<p>Hi Parents,</p>
<p>If your kid does not live at home, I'd appreciate your experience of him/her going to a college close to home, within 20 minutes drive.</p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>That was my situation in college. To me, it was ideal! I could ignore my parents if I wanted to, but they always welcomed me when I wanted to come home (which wasn’t that often). I never took laundry home or anything.</p>
<p>S attends college locally and lives in dorm. He works one night a week near us, so freshman year he brought his laundry home often. This year he has his own car and doesn’t bring laundry home much except over breaks. We see him on nights that he works and if we attend a school function. He seems to be managing well. What specifically are you looking to find out?</p>
<p>D1 attends college locally and lives in the dorm. I work at said college. It is 10 minutes away from the house. I guess that my experience is that while I “see” her more often, she spends much less time at home. She never spends a weekend. She’s only at the house now because the dorms closed over Christmas break and she had to turn in her keys. Otherwise, breaks like Thanksgiving or Spring break, she’ll stay at school, and maybe come the house for the occasional meal. She does go to the house once a week to do laundry, but she’s usually done and back out of there before H and I get home from work.</p>
<p>If you have other, more specific information you’re looking for, let me know.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great replies, parents. Here’s our situation, S just got accepted into a college that he likes a lot. The only thing that he does not like is the distance to home, only 15 minutes drive. I think he wants to have a college experience in a brand new unfamiliar place. I sort of want the same thing for him, a chance to grow up and be completely independent.</p>
<p>However, it is such a great school to pass up. I jokingly told my husband that maybe us two and the dog should move away.</p>
<p>And advantage and/or disadvantage that you would like to share?</p>
<p>S attends college around 30 miles from home and lives in the dorm. It’s been ideal: he has the independence he was seeking, but can pop home once a month to see friends and family (if he wants to and his schedule permits).
We all love the arrangement. Notably, our analysis shows that it isn’t costing us much more to have him on campus, versus at home: fuel is expensive, our food expenses are WAY down, and S works 10 or more hours a week earning money, instead of wasting two hours a day in the car commuting. A win-win for our family.</p>
<p>Collegeproject: We had a similar situation. Son’s school was his first choice and offered exactly the specialized program he wanted. But we all wanted for S to find and experience his independence. For us, the comparative distance has not seemed to matter. In his first month, we made an effort to call only once a week on Sunday, to say hi. Now I don’t even do that. I’ve seen him exactly three times this semester–at Thanksgiving and on two Saturdays that he chose to stop by to see old friends. </p>
<p>It could have been stifling or suffocating if we’d been intrusive, but it need not be. With this respectful arrangement, I believe DS feels as autonomous and independent as if he had moved further away…he has grown up so much, already. He takes care of all his own business. We told him NO laundry would come home, by the way, and it never has. 
He has no car, by the way, and has a bike on campus.</p>
<p>I went to college about 40 minutes from my parent’s home (so still awfully close). They never came to see me without calling first, and actually did not let me come home until Thanksgiving (although they came to see me/go out to dinner a couple of times in that window). With D2, who has one “close to home” school on her list, we have discussed that we will treat it like it is “600 miles away” most of the time if she goes there. </p>
<p>I think she sees some advantages in being close to home (as then mom can run anything she forgot over to her, and she does not have deal with flights, etc. at holidays). She also sees that because we in a good-sized city, the college has some advantages in terms of possible internship and lab experiences off campus. Even in the summer, and she could save money by living at home. Her only concern is what you said… that she would like to live someplace else and get that experience. However, she plans to go to graduate school for a PhD after undergrad, and knows she can live in a different city then.</p>
<p>Our daughter transferred from 8 hours drive to 35 minutes (maybe 50 minutes to an hour at rush hour), I’d guess. She lived in a dorm for a quarter and then decided to rent an apartment but didn’t know enough people to serve as roommates. She looked for a room in apartments. I decided to buy a condo as, net of rent from roommates, it would cost us no more than her rent. She got two of her friends from school as roommates. We’re likely undercharging them a little, but in the grand scheme of things, it will work very well. We see her frequently but for short bits. We’re not too intrusive, I don’t think and it is working very well. Both she and we are very happy with the arrangement.</p>
<p>Ok, I would definitely say that the whole “going away to college” thing is no different just because you’re 10 minutes from home. Like I said, I see less of d than families of her classsmates. Their kids come home (and stay there!) for mid-term, spring, and Thanksgiving breaks and even for the occasional weekend. You still get a roommate, get to live in the dorms, complain about the food, stop checking in with mom and dad, etc. </p>
<p>A lot of how well it works depends on the family. Mom and dad have to agree to act like kiddo is far enough way not to “have” to come home for every family event and/or relative visit. </p>
<p>Personally, I really don’t seen any special advantages or disadvantages to being close. D1 has had two sports-related injuries and will likely be having surgery in January. Close is nice in this situaiton because we will be able to get her to medical appointments and rehab while she can’t drive. However, I would never suggest anybody pick a college based on the logistics of providing health care “in case” there’s an injury or major illness. Most of us will never encounter that. </p>
<p>Ok, I do take that back. When you’re 10 minutes away, making two trips on move in day is no big deal.</p>
<p>^What ordinarylives said.
Totally agree.</p>
<p>I am actually hoping to convince S14 to look at a school close to home. He has a medical issue which generally lies dormant, but reared its ugly head recently. If something happens to him, I’d like to be able to reach him quickly. I’m ok with 2 hours, but not wild about him being much further away than that. He of course does not see it this way.
My brother went to the school in question. He loved it. Did not come home any more often than did his friends who went to more distant schools. I think the main thing is for the student and parents to realize college is a growing up period, and to maintain some distance whether the child is down the street or across the country.</p>
<p>Well, I think it is different if you move to a new area. Going 15 minutes from home isn’t “going away”, not when you know the area, etc. We’ve told our kids from the time they were little that they had to go 2 hours or more away from school. That started when we lived in a town that had a college in town, a not so good college at that, and we did not want them attending that school. They have the same feelings now that they are or have gone to college. DD was heavily recruited by a school about 20 minutes away. She was interested slightly and we did tell her if she wanted to go that was fine but in the end she just didn’t feel like that was “going away” (too familiar with the campus, town, etc.).</p>
<p>What we told all the kids is that they can not come home for the first 6 weeks, no matter where they are. We went up for parent’s weekends but otherwise we did not see them for 6 weeks. We wanted them to fell some ‘pressure’ I guess to get acclimated to their new life. It’s worked out well so far with our first 2. If DD went to the school 20 minutes away it would have been very difficult to NOT buzz down to see her, etc. We have a niece that is at a school close to home and her parents stop by frequently to say hi, grandparents and other aunts/uncles stop in often. It’s not a good set up I don’t think.</p>
<p>I complete agree ordinarylives about ‘family events and relative visits’. I am planning to offer S a written guarantee that his dad will not call and ask him to join us on the weekly family dinner : )</p>
<p>Great replies from you all. I need to figure out a way to save them so I can show S before decision day comes.</p>
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<p>I understand in theory what you are getting at, and if I lived elsewhere I might feel the same, however this is a blanket statement that just doesn’t fit for a lot of families. My S2 is 90min from driveway to dorm. It would have been insane to knock his university off his list due to proximity. It’s well regarded, a good value, and a perfect fit for him personally.</p>
<p>D2 spent her freshman yr 5 hrs away. She then transferred to a university 30 minutes from home and lives on campus. She loves it! We see her only when she wants to see us! Even though she was born and raised around here she still is experiencing new things and places through the eyes of a college student. As we told her, “you can be as close or as far away as you want to be.”</p>
<p>There are pros/cons to any choice. (One of my college kids is 20 miles away, the other is 2000 miles away). If the academics and cost are favorable for a close school, I wouldn’t rule it out. For the full college experience, they should live away from home and maintain some independence. They should stay on campus at least the first few weekends.</p>
<p>blueiguana–the 2 hour rule is “approximate” DD applied to one school that is 80 miles away and DS applied to one that is 70 miles. The thought behind that was that we wanted them to have to think twice about running home for every little thing. Our older 2 were about 4 hours away, DD will be attending a school that is 7 hours away, DS–not sure yet where he will be.</p>
<p>We definitely know plenty of kids who went to UVM, our flagship and were able to keep total independence, most kids living minutes away from Burlington or even in Burlington. I also know lots of kids who started out at a distant college and came back to UVM. My son went to a more distant school and that worked out for him.</p>
<p>I went to school 20 minutes from home and lived in a dorm. I thought it was ideal. I never bumped into my parents but they could be there if needed, which was much appreciated when I had to have some medical tests involving sedation done and needed someone to drive me. I could keep all of my regular doctors, and my hair stylist and that sort of thing. I really didn’t see any disadvantage, but I was not the type to be tempted to go home every weekend which I know can interfere with the adjustment process.</p>