chose that school.
For those of you in other parts of the country, consider yourselves lucky to be able to set distance limits and still have choices. We have 3 in-state schools and no options for private in AZ (Of course, I realize there are a couple of small privates in AZ, but not of the quality or level my kids are looking for. Hope that comes across the way I mean it too and not snooty.) When you venture by car, the next closest good quality schools are 5 + hours (San Diego, LA area).
DD15 wanted to go far, far away and did so. She wanted to experience seasons and somewhere new. We always told her she could. She is now 2 plane rides away (no direct flights). I text, FB and / or snapchat with her almost every day. We talk 3 times / week. We are very close! I tried to get her interested in California schools and she said she didn’t want to go anywhere that reminded her of vacation. In her words “I want to go somewhere where it’s cloudy and people want to go to the library.” Guess she was sick of the AZ sun.
DS17 also wants to go far. Though, he is applying to one No. Calif school, his heart is set on a midwest school. At least that one will be only 1 plane ride away.
So, DH and I will be empty nesters with 2 kids spread across the country. I’m one of 5 kids and my mom has always said she’s sorry she sent us away to school. I have a different feeling about it. I am WAY closer to my kids than I ever was or am to my mom. Physical distance can’t change that! I feel strongly about that.
@phoenixmomof2, let me know if your son ends up in the Midwest. My heart and home are in Wisconsin, even though my daughters aren’t; I just can’t seem to uproot myself!
My mother went to college in California from a city in the eastern Midwest, and wound up coming home 8 years later and living the rest of her life within a mile or so of the house where she grew up. (Unfortunately, her own mother died 8 years after that, but they saw each other almost every day during those 8 years.) My sister went to college in California and practically never left California again. My other sister went to college in Arizona, but wound up moving back home when she was 33, and since then she has lived within a mile or so of where she grew up (and with, or within blocks of, our parents when they were alive), except for four unhappy years of medical residency in Minnesota. I went to college in Connecticut and law school in California, and I never lived closer to my parents than a full day’s drive.
My kids both went to college in Chicago. One has stayed there, one is in New York (which is not that far away, really). I definitely envy friends whose children live near them, especially now that marriage and grandchildren are realistic prospects. My wife says all the time that she forgot to tell our children they could go to college anywhere but then they had to come back. (Not that she ever did, and she went to a college where the nearest real airport was the one her parents used.)
I would encourage my child to at least look at nearby good schools, but I wouldn’t insist they attend. I took my sons to see schools that were within 1.5 hours of home, they were open to looking. Both ended up attending schools further away - 4 hours drive, and a 2.5 hr flight from home. So, yes, please just take a look, maybe apply to one or two.
Having said that, many years ago at the age of 16 I refused to get out of the car to look at a certain Ivy League school 45 minutes from my home.
My son has always wanted to go far away. I set the budget, but beyond that the decision is entirely his. However, we did visit some in-state schools (if for no other reason than to get an idea of what type of campus he might like). And now his #1 pick is the school twenty minutes from home (that I had to convince him to visit). Kids!
Oftentimes if you live in the Northeast, colleges outside the region (if you are looking at privates) are cheaper by as much as if not more than the costs of flights back and forth several times a year. If you are full-pay, you have better luck getting merit aid at schools away from New England and that can make the distant school a bargain.
In answer to how we handle it, I would say it was like losing my arm for the first few months. Noone talks about how tough it is when they come home either - with that much of a culture shift and level of independence, it took a few visits before we could reach equilibrium. A wise friend once told me that when a kid leave for college, it feels like a puzzle piece is missing. Over time, you gradually develop new habits, and when they come home for Thanksgiving, it’s shocking to them that you have changed too and can be equally challenging.
Some great advice above!!! DD1 actually did a survey (totally nonscientific - asked people in her class and dorm) about distance from home and level of homesickness. Results confirmed a theory that she had developed over her four years. Within the survey group, there was a direct correlation between homesickness and distance from home. The CLOSER the student to home, the MORE homesickness they reported. The student with the MOST homesickness had a family member that worked at the University!!! I asked her why she thought this was, and she had a very wise comment. “I spent the summer before admission thinking about what it was going to be like to be away from my family, both logistically and emotionally. By the time I actually arrived, I was excited, enthusiastic, and ready for the independence. Those who came from close by did not think much about the transition, and weren’t intentional about planning for being away.” I knew that the max I would be home was three times a year (Thanksgiving/Christmas/summer) so I knew that it would be up to me to survive between times. Pretty smart!
We’ve asked our kids, if they don’t come back home, if they’d please live near each other. Then, we could move closer to them. Not sure if I’d actually do it, but it would be nice to know they were close to each other.
One of my daughters went to school 2,000 miles from home, the other 300. They’re now living a half-hour subway ride apart in New York City. I didn’t expect them to come back to their home town for adult life, so this result (although not permanent) is among the best possible.
We live in MA where there are many great colleges. One kid wouldn’t apply to any colleges here–she was determined to spend 4 years in a different environment. She ended up going to a college 300 miles from home. Other kid thought Boston was just fine and ended up 40 miles from home. We let them decide on distance. I think finding the right school is probably more important than distance from home.
We live abroad and plan to send our daughter home for college. We are considering moving to be in the same country with her as being on the other side of the world seems a bit far! We will most likely not be on the same coast as she ends up on (she has a real desire for proper “seasons!”) But we will settle for being within the same country.
When it was time for me to go to college I applied only to two because I knew I wanted to be in DC.
I also knew that DC was just far enough away that my Dad couldn’t pop around on the weekends (he would have!) but I could easily get home for the holidays (even flew Trump Airlines a few times!)
Yes! One of my kids has always been incredibly independent, and though he was accepted to several universities from all over the state, when it came down to decision-time, the school that was perfect for him was in our hometown.
Once he put aside location, this particular school kept rising to the top of his list. But, since he is so independent and self-sufficient, he really didn’t think living so close to home would be an issue, but he did give us strong guidelines. During his first three years, we’ve seldom seen him during the school year. He has created a wonderful community for himself on campus, and we’ve only seen his dorms/apartments on move-in and move-out days. We’ve respected his boundaries, and he’s respected ours. A few times each year, we’ve texted him mid-week and invited him to join us when we went out for Friday dinner, and sometimes he comes and sometimes he doesn’t. It has worked for him, and he has grown and thrived.
I think this works for our family, in part, because we live in a very large city, and one that he wanted to live in post graduation due to some specific opportunities. Plus, from the beginning, we said that we would treat his college experience as if he lived three hours away. We’ve seen him the least of our college kids. We do end up attending the same basketball and football games, but we sit in completely different sections, and have never run into one another at any of these events.
I went to our flagship. 20 min from the house I grew up in and only saw my parents on holidays. All my siblings went away, all but one has moved back and we all are 15-45 minutes from my parents. While I lived closest in college, I left for the longest, spending 10 years across the country before moving back.
Our oldest had a similar experience, though as his time in college progressed we saw him more but it was always on his schedule and never ever a pop in scenario. Current college student is 1000 miles away and we only see her on holidays as well. It is a mental adjustment. It was harder with her as we knew that a spontaneous visit would never happen and the next visit date was already set in stone and far away whereas with the oldest we knew if we had to, we could see him very quickly.
Of course he now lives 200 miles from his sister so he can spontaneously visit…and has!
Current senior wants to go far away, farther than the others. My deal with him is that’s ok as long as COA is at or under his sisters and that he has skin in the game (his loans and work) if it is more than our flagship.
I am making him apply to 2 in state schools. 90 min and 60 min away. One is a financial safety and the other a fit safety if he changes his mind on distance from home. Making is an overstatement, he would be happy at either and neither needed to be a parental choice although if he didn’t have one in state option I would have exercised the parental choice/wallet card.
I’ve not worried about the older ones and don’t about this one either.
I grew up in Wellesley. Wellesley College gives full tuition scholarships to a few women from the town each year. Naturally, my parents thought free college sounded like a nice idea, but I put my foot down.
I didn’t want an all women’s college.
At the time, they would not let the women with scholarships live in the dorms, even if they paid in full for them. My parents’ offer to rent me an apartment and buy me a car didn’t move me. I knew that I’d be missing an important part of the experience if I didn’t live in the dorms with everyone else.
No way on earth was I going to live somewhere that my mother could conveniently drop by on her way to grocery shopping.
All of which admittedly made my lack of interest about more than proximity. But still, a kid can have reasons.
OTOH, I wanted to stay in the northeast. I ended up very happy at Wesleyan. (And I had to laugh at the Cambridge, New Haven, Princeton or maaayybee Middletown restriction.) I had bunch of friends at college who weren’t from the northeast or mid-Atlantic and thus were pretty far from home. They were all just fine.
I live in NY now. As it happens, my son wants to stay in the northeast and I can’t say I’m sorry about that. But if he were really interested in another part of the country or interested in a school that just happened to be far away, I wouldn’t want to stand in his way. That I’d miss him like crazy (which I would) and that he’d be terrible about keeping in touch (which he would) just don’t seem to me to be good enough reasons to keep him from doing what he believes would make him happiest. Obviously, if the finances didn’t work, that would be a different issue. For those of you who would like to see me eat humble pie over my admittedly judgy opinion, cheer up, he’s already decided he’s going to grad school and then living in Southern California. Of course, he’s barely 15, so I’m not holding him to any of it.
