<p>I just made plane reservations for H and I to graduation. $987. That's a good price. Number of times we have been able to visit campus during her 4 years - 4. Once you fly to the gateway city you rent a car, drive 4 hours and then pay for hotel and meals.
Our kid's second choice, which was a close enough contender that there was a dramatic meltdown "Please tell me what to do" scene 4 years ago, deciding between her school and another that would have been just as good, is within a long day's drive and in a major city.
She has thrived at her college, and I don't regret that she chose this school, but I do regret that we didn't figure the transportation issues more carefully. It's way the heck out in the middle of nowhere....So many of my friends are able to visit their kids for football weekends, parent's weekends, help moving into and out of housing. We are just too far. SHe handles it fine, I just miss the chance to be there for her.
Can we start over?</p>
<p>Thank you for this insight. I have made it one of my “rules” that undergraduate education must be within driving distance - and my upper limit is a long day trip. I know many families have kids at colleges that require flying - but I do not want to go down that road. Thanks for making me feel like I am being reasonable.</p>
<p>We NEVER visited our daughter who was across the country in college. We went for move in weekend freshman year, and graduation. It was fine. Yes, we missed seeing her more often, but the reality is we saw her more total days (when she was home in summers) than we saw her brother who was only a 2 hour drive away and NEVER spent a summer at home.</p>
<p>Not only are these kids in far-away schools flying – they’re flying at the most expensive times of the year! Thanksgiving, Xmas, spring break, summer vacations: just TRY to get a decent fare then…</p>
<p>I happen to like visiting my son at college. Not too often - but we are there at least 2-3 times per year. Being on a college campus is fun - and I like to see what I am paying for!</p>
<p>Yes, you can start over…offer to pay for grad school as long as it’s close to home!:)</p>
<p>There’s a downside for parents with kids in the same state, but not nearby. I never could make them understand that coming to get them for a weekend because they’re “only” 2-4 hours away means 4-8 hours of driving after work on Friday and then a whole day of running around on Sunday too…cuz we always forget something and have to go back (“please, Mom, we’re so close”) and of course then it’s lunch time and then I have to schlepp stuff up 3 flights of stairs, visit with the roomies, see something on campus, etc before I turn around and trek back home. Somehow, in their view, we don’t live close enough to just take a bus or the train!</p>
<p>our rule was the farther the school, the less COA it had to be…worked out fine…we wanted to make sure that if a flight HAD to be, it was doable and that the flights were reasonable and multiple…it eliminated a couple of schools my daughter wanted to apply to but it all worked out…</p>
<p>RVM: One day rule I guess depends on how much sleep one needs haha ( i guess 8 hours is one day, right?)</p>
<p>I and my mom both wish she could’ve dropped me off at school. I like my mom, and most of my friends do too - I feel like I would’ve made friends much more easily the first day or so if she’d been around! My personality would’ve been a bit ‘softer’ maybe. But I went to all school visits, and to college completely alone. She’s never visited because it’s too much money. </p>
<p>My dad just hasn’t bothered, and I doubt he would in general. I initiate most of our contact to begin with. But my mom and I are quite close. We watched the episodes where Rory gets dropped off at Yale in the Gilmore Girls quite a bit during the admissions process, and my mom was always disappointed she couldn’t pull a Lorelai and invite all the girls on my floor to a take out food party in my dorm where we could try the local take out/delivery food. </p>
<p>It sounds silly, but I think I regret that quite a bit. (She was specific about regretting the non-gilmore girls goodbye as well.) I think I would re-do that part, if I could. I tried to be friendly to my roommate’s parents when they visited last term, and even had fresh baked cookies ready, but for the most part they completely ignored me and I was a bit hurt. Parents weekend was also pretty lonely, and I know if my mom had been around, she would’ve made a point to include all my friends whose family didn’t or couldn’t make it. </p>
<p>I missed that! We have a good relationship, so I felt bad that she missed out, and admitted she wished she could’ve done those things.</p>
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<p>Exactly what we have missed. I try to focus it on the fact that her college isn’t about us…but we have missed it.</p>
<p>With air fares going up and up, it’s really something to think about. Thanks for posting. </p>
<p>Our son has a chance to have scholarships at southern and mid western schools, but I"m thinking getting to see him more often is better than some free money. We’ll never get back this precious time.</p>
<p>My parents stepped foot on my campus twice - when they dropped me off and for graduation. I don’t remember if we even had parents’ weekend, they wouldn’t have made the 8 hour drive anyway. And I liked it that way, I don’t think I would have wanted them showing up 3 times a year. I rode the bus to and fro, or got rides.</p>
<p>It is convenient that S is only 90 minutes away, so it is not that bad to get him. If he wants to come home on a Friday though, he takes the bus, I’m not fighting that traffic. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, he takes the bus too.</p>
<p>We went to the first parent’s weekend, but it was only 3 weeks after school started, and didn’t find it very exciting. So we skipped this year, and S was fine with that.</p>
<p>Since D is an athlete who’s in season all 3 seasons, we figured there wouldn’t be that much of a difference in how often we saw her between a close school or a far away school, since there’d be practice and competition commitments on weekends which would prevent her from coming home anyway. The faraway school suited D the best, and had the best weather for training too. As for us going to see her, I don’t think she really wanted that. She wanted to spread her wings, go someplace different from home, and be independent.</p>
<p>Also, we saw how things went with our older S, who attended a school within a 6 hr. driving distance. He was too busy to come home that much. For ex., he had a part-time job on weekends, and was involved with his frat. We figured our more social D would be even less likely to need to come home. It was a risk, I suppose, because I have friends whose daughters who are homesick or lonely and want to come home every weekend.</p>
<p>DH gets frequent flyer miles from work, so thus far the transportation hasn’t cost us much. (We lose out on the potential to travel ourselves, though.)</p>
<p>Rockvillemom, I agree with you: college campuses are very fun places to visit…especially when your kid is there. I don’t intend to make a pest of myself, but I do want to enjoy the occasional visits, Parents’ Days, and just being able to see her when she and I want. </p>
<p>Fortunately, my D set a 4-hour drive limit because that’s about as long a drive as she wants when she wants to come home, and she expects to come home more than just 2-3 times a year.</p>
<p>I live 20 minutes away and my mom comes over for lunch or for a movie night or something whenever I invite her. Usually once or twice a semester. It’s nice. I never, ever see her unless I invite her so most of the time it is as though I go to school far away, but I do have the option to invite her if I feel like it. We just started getting really close once I turned 20 or so, right when I moved on campus, so it would be a shame if it was too hard to visit once in a while. My dad is never here except for move in and move out and it’s sad!</p>
<p>When D was deciding where to go I had a spreadsheet with distance from home and all available travel options (plane, train, car, etc) and originally she was leaning for further distances but in the end her heart was closer to home and she’s very happy 2 hours away at the state flagship. But I agree - 2 hours isn’t as close when you’re the one doing the round trip and they are doing the one way - but we’ve seen her a few times this year and she’s easilly able to get home as she’s doing for tomorrow night to see her younger brother’s opening night performance. </p>
<p>Now D’13 wants to go far away but finances dictate that she’ll likely have to stay in state - however she has now seen that we won’t be there every weekend if she’s closer to home since we got tired of the drive to see oldest after the 3rd trip 
And it’s an easy scenic route!</p>
<p>Both our kids went to college 3,000 miles away, and that was a challenge for all of us. They came back home twice each year, and we went out there once each year. Still, I would never ask my kids to take proximity to home into account when selecting a college. For some kids that is important, but I think that there’s a lot to be said for knowing that you can’t just run home to Mom and Dad when the going gets tough.</p>
<p>We did take proximity into consideration. S was looking at schools all over and I told him he ought to be able to find a suitable one on this side of the Mississippi! (East side.) Because flights to Cali. would have been expensive for him and for us. </p>
<p>He did make it out to the West Coast…for Microsoft internship and Google interviews & training. :)</p>
<p>Child #4 is in town, which is SO nice! I think I’m getting old.</p>
<p>We told both S’s that we could pay for any instate public they wished to attend. They were free to go out of state if they obtained scholarships that covered the difference in costs. Both had out of state options but chose to stay in state. It’s been nice to have them in “reachable” distance. It’s not as if they were right on top of us either. S1’s school was three hours away. S2’s school is a little over four hours from home in a part of the state he was unfamiliar with until enrolling in the university.</p>
<p>We are grappling with the same issue - D has unexpectedly received a substantial scholarship acorss the country however it is a days travel in each direction. After a middle of the night emergency appendectomy with our youngest D, we are starting to think it is better to pay more and have her within 4-5 hours of home. She woke up with just a stomach ache, within the hour she started vomiting. we could of passed it off as the flu but call it mother’s intuition…I just knew something was up. I took her in to the ER and she was in surgery shortly after.</p>
<p>So, with oldest D makingher college decisionnow, we are thinking closer to home makes more sense. The good news is that she has plenty of options. At least she can come home if there is a problem or we can get to her if necessary.</p>
<p>Three years ago, D’s choices came down to a “it-takes-four-hours-to-drive-there” school and a “we’d-have-to-fly-to-get-there” school. The decision was completely hers, and she chose the former. I am so glad she did. For some reason, she and I are much closer now, emotionally, than we were in high school, and it’s nice to be within a driveable distance. The distance is far enough that we can’t just “drop in” on her (for which she is glad) and that she can’t just “run home” when things get tough (espeically since she has no car.) I am glad she’d close(r) to home.</p>