<p>D (rising hs senior) is working on a list of potential schools. H wants to totally eliminate one entire (large) city from consideration because someone we know was robbed at gunpoint when a college student there. I say that there is crime in every city, including ours. It's not like those same thugs are just sitting around waiting for another member of the xania family to arrive so they can beat and rob them. </p>
<p>Is this irrational or should we just cave and go with the idea that there are plenty of other schools in other cities that would be acceptable? D wants to look at 2-3 schools in the "banned" city. In fairness to H, said city has a high murder rate. OTOH, it is also host to one of the ivy league schools (not one that D could aspire to).</p>
<p>Perhaps H should look at recent statistics, not just at the murder rate, but where those murders have occurred, and what the motivation was for those murders. How often are students involved - as victims or perpetrators? What other crimes are common on campus?</p>
<p>Many cities have different neighborhoods, and crime rates might be lower in the neighborhoods surrounding the colleges she wants to look at. H is trying to be protective, but he needs to understand that crime does exist outside the cities, maybe less frequent, but also less predictable. It might be easier for D to take precauseions when she knows what to look out for.</p>
<p>FWIW, a lot of the ivies are in sketchy cities. New Haven, Providence, NYC, Philly… </p>
<p>But in all honesty the armed robbery was most likely an isolated incident. I’m sure students are getting held at gunpoint left at right. I’ll be going to a school next year in a city known for crime and my parents are definitely worried I’ll get mugged, but I think for the most part it comes down to common sense. Don’t flash your fancy iPhone around… don’t carry lots of cash… walk in groups at night… simple stuff like that.
So while it’s important to be aware of the crime that takes place around college campuses, I don’t necessarily think it’s rational to immediately cross off schools from the application list just because someone you know got robbed.</p>
<p>If your daughter wants to go to college in a major city, she will need to be careful and learn good “city sense” quickly. It really doesn’t matter which city it is. Our kids both went to college in urban areas and both had to be aware of safety…just like ANYONE who lives in a city. The opportunities that were available in these cities were well worth the extra care. Our kids came from a very small , semi rural town, and they were more than ready to spread their wings. </p>
<p>Both colleges had sessions on safety at orientation, much of this was common sense.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in living life in fear, and I personally would not want to project my fears on my kids.</p>
<p>She can only attend one school. I would let her look and decide where to apply. Depending on surrounding areas, she may decide she doesn’t like the look of things. If she doesn’t even look,she might be resentful.</p>
<p>I was, however, relieved when my daughter chose a smaller city over Chicago and D.C.</p>
<p>NYC is actually now one of the safer large cities in the US, as the overall decline in crime rates in cities across the US was even greater in NYC than in most other cities. However, there are higher and lower crime rate areas in each city. But there are now crime mapping web sites that can show you whether the areas near the universities of interest are high crime areas.</p>
<p>But, also, students need to be aware of basic security measures against crime. Many students who grew up in very low crime areas are not used to doing things like locking doors and windows when leaving, so thieves often target university areas because the students are less careful than others. Leaving valuables unattended is another common naive behavior. Women who wear high heels prevent themselves from being able to run away from a threatening situation.</p>
<p>We saw a carjacking occur right before our eyes on Nassau Street across the street from Princeton. Does that mean that Princeton is unsafe? No. The fact that you knew somebody who was robbed in that city is just an anecdote–it doesn’t even tell you if that city is any more dangerous than any other. As others have noted, no major city is without danger, but it can be managed with sensible precautions so that the risk to any particular kid is small.</p>
<p>D1 was considering a small LAC with a full ride. H really objected to it due to the safety issue surrounding the campus. The situation was so obvious that it was addressed at the accepted student day. I think it is a valid concern if there is an overall safety concern around the school, but not if it is a general problem of living in a city.</p>
<p>You might want to see if the area is on crimereports.com. They map data from the police. It’s kind of neat to see your area, etc. </p>
<p>You can filter the information to show different types of crime and can click on each incident for basic information like time of day, was the perpetrator known to the victim, etc. </p>
<p>The data comes directly from the police and fire departments. More and more locations are on it. Our Town links to the data on the police website front page. </p>
<p>One piece of value is you can see what’s in your area, which you likely think is safe, and other areas you see as safe and then can adjust your perceptions of other areas based on what you see for them. I’m sometimes floored that there’s more stuff shown in my really safe area than in the BU part of Boston.</p>
<p>My stepfather worked for the police in our small sleepy NJ town. You’d be surprised at what happens everywhere. I agree with checking out the crime statistics for the college.</p>
<p>I think the issue is more about your husband’s feelings than actual safety concerns.</p>
<p>Yes, there are safety concerns at urban campuses, but there is a lot of variation from one part of a city to another. American University and Catholic University are both in DC, but they might as well be on different planets. The same can be said for Columbia and NYU. </p>
<p>For your daughter’s sake, the question that needs to be answered is “Are the safety issues at this school so great that I will have to choose between excessively restricting my activities and taking unreasonable risks?” If the answer is yes, she probably would not be happy there and would be better off picking a different school.</p>
<p>Can your husband get to to point where he could help your daughter evaluate campuses in this way, rather than condemning one particular city (which may include some very safe campuses) and accepting others (which may include some downright dangerous campuses)? Would it help if he visited the schools, either with your daughter or on his own? Sometimes, seeing a place helps people react more rationally.</p>
<p>My husband wouldn’t let our daughter apply to any colleges in big cities (something that turned out not to matter much, since her first choice school was in a smaller community, and that’s where she ended up). But after she graduated, she accepted a job in Washington, DC and made plans to live there. At this point, my husband had no control over her choices, but he went around making remarks like “She’ll be lucky if she doesn’t get raped and killed the first week.” Then he saw the building and neighborhood where she would be living, and he realized that they were nothing like what he had imagined. Not only did he withdraw all objections, when it turned out that she needed a guarantor on her lease, he agreed to be that guarantor, in part because he believed that the place where she had chosen to live was a highly desirable one from the safety point of view.</p>
<p>DS looked at some schools in tricky areas and decided he just didn’t want to cope with the worry about crime. He’s very much a suburban kid with little city experience.</p>
<p>So he ends up choosing a LAC in a lovely suburban area of a mid-sized city without a reputation for crime. Surprise: there were two armed robberies of students this year, one right on campus and one just off. Lesson - can do research and make choices based on comfort but there are no guarantees. Best is to be prepared and learn some street smarts.</p>
<p>Suppose that H may be projecting fears he finds difficulty to voice or even to acknowledge, but fixating on eliminating this city from consideration relieves some of his anxiety.</p>
<p>College is a structured place to learn life long skills, like living in an urban environment.
Safety is certainly one criteria you can use to evaluate schools, but recognizing that crime can happen anywhere, I wanted to look at how the college dealt with the risk. Were escorts available after hours? Were dorms kept locked? Was the campus security approachable?</p>
<p>When our daughters considered schools, setting was one criteria, they both wanted to attend school in a city, so that was weighted heavier than a school say in Northfield, Minn. </p>
<p>If the city has a high crime rate, I would look at it closely however. Is public transportation safe? Are the residents apathetic? Comparing crime rates on campuses but especially looking at how the school handles that may help your family to feel prepared for unwelcome situations. Reading the school newspaper as well as other local papers and blogs can give a better idea of the area.
[The</a> Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool](<a href=“Campus Safety and Security”>Campus Safety and Security)</p>
<p>emeraldkity - thanks for the link, I think that will be helpful. H is going to have to suck it up and at least let D look at the places herself.</p>
<p>Lots of good advice here. D spent last year at a small college in a rural setting and guess what? Turns out there’s a huge heroin problem in the town. When she was looking to transfer to UMass-Boston, her father looked up crime stats and used that as one of his many excuses why she could not go there-despite the fact that he WORKS in Boston! Not to mention that D grew up in Seattle’s south end, hardly the “safest” part of town and has plenty of “city living” wits about her.</p>
<p>It’s all relative though, because the place we were living when we got robbed was in a “good” part of town. The place our car got stolen was in another “nice area”. The time DS was harassed on the bus? “Good” part of town. You can be robbed anywhere, car-jacked anywhere, and find drugs anywhere, get raped anywhere. “It can’t happen there” is a fantasy.</p>
<p>First off, list the school/s so those who are familiar with the schools/campuses can give you a first-hand account of how safe they felt or feel there. Crime happens everywhere but statistically you’ll not be a victim of a “gunpoint,” encounter. Eliminating an entire city on the basis of one anectdotal story is irrational. Tell your husband that it’s not the “gunpoint robberies,” he should be worried about, it’s the “assaults on women,” that should be his big concern and those happen on every college campus and most times disproportinately for the worse at america’s best schools . . .</p>
<p>As a parent of a daughter I understand the concern … however I not sure the data backs up the concern.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to college in a city … and my position is as long as she is smart about things (don’t walk alone into secluded places in the tough part of town) that she will be OK. I’d think there is some chance the odds of getting robbed are slightly higher at an inner city school … but I do know that most students are robbed (laptops, bikes, etc) by other students which is not very location specific.</p>
<p>Final thought as a Dad of a daughter. When involved in some campus safety awareness training for women on campus when in grad school I was told by the campus police that often isolated spread out campuses with lots of secluded areas are a higher rape risk for students. This actually makes logical sense … if a student at Columbia plays it smart and goes for their run on Broadway they probably are pretty darn safe … however on another classic college campus that run around the secluded lake may take a student into a bunch of less safe areas. (PS - this training was when there were a serious of rapes on a campus that I’d bet the majority of CC readers would rate as a classic, beautiful, and safe campus)</p>
<p>Our kids both attended a U that is near Watts in LA. They have a large department of public safety that regularly patrols most of the areas where students frequent and live. Neither of my kids have told me of feeling unsafe in the many years they attended the U, despite its reputation for sometimes having crimes and/or violence on/near campus. It seems a bit much to cross of an entire city because a parent has read/heard about high crime rates.</p>
<p>I agree that students have to be aware & pay attention to their surroundings. Much crime is that of opportunity. One has to abide by basic sensible precautions–not be out alone late at night, not be out & about while under the influence (drugs and/or alcohol), keep possessions out of sight, etc.</p>
<p>I believe the key is “risk management”. There are no guarantees that nothing will happen to her but she can significantly reduce the possibility.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to school in a city that has a moderate crime rate. She stays on the main streets during the days, travels with a group as much as possible and uses the safe ride home in the evening and at night.</p>
<p>She also has a different sense of humor. Whenever my wife brings up the subject of her safety, she will email the latest campus police report to her. She then points outs that none of the incidents involved her and she also points out where the people went wrong in those incidents.</p>
<p>I tried to convince my D to go to Montana. She picked a different school. From 2008 through 2012 Montana appears to have an issue with rape. My point is you can never tell what may occur.</p>