<p>Are there any parents our students out there who have regretted choosing a college thats far (i.e. not easily driven in a day) from home, or is it just not that much of a factor nowadays? Is it usually easy to get flights to/from home over holidays (depending on area and airport, I guess)?</p>
<p>I'm having the same problem--I went to a small school 3 hours away. It was enough of a pain trying ot get rides to and from school. I'm now helping my daughter in her college search; because of her intended major, she wants to look at schools that are as much as 9 hours away!</p>
<p>She has older friends that go to schools far away--I guess it matters if there's an airport or train station nearby. If they have their own car, that's a a plus.</p>
<p>Same here - even the closest schools our son is interested in are all at least 4 or 5 hours away, which is no problem, but it's those couple that are 9 or 10 hours away that have us wondering--</p>
<p>We did not make location a factor in S's college search, although I admit to not dwelling too heavily on the advantages of the west coast places. We thought it was most likely he'd end up pretty far (plane ride) away. Now we have the opposite situation. As it turns out, he got into his ED school and will actually be less than an hour from home. We have assured him that he will have the typical college experience, and that, no we won't be dropping by on the weekends!</p>
<p>My D wants to stay in the area, the closer the better. I wish she would go away ar least 3-4 hours. I do not want her come home every time she runs in a problem in the college.</p>
<p>My oldest is on the other coast, and my younger will be 1/3 across the country. I do not regret it for an instant, and would never, NEVER, have forbidden either of my sons to go somewhere just because of distance.</p>
<p>Here are a couple of things to think about:
1) There are always some schools that are closer in mileage and farther in time. So what does "far" mean? Logistics are a side issue; they can always be managed.
2) I understand you want your s/d home for holidays, but be realistic. My S1 does not come home for Thanksgiving--it's too short a time. If he were a 5-6 hour drive away (about what it takes on a plane), I still wouldn't want him to drive home, because the way the traffic is here in the NY-DC corridor it just isn't worth the risk.
3) If you're talking about your first-borns, let me assure you that when they do come home for Christmas & summer, it won't be 2 minutes after they arrive that they're on the phone to their friends to make plans to go out.
4) But what about an emergency? Well, if you're talking about a true emergency, like an emergency appendectomy, chances are you won't get there in time anyway, even if they're only an hour away. If you're talking about a teenager-meets-life type of emergency, like someone stole my purse, IMO they're going to have to learn to deal with it eventually. I have been through both with S1.
5) Think about regrets. If your son has his heart set on X, 10 hours away, and you say no for only this reason, will he resent it? How might that affect your relationship? How might it affect how well he may do in his college career when he knows he could have gone to X, but for your dictum? It's one thing to say no because of money, but this is different. What if your spouse had a tremendous job offer that was what he had been hoping for, but you had to move across the state or country. Would you say no, I don't want to move, period, so you can't go? How do you think that would affect your marriage? At this point in their lives, our kids have BIG dreams, BIG plans; you don't want to take those away from them.</p>
<p>Finally, I suspect a lot of your feelings come from wanting to keep your family as it is, intact and close. Believe me, the first semester S1 was away, I thought I was going to die. And I know next fall when both are gone and the house is empty, I'm going to hate it.</p>
<p>DD#2 is currently the farthest away, 2800 miles. We did look at location but with regards to proximity to airports and train stations. We are about 30-40 minutes from our local airport, so if she went far we did want one in relative close proximity to her school, for at least a shuttle, cab or friends. As it turns out she is within 5-10 minutes of her local airport so she gets a ride with friends or teammates. Since she is a D1 athlete we tried to keep that in mind as well. She would be travelling a lot so the closeness to an airport was for her benefit in other ways besides travelling home. And it has helped tremendously. She has been able to come home a little more often since flights are easier to get and cheaper than we originally planned.</p>
<p>Hope senior son also takes it into consideration when he makes his decision come May. </p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Another interesting point about location is how many parents who live in the northeast tend to see distances between east coast cities as less than they really are, and distances from east to west (particularly in reference to midwestern schools) as much greater than what they really are! Loren Pope is fond of pointing this out in his books.</p>
<p>Wyogal:</p>
<p>Very well said. Our children went 1300 and 2000 miles away. We've never regretted it. Oh, we've had a couple of lonely Thanksgivings, but we were happy to encourage our children to stretch themselves. We wanted our kids to know they could get along fine without us close by. </p>
<p>One benefit has been no expense for and no worry about cars. No auto accidents either on a winter drive home or at school on a weekend--no reason for cars. </p>
<p>We don't see our kids a lot--sometimes Christmas and summer visits, and usually another between--but we have great times. And great phone conversations every week. There's not enough familiarity to get on each others' nerves!</p>
<p>DD was accepted to 8 colleges - all, except one, were halfway across the country. For financial and fit reasons, she ended up at the one 160 miles away - 3 hours drive. Although distance didn't end up being the deciding factor, she has mentioned many times that she really enjoys being close enough to come home for a visit if she wants. (Not that she comes home more than once a semester - if that!). We usually drive up to help her move in and move out - something that I really enjoy doing - and we could not do that if she was halfway across the country. We can also drive up for parent's weekend fairly cheaply, or for a performance or event.</p>
<p>We live near Boston and our older son was accepted at schools in California, Texas, Chicago, North Carolina, NYC, New Hampshire and a few others. We didn't focus on distance, but the 3 top schools were all on the east coast -- NC, NYC and NH. Since they were all such wonderful schools, and the cost of attendance was not significantly different for any one of them, DH and I did encourage him to consider the NH school, Dartmouth. For a variety of other reasons, we felt this was the best fit for him, but it was a very difficult choice. Since he is a 2 hour drive away, I thought it would be easier for him to come home if he wanted to or for us to visit. Well, it turns out that he is so happy there that he doesn't really WANT to come home, except when they kick him out of the dorms over breaks. We do visit once or twice per quarter, but he usually just has time for us to take him and a friend or two out to eat. His life is there, now, and we are happy that he is so happy. I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter that much whether he is near or far -- his life is centered on college, not home. We miss him, but I think that's the way it should be. It is easier to get him to and from school, but since we're only talking a couple of times a year, it's not that big of a deal.</p>
<p>I'm the other side of the coin. S1 wanted to stay in CA, but not initially interested in the local UC (10 min away). Ultimately, it became his first choice, he was accepted, and he chose it; in spite of the fact it was close by his family. He had the usual dorm experience last year, and within days of moving out, his bedrooms at both of his 'houses of origin' were used for something else. He would have preferred to have gone to a school that was not so close, but he wisely realizes that he can experience living far away at another time in his life.
Its been great for me, as we can get together for the occassional sushi dinner without much planning.</p>
<p>My parents really felt that I should go away to college- it was sort of a joke, but I did wind up 600 miles away. My musician daughter spent her last two years of high school quite far from home at an arts boarding school. She swore she would never come back to Texas for college. She had many excellent choices, but the best fit was Rice. She is now only 4 hours away (by car). We hardly ever see her. We go to her performances and she comes home for the longer breaks. Wild Child, my son, goes to boarding school 1500 miles away from home. He has "taken" to the east coast and has chosen a college there. My family is all out there, so we get out there as much as possible. I don't think we'll see him in Texas too much during his college years.</p>
<p>D is 2,800 miles away...a two-stop flight with a 45 minute shuttle between college and airport. Don't regret it at all. Makes for a long day flying back. But.</p>
<p>My "rule" was no school within 350 miles. A UC only 45 miles away was a threat to become a Safety but it was dropped by D.</p>
<p>I should mention - I went to a small LAC close to the town I was from. Before agreeing to go there I got my family to promise that they would never drop by unannounced and I told them I would not be coming home any more frequently than anybody else did. The truth is that even though the areas were close geographically, they were as different from one another as they could have been (city vs. pastoral environment). When I realized that I really did have my own life and that other kids were calling and visiting home more than I was, I relaxed a little! By my sophomore year it was kind of nice to be able to bring friends home on holidays when it was too far away for them to travel. I did go out of town for graduate school, though.</p>
<p>Back in the day I went 5,000 miles from home to college, with the understanding that I would have to find somewhere to go for Thanksgiving, Spring Break, etc. I did go home for Christmas. It meant I had to be independent, and made closer friends with my roomates (because I ended up going to one roommate or another's home for Thanksgiving, etc.). </p>
<p>So I don't think there is any problem with going any particular distance within the U.S. Our D is off at college 2,800 miles away from home. It is only 5-6 hours by plane. One advantage of being more than 300 miles away is lower auto insurance!</p>
<p>When our D first went off to college we wished we were hearing from her more often. But we took solace in the advice of other parents that no news is usually good news -- they usually heard from their college kids when there were problems. We are now used to more sporadic communications. I guess that's all part of separation. If our D had gone to a school closer to home I don't think we would have heard from her any more often.</p>
<p>Thanks, everybody. I started this thread because our son is a jr. in HS and we are planning visits. He has already seen one school that he loved, about 6 hours away (near Boston, so lots of public transportation). He will try to do an overnight there his Sr. year. In fact there are plenty of possibilities within that distance. However, there are a couple schools much further away (down south) that look like good matches for him, at least on paper. What I gather from the above comments is that we should should make the effort and visit. Since one is William and Mary may even consider bringing his (younger) siblings, since we've never seen Colonial Williamsburg. As for S., he is definitely ready to go "away" -- and is esp. looking forward to a semester abroad, no matter where he ends up -- something I wish I could have done!</p>
<p>If Southwest flies there, it is a bonus! :)</p>
<p>wow
people write ridiculously long essays to reply to a post........ personally, its less tiresome to read posts that could be published as a novel. um, it can be a problem for people clost to their parents, and vice versa. it all depends. im done. must be solace for your eyes.</p>
<p>My daughter is in college 16 hours away. What I don't like is that when we want to visit her it has to be planned well in advance, and both of us have to take vacation time off work and then it's just once a year. We have never been able to move her in or out at the beginning or end of the year. If she was within a few hours we could go over, take her out to dinner, watch a game or something and go home. Instead we make plane, car and hotel reservations and stay for 2 or 3 nights. Her youngest brother has never seen her college and probably won't until her graduation in 2007. </p>
<p>The pluses are that the college is perfect for her, she's blossomed, made wonderful friends and no matter it's location, it's the right place for her.</p>