<p>ALL of my closest friends will be staying in the area for college. I live in Queens, NY so everyone will remain in the city or long island. I really don't want to be somewhere where I can only come visit during major breaks or the occasional (but rare) break. I mean, IF I got into Columbia I would love to go.. regardless of its location (although that adds to it obviously) </p>
<p>Does anyone else feel like this?</p>
<p>It’s natural to want to stay with friends, but don’t let that compromise your future. I’m saying to be cold-blooded and abandon your friends for money, but make informed decisions. It’s fine to stay near your friends, but just know the opportunity cost.</p>
<p>I’m sure other students feel like this, but - think about it this way.</p>
<p>Assuming that you are a senior beginning this year, you are probably about 17 or 18 years old. You have a long, long life ahead of you.</p>
<p>Regardless of their distance, naturally you outgrow your high school friends. Some of them may remain lifelong friends, but the majority of them will become acquaintances you may check up on Facebook or chat with occasionally. This is because you will grown and change, and you will go through new experiences with your college friends. The same inevitably happens after college - some of your college friends will stay friends long after college, but you will met new friends in graduate school or your first job or at your new gym or that volunteer gig you pick up.</p>
<p>On the other hand - your college will stay on your resume FOREVER, regardless of what else you do. It will influence who you become, not just through the name but the experiences that you have there. It’s difficult to realize how much more impact on your life college will have than your high school friends will when you are 18, but being on the other side - there are 2 or so people I still talk to from high school on a regular basis (not talking about just Facebook), and I went in-state for college right around the corner from a lot of my high school friends! We just grew apart, got interested in our lives and met new friends. I remember them fondly but I am in a completely different place in my life. Ask your mom, dad, older cousins, aunts, whatever, how many people they still talk to from high school.</p>
<p>I say - don’t rule out schools in the city or on Long Island, of course. Apply to the CUNYS that appeal to you and maybe Stony Brook or Fordham or wherever else appeals to you. But if you see an OOS college your family can afford and that you love - or maybe you fall in love with a private college upstate or a SUNY outside the city - don’t exclude it simply because of its location. Your college will remain with you forever in your memories AND on your resume. You want to be sure you are choosing it for you and not your friends.</p>
<p>If you have the opportunity to see/do something new, take it. You can make new friends and still keep the old. If you have the stats for Columbia, apply to several top schools.</p>
<p>For me, it’s less a desire to stay with particular people and more a desire to be in an environment with the same general groups/types of people. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>In any case, it never hurts to apply to schools both close to home and far away. That way you have choices come spring.</p>
<p>At my age, HS friends are so far so vague to me, I cannot recognize their names any more. I cannot even remotely remember those in my college life who are mostly 1000’s miles away. What is important to me right now are my family, friends live close by and those who work with me on a day to day basis.</p>
<p>Even if you go to Columbia, you won’t have much time for high school friends, except during Christmas or summer breaks. My Columbia son, who hails from a land far away from NYC but who has numerous high school friends on the east coast clamoring for cheap NYC visits, has very little time for friends from the high school past.</p>
<p>SIL and her H have this thing where they try to each get one night each week (harder now with 4 kids) where they work on maintaining contact/connection with their friends from various times and places. They actually do a pretty good job of it. Nowadays, with social networking and relatively easy travel, it’s possible to maintain friendships all over the world. It takes determination, though - and sometimes all the effort will seem to come from one party.</p>
<p>Go a couple hours away. Make new friends. HUGE PITFALL of my hometown friends was going to college together. They never expanded and are still where they started.</p>
<p>Many times once kids are in college they make new friends and aren’t always available to old high school friends.</p>
<p>Don’t limit yourself.</p>
<p>Thirty-something years after I graduated from high school, I’m still regularly in touch with ten of my high school classmates, none of whom were college classmates of mine, and all of whom live on the opposite coast.</p>
<p>It’s easier to stay in touch now than it ever was before.</p>
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<p>From the leading researcher in college student outcomes:</p>
<p>“The student’s peer group is the single most potent source of influence on growth and development during the undergraduate years.” - Alexander Astin, “Four Critical Years Revisited”</p>
<p>College is an opportunity to select the most talented and motivated peer group you will ever have and be influenced by them - for better or for worse. I’m sure that your friends constitute a very positive set of peers, but you’ve already had their influence throughout HS. College is your big chance to broaden that scope of influence.</p>
<p>From your post it sounds like you really do want to move but are nervous (completely understandable) and are finding something to stick to justify staying home. I totally understand. I was in a similar situation, but not quite yours. I was very, very sick with a mystery illness all through high school, and although I desperately wanted to move away, I was terrified to leave my doctors. Because of this fear, I stopped myself from studying abroad. My illness was finally diagnosed & controlled by senior year but by then it was too late. I graduated in May and now deeply regret not moving to London for a semester!</p>
<p>I truly understand your desire to be with your friends, but you must consider this, although it may be hard: are you nervous of the change, and are picking your friends to latch onto? I know college is a HUGE decision and choice, and really not everyone is cut out to move away, and that is 110% fine as well. But deep inside, do you really want to try spreading your wings? With all of today’s technology, keeping in touch is easier & cheaper than ever. I have friends in Hawaii and Dublin, and talk to them daily via Skype, text, etc even though I’m in Philadelphia. You are still very young with your whole life ahead of you. </p>
<p>Also in college - people change. You and your friends will change - even if you think you won’t, trust me - and become different people, and may (or may not) grow apart. In 5 years, you might not even be close with these friends anymore and may regret staying home for that. I don’t want to scare you - I have just been there and want to try to help from what I learned by living through it. I know I just barely turned 22 and already intensely regret not moving to London for a while. It’s a terrible feeling, and now I’m trying to find someway to get there.</p>
<p>Maybe you should sit down and make a pro/con list. It sounds cliche but it really does help. Try to distance yourself from the desire to stay by your friends and really think of it from a logical perspective. If in the end you decide to stay, that’s fine too! I just think that if you totally discount the option to move, you’re only cheating yourself. Apply all over so you have options and really think it through! If you need anyone to chat with feel free to message me!</p>
<p>College is the time to spread your wings and try something different. A time to explore new places, new types of people, and new interests. In my own anecdotal life experience, the most successful people from my high school (i.e. the ones who did the best in college, went on to grad school, etc) were the ones who went away to college and got away from their hometowns. It forces you to grow up in my opinion.</p>
<p>OP, I don’t get it, don’t you have Facebook and a cellphone that texts? Your friends will be close even if you go to college 3,000 miles away.</p>
<p>Do what you want to do.</p>
<p>On the one hand, you go further away and you’re the one who goes away so everyone is excited to see you when you get back, and you can make that an event. </p>
<p>Stay closer to home and hang with your old group, and people will begin to grow apart. Inevitably, they will.</p>
<p>If you go away, they will get together again when you come home. If you stay, it will be a challenge to get them all together at the same time. Remember that in high school you all had the same schedule, had to be in the same place, had the same teams, shows, neighborhood, whatnot.</p>
<p>So, do what you want, but don’t do it because you’re scared of what you will lose. The truth is, that is already gone by the time the end of summer rolls around. bittersweet.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you just mean, “I can’t leave NYC! I can’t.” I could see that. ;)</p>
<p>Fortunately or unfortunately, the whole college experience really means that you’ll probably never see your high school friends ever again.</p>
<p>Is that cold? Maybe. But it’s also the reality of your situation.</p>
<p>That being said, don’t let your current friendships (however rooted they may be) dictate your future. This is an entirely new chapter of your life and you should take it upon yourself to try new things and make new friends. You only get to go to college once, after all. Make it count.</p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<p>People are exaggerating the importance of college vs. high school friends. For many, high schools friends (often made when very young) are more lasting, since there is a certain closeness in childhood that is hard to replicate later in life, and you may have known them for 12-13 years instead of 4. With that said, going away to college won’t lose them. My dad is nearly 70 and his two closest friends are still from middle/high school, despite the fact that he went to Caltech, and they went to Berkeley and Harvard, and this was before the era of Facebook and cheap travel.</p>