IMO whatever matters to the student should matter in the college search. Location is one of many attributes that can play a part in shaping a person’s college experience.
It really depends on the student’s personal preference. My daughter’s initial favorite school, before we actually visited any, was in a rural area. She had heard all about how it doesn’t matter, that this makes for a more cohesive community on campus, that rural schools make an effort to bring events and activities to campus, etc. We had also heard that students who choose schools in or near cities wind up staying on campus most of the time, too, so it didn’t matter.
Although a lot of this is probably true, when we finally visited schools she realized that the rural locations just weren’t for her. She ultimately chose a school in a city but WITH a very defined campus. She loves that she can step across the street to go study in a tea shop or coffee house. She loves that it’s so easy to walk to a store for whatever she needs. She loves the public transportation. She loves that she can see movies and concerts (when she can afford it!). And her trip to and from home, although it requires air travel, is easy as pie. She feels like she has the best of both worlds. A “real college experience” but also a real city experience!
I think that whatever matters to the kid matters.
At the start of her search, my daughter wanted suite style dorms-- she was adamant.
Now, almost 2 years later, she’s going to a school with traditional dorms. She looked at the big picture, and eventually re-evaluated. But at the time, it was a big part of what she wanted, of how she wanted to live. So we started with schools with suites.
THere are 3000+ colleges in the US. You have to have some variables for filtering out schools. My youngest DD did not like cities and eliminated the ones in a city. Being in or near one is a reasonable filter criteria, even if it wouldn’t be yours.
You can impose net cost and travel distance of course, but otherwise let them have say in what they are looking for.
Even if you rarely leave the campus, the access that you have at an urban campus can certainly be beneficial. I majored in Architecture my first two years at CMU and was either walking distance or a short bus ride away from homes designed by Venturi, Gropius, and Meyer along with numerous examples of Richardsonian Romanesque, Gothic Revival, Beaux Arts, etc. buildings.
My daughter wanted to be able to work in science labs as part of her undergraduate experience. For her, a smaller rural school would have limited those options. She looked at larger schools in areas with private/academic/gov’t science labs. So yes, fit was very important to her.
In 11th, D1 was certain about location: she wanted to go as far from home as possible. A little looking and she happily applied within 5 or 6 hours driving. Her first choice, where she happily went, was half that.
I felt she’d thrive in NYC or Boston. She said no. In her case, she’s plenty “culture willing” on her own time.
My young friend who attended NYU had solid friendships via the dorm, classes, her student job, but was also thrilled by NYC.
One factor I didn’t give enough attention to was accessibility to off campus options. My daughter is at a school with about 4000 students on a suburban campus. There are no shops or restaurants within easy walking distance. Cafeteria and even on campus convenience store hours are limited so if you miss meal times you are just stuck.
Location meant a whole lot for my undergrad. In fact, I fell in love at first sight so much that I only applied to that school. By the time I graduated, I was bored with that campus. For grad school, I only applied to one because of the location plus its academic reputation. NOT a recipe for others to follow – just to express how important a location could be for young folks. WHY a particular location is all based on that particular individual. I can’t imagine finding myself in a location that I have no interest in. For my son’s choice of school, we were very fortunate that we both categorically agreed as the top choice, so no issues. If by chance we had a disagreement, even after going through all the pros and cons from every aspect, I’d still defer to his decision given my own personal experiences of how important the location factor was for me. After all, it’s HIS college, not mine.
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Location definitely maaters. But there’s a lot of shades of gray on the urban thing. A big part depends on how the college campus is/is not integrated with the city/town. How separate is the campus? How many years do the kids typically live on or off the campus? And where precisely is the campus located in the metro area.
BU, Harvard and BC are pretty different in look and feel. Same goes for Penn and Villanova, GaTech and Emory, Northwestern and UChi, or Fordham Rose Hill and Fordham Lincoln Center.
Ann Arbor and South Bend are about the same size, but UMich feels much more urban than Notre Dame. UVA is in a small country town, but feels more urban since the campus bleeds into the town and kids typically spend three years in off-campus apartments. Vandy feels a bit less urban since the campus is more defined and the kids typically live 4 years in university housing.
Location matters, but families would benefit from a little more open-mindedness when it comes to location.
I hear a lot of outdated perceptions. The student wants a city school, and the parent interjects that St. Louis is unsafe, Cleveland ugly, Rochester sad, New Orleans dirty, Nashville unsophisticated, etc. Have you BEEN to the places we’re talking about in the last 20 years? Or ever? Yeah, these are medium-sized cities, and none will be confused with Paris or Tokyo, but they have everything you could need as a college student. You would be impressed by these neighborhoods if you just gave them a chance.
My son and my best friend’s son attend the same relatively rural college. My son left campus maybe half a dozen times last year, while my friend’s son was off campus almost every weekend. Even at home on LI, my son very rarely goes into Manhattan and my friend’s son goes all the time.
I think some students have a good reason for wanting an urban campus. My first kid has two degrees in music performance. He wanted to be in a metro area so he could hear first class orchestral music, and have many opportunities to play music as well. He was in Boston for undergrad, and Winston Salem for grad. Winston Salem was way smaller for sure, but gave him what he wanted in a school…and very easy access to lots of great music.
Boston was perfect for undergrad…he got to listen to the BSO every time they played in Boston because he worked as an usher for the BSO…perfect job for a music major.
My second kid, OTOH, just wanted to live someplace different than our rural, in the woods home town. That was fine too. She was at Santa Clara.
Both of my daughters attended LACs in suburban Philadelphia. This turned out to be almost ideal for them. They both lived on campus all four years, and their academic and social lives were very much centered on their quiet, leafy campuses. But both schools were a 20 minute train ride from center city Philadelphia which gave them easy access to a wide variety of restaurants, bookstores, coffee shops, bars, museums, concerts, sporting events, and more. They probably went into Philadelphia only a couple of times per month on average, but that occasional jolt of urban life enlivened and enriched their college experience, and even deepened their relationships with the college friends who joined them in exploring the city. D2, an art history major, was also able to do a term-time internship at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which got her into Philly for a full day every week for the duration of the internship.
The other advantage of being that close to a major city was that it put them in close proximity to a major airport with non-stop flights to our home in St. Paul, which is just 5 minutes away from MSP, a major hub (but fortunately, we’re not in the flight path, so we get no aircraft noise). At Thanksgiving they could make all their Wednesday classes and still have time to get to the airport and fly home in time for dinner with help from a 1-hour time change. We were even able to fly them home on non-holiday weekends a couple of times for special events here. If they were at, say, Middlebury or Williams, getting home would have required a longer trip to the airport followed by connecting flights—more or less an all-day ordeal.
It matters. It is common for introverts to say it is claustrophobic to be at a small rural school where you always run into people you know.
I certainly felt that way and picked urban so I could live off campus and have a non-College life.
Other people have different experiences.
I think it matters quite a bit. My S17 wanted city…even smaller cities felt boring to him. My S19 started saying he doesn’t want a city…but more and more realizes he likes to have a lot of things to do both on and off campus. So city and large college towns (e.g., Burlington VT) are acceptable. The location, in my opinion, definitely influences student life.
@brooklynlydia that was an interesting comment about introverts but in my DS16’s case he wanted the smaller, leafy suburban campus with lots of people he knows. It is meeting new people all the time that stresses his introvert self so the big, urban, research university with 10x more students was out.
One thing to keep in mind about rural schools is that they can be hard to get to and it can take a long time. Even if there is an airport fairly close by, it might be smaller and not have as many flights and might cost more to fly in and out of. I know a family whose kid went to Middlebury and it was about two flights from California plus a bit of a drive to get to campus…it usually took a whole day for her to fly home or back to school…and it cost a lot too. That’s one advantage of going to college in a big city, there will be a bigger, closer airport with many more flights to choose from and probably at better prices too. A niece of mine went to college in DC, had no problems finding direct flights from Los Angeles to DC and plenty of flights at different times and prices to choose from too…and she didn’t have to worry about layovers!
That said, this is not the only thing to consider when looking at schools…but it is something to keep in mind.
I think location, and ability to get in and out of the rural area, should be considered.
I’ve visited a lot of the rural colleges in the south. They are remote. If you don’t like the pizza at the one restaurant in town, it’s going to be a long semester. Just decide if you like that small and cozy feel or if you want to be able to take a bus or subway and get away from campus life, if only for a two hour movie.