<p>My daughter’s best friend transferred to be with her boyfriend. Her 2nd semester at the new school, she made a comment to one of the boyfriends friends about the boyfriends classes and he replied “what classes, he’s not enrolled in school”. Turned out he had dropped out the semester she transferred and had not told. They ended up breaking up because of all his lies and other issues (drugs). She bitterly regretted transferring as it took her an additional year to graduate because the school would not take some of the classes from her prior school (even though she had transferred from the State flagship to a smaller regional school).</p>
<p>Scratching my head over some of these responses. Parenting DOESNT end because your child starts college! No friggin way my D transfers for a BF!</p>
<p>I am always amazed at the great advice here. I do think it important to stay completely neutral regarding these early relationships. D is also a freshman dating someone who is a 14 hour car ride away. The first semester of college is so hard for students. Those dealing with distance from a BF or GF get a double whammy of emotional turmoil. I have been doing my best to remain emotionally neutral and just reflecting back to D what I think she is feeling. It is reasonable to acknowledge her feelings however it seems fairly foolhardy for you to participate in transfer discussions. Especially given that the BF has yet to go through this very transformational time.</p>
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What power do you have over them at this age? Money? I hope that we’ve raised D not to make that her top priority, although obviously it is for most people. She can get married without our consent, have a baby, use birth control, have an abortion, join the military, etc. She’s an adult and we have to treat her like one and not like she’s 10. </p>
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It’s complicated, clearly. I don’t think anyone really has a handle on it yet.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between treating a college aged kid like an adult and enabling behaviors which once more maturity sets in, a college student might come to realize are not a solid long term plan. So it’s appropriate to say, “Gee that must be frustrating” when a kid expresses annoyance that the BF couldn’t show up for a weekend party. It’s appropriate to say, “You must be looking forward to T-giving” if that’s the first time they will be seeing each other after a few months apart.</p>
<p>That’s substantially different from taking on the “I’m going to help you transfer to be with your BF who hasn’t even applied to, let alone been accepted to college” flag and carrying it as your own burden. You don’t need power over your college aged children in order to help them sort things out on their own. Nor do you need to hover like she’s 9 and remind her to get the paperwork in on time, check her deadlines, visit the registrar to see which credits will transfer, arrange a meeting with the Dean of transfer admissions at any college she’s interested in. If she’s an adult, treat her like one. Her transfer, her project.</p>
<p>The fact that all these steps require an enormous amount of motivation and energy- which at the end of the day, your D may not be able to muster in order to be close to a BF… well, that’s not your call to make.</p>
<p>I do think you get to remind your D of your financial limitations/expectations. If transferring requires an extra semester, it’s legitimate to ask her what her plans are to cover the extra tuition. If transferring will eat up her entertainment budget for the year due to visits and application fees, I think you get to remind her of what your deal was when she started. If visits back and forth start to get expensive, you can suggest getting more hours at work to produce the needed cash.</p>
<p>If there is no downside to leaving her school, your D will have no motivation to even figure out if she’s attending the right school.</p>
<p>To respond to Sylvan’s question for me at #24, I meant that it’s probably a mistake to give up a school you carefully selected, and move down the academic totem pole, for the sole purpose of reuniting with a HS boyfriend – as most such relationships will fizzle within a semester or two, anyway. I’m assuming those facts from what the OP said, and from what I’ve seen of teenage romance. But some people do benefit from transferring, as I acknowledged. If the OP’s D really just wants to be closer to home and family – BF or not – the transfer might work out nicely. In September of freshman year, I think it’s too soon to tell.</p>
<p>I remember the first week of grad school – age 23 – calling a home-based, relatively new boyfriend, 5 hours away, and saying “these people are nuts. I don’t know how I’m going to stand it here.” In a month, I had formed some nice friendships there (we’re still friends 30 years later) and BF was history. OP’s daughter is even younger, and away from home for the first time, so it’s too soon to tell what the real problem is, IMHO.</p>
<p>To give the reverse perspective… My DH and I met in college. We were in a service organization and both our schools were in the same district. Our colleges were 400 miles apart. It never crossed our minds to transfer schools to be with the other one. We long distance dated, and saw each other occasionally when we could make the trip to one or the other city. We got engaged and had a long distance engagement after he graduated (I was in my final semester of college). We got married and had a long distance marriage for 4 months until I finished school and was able to move to where he was working.</p>
<p>In other words, if it’s meant to be, then it will work out–you don’t have to be at the same college. They should each pursue their own goals and date from their different colleges. Heck, not only didn’t we have texting, emails or facetime, we only talked on the phone about once a week because it was so expensive!</p>
<p>I do know some couples who met in college, and stayed together through temporary distancing due to one of them going to a graduate or professional school (in one case, also a residency for a health profession) in a place away from where the other one had the most desirable job prospects after graduating from college. That is basically an analogous situation as the topic of this thread, but the people were about four years older.</p>
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<p>There is a difference between power and influence. Parental legal power may stop at age 18, but, in my view, parental influence should not.</p>
<p>Agree with Adad!</p>
<p>If the relationship is/was that serious, did the two of them not discuss this separation when your D was applying to college? How does BF feel about all of this? Her transfer will substantially affect the nature of his freshman year as well. Personally, i like the idea of BF making a personal investment in all of this by applying to colleges close to your D’s. That would be my first suggestion to D, but otherwise i am leaning towards ADAD’s and BigDaddy’s point of view. </p>
<p>Finally, since you are being asked to support the move, what is your view from an adult perspective of the relationship? Do you perceive it to be more than just the typical high school relationship?</p>
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<p>Actually, the parent has absolute veto power over the student’s college plans until the student is 24, married, a parent, or a military veteran, unless the student comes up with a full ride merit scholarship. This absolute veto power comes from whether the parent is willing to contribute money for college and/or financial aid information.</p>
<p>Another example of a relationship enduring after temporary distancing: couple met in high school, one of them enters the Navy and is deployed on a Navy vessel (and is obviously inaccessible to the other most of the time).</p>
<p>Depends. If they are really in love and have been together for a long time and are headed for marriage and you really think their relationship would work, then, sure, let her do the leg work to transfer.</p>
<p>BUT, I am guessing they don’t have what it takes to work. BECAUSE, she got to college first and he is not making an effort to go where she already is. That says a lot. A marriage based on her following him around is destined for misery. So, I would tell her to give it through sophomore year and see how she feels then.</p>
<p>Imkh70, why would one tie themselves down to a bf/gf they met when they were 15-16 years old. just because my great great grand parents probably had arranged marriages does not mean I want one or if my grandparents met when they were 14 ( they did not) and were married for 70 years does not mean that is what I want. 99% of the time these high school to college relationships fail and all that happens is a student winds up missing the experience of being a freshman and starting with a clean slate (it is a once in a lifetime experience ) high school ends with graduation and the next phase of life begins(IMO)</p>
<p>I always told my kids as I helped them with the college apps and took them on the visits and paid all of the fees, that the first app process was on me. If they wanted to transfer, it was all on them, and as there were monetary limits on the school choice, so there were for the transfer school choices. </p>
<p>They are adults, you know, and are out fighting wars, some raising families and dealing with all kinds of issues at age 18. If any of mine what to transfer for any reason, or do whatever, I can just give them the pros and cons. I would refrain from making any remarks about he relationship or reason. Yes, these relationships often do not pan out and there is often heartbreak for the break. A tale as old as time, but no one goes into these things and make plans with the prospects that it won’t work out, and sometimes, many times they do. So it’s up to your now adult child. How involved YOU want to be is up to you. Clearly, the monetary aspect is something that involves you and you should let your child know the budget. And again, lay out the issues, but don’t make it a haranguing point.</p>
<p>I have to admit I am on the fence for this discussion. If either of my Ds told me they were going to transfer to be with a BF I would have argued against it. But many years ago my DW, two years behind me in college, left her school to be with and marry me after I graduated. This was at an Academy where you can’t be married in school and you have to request to be stationed with a military spouse after graduation. 30+ years later we feel it worked out to the best.</p>
<p>When you love someone, you want what’s best for them.
The D carefully selected her college and it seems that it is anxiety & loneliness that prompted her to ask her family to entertain her bf while she was away & now to push her to leave her school to attend a yet undecided school, in order to be closer to her bf.</p>
<p>A bit of adversity strengthens a relationship if it is worth keeping.
Ask her what advice she would give her own daughter?
It might help her gain a different perspective.</p>
<p>Arguing against something, presenting the fact as you see them, is something a parent should do if they don’t like something a child wants to do. But beyond that is where it gets very difficult to advise. Some will pull the financial support, some will shut the doors of the home and contact for a while, some will nag about it for kingdom come and some will just take it in stride whether they like it or not. </p>
<p>My friend’s son did this exact thing some years ago and it did cost him a year of college after transfer which was not something that his parents, friends of ours, were happy about at all. But that was what he wanted to do, and he did it, so the parents did what they could to support him, though they did not like it at all. And he did marry the young woman. The transfer did cost him, the family money, and the school was not one that was ever considered when the college choices were being discussed in high school, bu things change right? And things don’t always happen the way one plans. It may not be an ideal detour, but if it’s not so terribly horrible, and there are some truly damaging things in life, one might consider lightening up a bit about it.</p>
<p>I agree that this student should be taking charge of transfer business.</p>
<p>You know…she may end up LOVING her new school even more than the current one…with or without the boyfriend.</p>
<p>Is she helping BF craft their list of colleges? I sure hope so! She should have a say in their choice of school!</p>