<p>What have you found to be a comfortable distance ( in terms of time) in driving your child to school. Assume the student wants to come home once a month. Is 3 hours each way possible. Depending on traffic that is about 150 to 180 miles each way</p>
<p>D does not want to fly and we want to settle on a geograpic range to search.</p>
<p>I drive a lot for work- I am in the car about 4 hours 3 days a week. The other 2 days I travel an hour each way to commute. This does not bother me
but would appreciate some feedback from anyone that drives their child to their school and may bring them home on occassion.</p>
<p>Depending on where you are, there may be many or zero colleges within a 150 mile radius. That does affect the answer. In our case, we drive our D to school occasionally at 190 miles, 3 hours, and it's not a big deal because we also own a business there. Our son flies 3000 miles to school and that's also not a big deal because that was the best school for him.</p>
<p>S is about 3 1/2 hours while D is about 6 1/2 hours, wouldn't consider doing either every month. Another issue is weather. Both of our drives have the potential for some tough winter weather conditions. We have been lucky with S that he has made a friend who lives in the town next door, so usually one family collects and the other returns, saves cost on gas as well.</p>
<p>We are in NJ so a 150 to 200 mile range gives you a big selection. If we travel north 150 miles could take 3-4 hours but south or west would we be able to go 180 in 3 hrs</p>
<p>Also depends upon the climate...around the Great Lakes, snow storms can blow up quickly and without much warning, which can make driving miserable. It also depends upon what kind of traffic you can expect along the way...driving to my daughter's college is more tiring than driving to the college that my son graduated from because we end her trip in a city.</p>
<p>Don't worry too much about driving distance because many kids get involved in the campus life and don't come home as often as they first planned!</p>
<p>Well, in NJ there are many bus and train options, and most of the time your D will not have stuff to carry, so I wouldn't worry about 3 hours driving time. (In fact, I'd argue for going as far north as Boston and as far south as DC.)</p>
<p>I think 3 hours each way is not too bad. I would do it in a heartbeat IF my child wanted to come home. Of course it means 12 hours in a weekend.....6 hours Friday morning, and then 6 hours Sunday night. It might get old by February.</p>
<p>I agree that about three hours is reasonable, but I'm not so sure that your child will really want to come home once a month after school gets underway and she gets involved in school life. It would seem likely that a radius of approximately 200 miles will work for you (in fact dmd's Boston/DC idea makes sense), and give you a great range of options. Keep in mind though that from NJ, driving 200 miles in different directions means different degrees of traffic congestion; if you are going west on I-78 200 miels is usually an easy trip; if you are going to Connecticut you may run into clogged traffic at the Hudson River crossings, but if you are going ot Massachusetts yuo can go across the Hudson far enough north to avoid the NYC-area crossings. In any case, it is wonderful to have a child that close to home, but I would not be too rigid about the distance and travel time because making a firm commitment to come home once a month might in fact compromise the quality of the academic and social experience at school</p>
<p>There may be another issue involved in many cases. The kids want to be close enough to have options about coming home and about getting their stuff to and from home. But they don't want the parents dropping in too frequently, so they may actually prefer a "more comfortable" distance -- 4-5 hours -- just to eliminate the drop-in factor. I also agree that once they get into things at school, that's where their friends and activities will be and they won't be making regular once-a-month visits home even if they're attending school fairly close to home.</p>
<p>My DD is 3 hours driving from home. Perfect distance! But, like everyone said, your kid will probably not want to come home very often. (And if they do, something is wrong with the fit of the school!). With ride boards, and friends, you shouldn't have to drive to get your kid even if she/he wants to come home.</p>
<p>Our S looked for a school about 2hrs-2:30hrs from home. Though he could have come home using public transportation, we ended up picking him up/driving him back every time he came home, which turned out to be every couple of months. Otherwise, he would have to walk 10 mns to the bus station carrying quite a bit of stuff, then changing bus, then going to the subway station once in Boston, then carrying his stuff from the station back home. Not too bad if the weather is nice, but when it rains or snows-- which is much of the school year here--it can be pretty miserable. His dad drove one way, he drove the other way.</p>
<p>I think you should also consider access by discount airlines. With the price of gas these days, driving 200 miles each way can easily cost $100 or more when you factor in all costs. That's not much more (and sometimes less) than the price of discount carriers like AirTran and Southwest to many locations. When you include the possibility of flights home in less than two hours, not just driving, your geographic scope widens considerably.</p>
<p>Finally, don't just consider the north-south route --- also look west from New Jersey and you have many, many options that are easily accessible in under two or three hours by discount carriers. For example, I flew from Dayton to Baltimore for $89 round trip this summer, significantly less than it would have cost to drive. Door to door, the trip took less than two hours.</p>
<p>mattmom and anxiousmom- would coming home once a month really have that great an impact or imply not so great a fit. Way back when I was in school all my friends came home about once a month. and we all had great college experiences. If you think about it a NJ kid going to school between Boston and Wash DC I do not think it is unusual. Sept we came home to stock up or just catch up. Oct either parent came to the school for parents weekend or we did the catch up/stock up again. Everyone comes home for Thanksgiving and the end of the fall semester so there goes Nov and Dec. January is break, maybe Feb you stayed or took road trips home or other schools March is spring break, April was not unusual to make a trip back and May the semester ended.
We attended schools from American, MIT, Lafayette, Rutgers, Delaware, Villanova, BU and many others. By the way we may have only came home for a few hours or if home for the weekend may have spent 5 minutes with the parents.</p>
<p>tom1944, I didn't suggest the issue of bad fit, only pointed out (based on my own parenting experience) that as the school year wore on coming home on a regular and frequent basis might not be as appealing as it seems now. (In fact, at a commuter school, one might be very happy but still come home pretty often because there might not be that muich going on over the weekends; similarly, if there were a regular high school boyfriend/girlfriend in the picture one might at least plan to get together at home on a regular basis, leaving respective colleges on the same weekend.) Keep in mind though that with high school friends scattered all over the East Coast if not farther afield, coming home to see friends on non-break weekends isn't that easy--academic pressures and social branching out are likely to overtake the early resolves to get together. The major holidays pretty much coincide from school to school, but even fall and spring breaks often don't. So my point was simply to find a school that feels right, within whatever distance is comfortable for both you and your child, but don't choose the school on the assumption that she will be home once a month. (My son went to school about 175 miles from home, had a car all but freshman year, and came home at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and some spring breaks, as well as for a grandparent's funeral. We occasionally went up to have lunch with him or see him for a special event, which was a nice benefit of having him not too far away. He did occasionally visit friends at other schools, but only rarely; his school was his base of operations.)</p>
<p>We're at 6 1/2 hours and that is plenty far. The problem is, it is always an overnight - which adds to the expense and time off from work. Some would say a 3 hour convenient (good airports, efficient routes) plane ride is better than an 8 hour drive. Depends on finances etc.</p>
<p>my S is 400 miles away, but highway all the way. Roundtrip flights run about $100 on southwest. We will only be driving there twice, once to drop him off, once to pick him up.</p>