<p>The undergrad years have flown by for my kid, who moved to the other coast for college and who is talking about applying to PhD programs located all over the US. I am proud of this independence, but still have occasional sadness over the distance. I think the grad program location is more likely where an adult child will settle, finding employment in the same region where they will have lived for the duration of the PhD program, have a closer professional network, made friends, or even found a spouse. I don't want to have my kid live far away in adulthood; knowing how busy lives are during grad school, we might get brief visits once or twice a year. Travel is expensive. During my years raising children it was nice to have the support of grandparents nearby...and later, taking care of the grandparents as they aged and needed our help, it was so much easier to be closer. Young adults are just not aware of this; they haven't lived it. </p>
<p>My rational self says where to apply has to be the kid's process (so say nothing and just let it play itself out, and hope for good funding from a good nearby program); my emotional self says why apply across the country when one could focus on a number of programs within a couple of hours away (and there are some excellent programs)? Also, we may be asked for some level of parental financial support... </p>
<p>How did you handle this transition? Did you have input? How did you handle your emotions around it? This kid has always had a strong-willed personality, but responds to financial/lifestyle considerations. I'm thinking some kind of cost-of-living comparison could help.</p>
<p>My kids are all in grad schools, the process was theirs and the determination of schools was their’s. We offered assistance with application logistics when needed, but really encouraged them to talk to their profs as to the best places to which they should apply. Fit is critical to a PhD, it has to be their choice.</p>
<p>That being said, two did master’s degrees about 45 minutes from home after being far away for undergrad and that has been a blessing. Another is now 2 hours from home for the first time in 5 years being less than 1-2 days drive. I am enjoying it, but we never pressured them.</p>
<p>I think the college students today are like moving targets. I would NOT plan where to retire or live based on where my kids go to grad school, or even where they go for their first jobs. The likelihood of them moving is VERY high. And I do not expect them to locate themselves where <em>I</em> choose to live.</p>
<p>We had no involvement at all in DS’s grad school applications. He chose the schools, did the applications, and decided where he would attend without any help or direction at all from us. Ditto his first job…and where he lives now. We had no involvement in those location decisions other than to answer questions IF asked.</p>
<p>If the outcome of the PhD is academic employment, the chances of your child finding employment where s/he goes to graduate school is small, the chances that s/he secures tenure-track employment directly after graduation might be small depending on the field (whether postdoc or adjunct or visiting post), and then the chances that s/he may have to move after an unsuccessful bid for tenure are again not negligible. Academics tend to move a lot.</p>
<p>I don’t know what kind of Ph.D. you’re talking about. If it’s in the humanities, it’s so hard to get a good job that it would really be inaccurate to assume that (s)he is more likely to end up in the same geographic area where (s)he attends graduate school. </p>
<p>That might be a bit more true in fields like engineering or others in which the “goal” isn’t to land an academic job. So, I could see expressing a preference if he had a choice between CalTech and MIT.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because I was allowed to follow my own path (and ended up settling a 4.5 hr drive from where I grew up and my parents still live), but I dont understand parents who worry about where their adult children will eventually settle. We’ve told our two girls that we would of course like them to end up close by, but that they need to do what is best for them. If they end up living far away, we will have someplace to visit. Plus, there’s no guarantee DH and I will always live here; maybe we will move (to a better climate or someplace with a lower cost of living) when we both retire.</p>
<p>During our “child-raising years”, DH and I had no family nearby (he is from Oregon). Of course it would have been easier if we had grandmas & grandpas or aunts & uncles to provide free babysitting, but we survived. Our yearly trip to Oregon has fostered a good relationship between our girls and the multitude of cousins, with the added benefit of the girls getting to know/having a connection to a different part of the country. </p>
<p>D1 will be applying to graduate programs soon. So far we have served as a sounding board for her ideas and helped her figure out which GRE testing center would be the most convenient. Ive offered a little insight into the process (she is pursuing chemistry, I did chemistry grad school a long time ago) but not too much since things have probably changed in the 20+ years since I did all this. Her professors and slightly older friends are probably better resources, DH and I are cheerleaders.</p>
<p>We had no input into son’s grad school search and decision other than to provide logistical support. While we financed undergrad for our kids, they are on their own for grad school. Would I like to have them close? Sure. We live in the midwest. I have one on each coast and one living in town. As Thumper says, their lives are very fluid. Who knows where they will eventually land. They need to choose grad programs that will best fit their goals, regardless of location.</p>
<p>D’s undergrad was 7 hrs from home; her grad program is now a 14-hr drive. Depending on the type of program your student is looking at and his/her desired specialties, they are best served to go where the program is the best and the funding is adequate. Sorry, but it’s time to let them go where the opportunities (and acceptances) are, and I would not recommend limiting apps based on geography. D1’s options for schools were edited based on potential future employment possibilities for her significant other, which was a realistic consideration for her. For example, a good option for her area was in Montana–nixed because not a lot of job options for him there… She’ll be at her new school for 5-6 yrs, then knows she will have at least a couple of post-doc assignments of 2-3 yrs each after that before she might “settle” down. </p>
<p>I was quite involved in both D’s undergrad college searches, etc. It was strange to be a remote interested observer in the grad school process. And, there is a big hole of lack of information for grad school…everything depends so much on the faculty and the program at each individual school. Rankings are WAY more worthless for grad school (if you can find them), and CC doesn’t have all the helpful info that I followed all the time she was an undergrad. It was frustrating that I couldn’t at least contribute info to her, but it was all on her this time…</p>
<p>She was in a great position of having several acceptances to choose from, and I suggested she put together a spreadsheet with pros/cons and added some input (when I was asked). It was not until she was between 2 schools that she asked my opinion, and I was OK with that…time had come for me to TRY to not be an obnoxious mom.</p>
<p>After I finished college I moved across the country from New Jersey, my home state, to California for a job. I eventually did graduate school in California as well. I have never left. My parents eventually retired and moved to Florida, where my mother still resides. I remember when I was deciding to move alone to California, I asked my parents what should I do, and I remember them saying, “We don’t know, we have never been to California”. That one statement from them told me they were letting me make my own decisions, and I was not to feel guilty if I moved away from them. I so appreciated that level of confidence and love they showed me in that one statement.</p>
<p>Have I missed being geographically close to my family? Yes…Do I think it was a mistake? No, not at all. </p>
<p>My son now attends college in Colorado, and should he decide to stay there after he graduates, that will be his own decision. I will let my two sons make their own decisions in their lives about which graduate school to attend and where to eventually settle on their own, just like my own parents did for me.</p>
<p>Depending on the grad program’s strengths and fit, there’s also the factor that some grad students have families who may distract him/her from giving adequate attention to their studies. Some older cousins ended up having to drop out of grad programs because their parents/older relatives were so clingy as to insist they come every weekend to attend family dinner parties or to “spend time with family”. </p>
<p>This was one reason why I made it a point to choose colleges which were far enough away from relatives that this wouldn’t be a concern and making it clear to family members that my academic studies come first. </p>
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<p>Very true. People get post-docs, visiting Prof, and tenure track positions all over the nation and the world. </p>
<p>Moreover, getting too involved in the grad school application process(really…any parental involvement beyond looking over grad app essays when asked by student) will be taken by those involved in grad admissions as a sign of immaturity and thus, unsuitable for the grad program in question if they somehow become aware of it through interviews and/or other means. </p>
<p>Heard that directly from an Ivy Prof who was involved in PhD admissions to her department’s program and several involved in professional grad school programs.</p>
<p>You’ve given your child a good start in life. Now it’s time to let go and let him/her live it.
Take joy in the fact that your child is stepping out into the world on his/her own feet. You’ve made your choices in life. Now let your child make hers/his.</p>
<p>With grad school admissions along with post grad global economy I suspect our kids will be moving where they need to much like my siblings and I did in the late seventies and early eighties. There was a bumper sticker in our home state back then that said “Last one leaving the state turn the lights out.” There is a point in time where as a parent you just have to let them fly.</p>
<p>I imagine if you are still financially supporting as you indicated you might then it’s abit emotionally harder because you are still tied. I think you need to let your now-adult offspring figure this out. They might surprise you and land close to home or return in a few years as they make their way and figure it out.</p>
<p>Cobrat, over-involvement of family would not be an issue in this case. We have great respect for academic workloads. The family contact during college has been an occasional (once or twice monthly) text exchange, and phone calls for family birthdays. Even summer visits have been limited to a few weeks because of research on campus every summer. </p>
<p>Jonri, the planned PhD is in engineering. We are surrounded by a good concentration of universities with strong programs…</p>
<p>I went quite a distance for college, but I managed to pursue my post-college education within a couple of hours from my parents, and was glad to be near enough to get there easily for Thanksgiving and when one parent went through cancer treatment. Do I put too much importance on family supports? </p>
<p>I wonder if you become more or less polite acquaintances when you don’t see your adult children but once a year or so? And does that feel okay after a while?</p>
<p>No…this did not happen with our kids. One went across country to college and now is on another continent. We talk to her every Sunday for at least a little time via Skype. The other kid is cross country…and we also talk to him every week. You will only become acquantences if that is what you want to become. The reality is…even IF your kids live around the block, you could become “polite acquaintances”. Your relationship with your kids really shouldn’t be predicated on them living in close proximity to you. There is a LOT more to closeness than living nearby.</p>
<p>Ok, I haven’t read the whole thread but I recently received a PhD and I am now a college professor.</p>
<p>1) You should not help your child with graduate school applications. Only if he/she asks and don’t review an essay/writing sample unless it’s in your academic field or for basic grammar.</p>
<p>2) It does not matter where you get your PhD geographically. Schools are as likely to hire someone with a PhD from a program an hour away as they are to hire someone from across the country. You cannot plan where you will end up, as it depends on which schools are hiring in which specific field. Also, you cannot predict whether you get a job in a college or university in a city or a small rural town, it’s out of your control. If for some reason you want to live for the rest of your life in a specific area of the country, an academic job isn’t for you.</p>
<p>The old-time CCer know that the worm has always wanted academia. His UG profs advised him to go to best school that he got into, as gaining tenureship is so very hard. I had no imput as to schools he applied to. My assistance was asked when he got stuck in Philly airport 3 weekends, and wanted advice about trains, alternate routes, local hotel, etc. Only when it came down to 2 final choices did he discuss wth me. I encouraged him to re-visit, which involved a flight, on my dime. That was my way to support; he can get beter advice from his profs. </p>
<p>Cobrat, for the first time, I will disagree with you. I began grad school on east coast, partly because my mom had a liver removed & was quite ill. I drove to see her every other weekend. I’d leave on Friday, and return, leaving Sunday night at 2:00 a.m. I got behind on papers. Only one prof punished me, giving me a B for lateness. That was my only B in grad school. My mom did recover, and I have always been grateful that I could be there for her and my dad during that difficult time. It was a trying first semester, but a drop in the bucket of life. I never had ‘clingy’ parents. I would certainly have missed b/d parties, but this was a matter of possible death. I wonder if your relatives were truly motivated to be in a rad school program.</p>
<p>Professional school may be mildly predictive of where a student may end up grad school (at least PhD. programs generally are not.) My husband got his Ph.D. at Caltech, did a postdoctoral fellowship in Germany and then ended up in the NY area. His fellow Caltechers are all over the map. I went to grad school in NYC, then out to California to join my to-be husband, then to Germany and then we ended up near my grad school - 7 years later…</p>
<p>While scientists may have a choice of locations, jobs in the humanities for PhDs are often few and far between.</p>
<p>“I wonder if you become more or less polite acquaintances when you don’t see your adult children but once a year or so? And does that feel okay after a while?”</p>
<p>I will address this based on much experience. I grew up in PA and my grandparents lived in LA and AZ. I certainly was not as close to my grandparents as other kids I knew, but they were still important people in my life and my parents were never “polite acquaintances”. And this was when long distance phone calls were a luxury! Hubby and I live in WI. Until my folks passed, they lived in FL and my in-laws live in OH. We remained close to our families even if we didn’t have frequent communication. Parents were frequently called for advice about parenting and home repairs. My kids all know and love their grandparents. Youngest went to college in OH and spend every Thanksgiving with his grandparents. </p>
<p>And now we have kids in NYC and OR. We may only talk a couple of times a month, but we continue to feel connected and involved in their lives, maybe not the minutia, but the major themes of their lives. With cell phones, email, chat, IMs, Skype, etc., communication is not a problem. You don’t need daily contact to be connected. </p>
<p>As an aside, my sister and I have never lived anywhere close to each other since 1969. We don’t talk all that often, yet I feel as connected to her as I do to my husband and kids. Love is an amazing thing!</p>
<p>Your main input is likely to be letting them use your credit card for application fees. </p>
<p>You can tell them to get advice from their current professors and advisor but you won’t know which schools et al to give advice about. You can’t write their statement of purpose, take GRE exams or tell them which programs are best for them. You can act as a sounding board if they choose to use you for one.</p>
<p>It is frustrating to not be able to actively help, but that is the situation. By now your job is done- you gave the necessary skills to make decisions and know where to get advice. You can research as much as you want about the grad school process, proposed field and any schools you hear about for your own knowledge/education about the process. You can email links you think may be useful- they may or may not be.</p>