<p>There's a pretty good chance I can get into umd college park I think (I'm in state)
it seems like the perfect school for me.. I think the right type of people, right location (near 2 big cities), right size, right ranking on usnews lol, right everything... EXCEPT I can't really get over the fact that its only 2 hrs from home.. I really want to be further away. and also I have the weird problem with a state school... you know like a lot of people from your hometown go there and the like... does it seem dumb to be turned away because of these reasons?</p>
<p>I understand the part about having lots of people from your hometown going to this school... I personally don't like that much. Most of the schools I'm applying to are OOS and rather far away...</p>
<p>2 hrs from home isn't too close, so I wouldn't worry about that. It's not like you have to go home every weekend or anything, because you'll have other stuff to do and places to go and people to see (oh yeah, and there's studying of course...).</p>
<p>it sounds like a dumb reason to me... like kathryn said 2 hrs is NOT too close, i could understand if you said half an hour but long as it's far enough that you have to live on campus it's far enough... also UMD is a HUGE school you will meet a LOT of new people in addition to the few people from your town who may have also decided to attend UMD</p>
<p>if you get into UMD go for it</p>
<p>You should go to U Maryland. It will feel like you are a thousand miles away but it will be convenient for you to visit home when you want to. You will hardly ever see your friends from your hometown. Great school. Nice campus. Don't fear the turtle. (terrapins...)</p>
<p>I agree. My S attends our large state u 2.5 hours from home. I can count his visits home last year on one hand (basically major holidays plus Spring Break). Do you feel like your parents will pressure you to come home often if you are close to home? </p>
<p>There are lots of kids from his h.s. at his college too but there are 30,000 students total. So it's really a small percentage if you think about it. You don't have to see your hometown aquaintances if you don't want to. Also, you may be surprised at how nice it is to see a familiar face or two during your first semester. My S thought it was great to see a familar face in that huge sea of strangers.</p>
<p>I totally understand where you're coming from, when I was down to two choices, they were both the perfect school for me, except one was only one hour away and I wanted to venture off into a new world, so I totally see why you wouldn't want to be only two hours away.</p>
<p>I agree with the OP and tonyt88...
I can easily get into UT-Austin and have a good shot at Rice but the fact that they are close to home and that I will possibly see the same faces as in high school is a huge deal!!!</p>
<p>It depends on the type of parents you have. My mom (bless her soul lol) is the type that will come to Austin (or especially Houston!) every other weekend to visit or expect me to come home. Being far north or on the west coast will be a deterrent, and I want to get out of Texas!!</p>
<p>But I understand your dilemma. State schools can often be the best deal and have a great education, but you should go where you'll be happy. You only get to do this once...unless you go to grad school.</p>
<p>my flagship state university is a healthy fifteen minutes from my driveway and as such is about as 'full' of people from my high school as possible. despite this, in the ~120 days ive spent on campus ive run into a grand total of SIX people with whom i graduated, none of them twice. yeah, one every TWENTY days.</p>
<p>if you want to experience a different part of the country, fine. but two hours is a fantastic distance to be from home. and its only going to be 'like high school all over again' if you resist making new friends in college.</p>
<p>The flagship in my state is five minutes away from my house, depending on traffic. Two hours is pretty far away.</p>
<p>i knew what this thread was going to be about when I read the title. I am going to UMD but I think this applies to all state universities. I have talked about this a few times before on this site. Many people don't want to go to their state school because it is grade 13, being that everyone from your high school is there. I used to think it was a dumb reason but so many people use this reason that maybe i just see things differently. </p>
<p>Well I go, actually went, ACTUALLY its my alma mater, Thomas S. wootton HS, probably the best HS in maryland, and it sent 110 students out of 560 to UMD this year. That is just about 20% of my high school. No other school in Maryland sent more students this year. At orientation I sat in a room for my business program(about 30 students and the entire program has about 70-80) and we all had to introduce ourselves. When I went I was like I am so and so from wootton and I see others in this room from wootton. Out of the 30 in the room 5 were from wootton. The teacher at the end of everyone introducing themselves actually started talking about my high school. He knew of it and was saying it is actually harder for kids from my hs to get into programs because they don't want entire programs filled up by wootton kids. The life science program has atleast 8 people in it from wootton and it too is about 80 students. </p>
<p>I say all this because I guess it is kind of wierd for a prof at your college to be talking about your HS. My cousin, who is a woottonite and a student at UMD, says that it is impossible to walk into a common food area at UMD and not see a person you recognize from wootton. I don't think it is a big problem at all. I loved orientation. There were people there that i knew and could talk to. I like the idea of many of my friends going to my college. I'll still see them all and can hang out. </p>
<p>I really don't see a reason that many people have a problem like this. I think that if someone liked their HS then this isn't a reason not to go. If someone didnn't like their HS, it isn't going to make much of a difference when the no more than 110 of you are going to be spread out between 5,000. No other HS in maryland sent over 90 students but wootton as far as I can tell with Churchill HS and Walter Johnson being second and third. AGain that is as far as I can tell. </p>
<p>I just don't think it will be HS all over again and I don't see a reason why it would hurt to start off with 50,60,70, 110 people that you already know. Its not like you'll even care about most of them by the time you are a sophomore. </p>
<p>Now if distance is a thing that is something that you don't like I don't think it is a problem because it is still 2 hours away. That is actually not that close. Wootton is about 25 minutes form UMD(if you drive like people do on the beltway) and you could hardly notice once you are there. I think distance is a reason when it is in your neighborhood. I mean if you are at the olive garden and you see your parents there then there is a reason not to go because of distance. Anything over 20 minutes and a trip on the highway puts it too far away to notice and it is an advantage to be close. </p>
<p>Reasons to not go to a state U that I think are reasonable. Your State u sucks, you feel a private education is what you need, you don't like your state's environment and want to go somewhere where you like the weather better, and if your state u has a bad program for your major and you could get in somewhere much better.</p>
<p>If you like the school, it fits, its programs fit you, the price is right, and the ease of the transition is taken off a bit, i don't think distance or 100 people should ruin that.</p>
<p>1 out of every 50 kids at Maryland are going to be from your school. I don't see what the problem is, it's going to be a difference.</p>
<p>As for "going away for college", you're not driving home on the weekends with the price of gas, it wouldn't matter if you were 2 hours or 20 hours away.</p>
<p>Anyways, if you don't want to be there, then don't go there. That would be my advice.</p>
<p>It sounds like you really like Maryland, so I don't know if those things should deter you. Most public state schools have this "problem" but in reality if you think about it, it's a very small percentage of the class that you will actually know and just about everybody is there to make new friends and get to know new people, not just repeat high school. As for the distance, it really doesn't matter if you're 30 minutes or 3,000 miles, being far away from home is psychological and you can be equally homesick (or comfortale) at either distance. Anyway, if you don't like the closeness/HS-ness, what about an out-of-state public like Michigan, UVa, UNC?</p>