<p>Yep, in college I wore my winter coat from October through April. Just as the weather started getting nice, school was out.</p>
<p>Yes, she might not like Chicago…but why play it safe in Norman or Stillwater, OK, or Lubbock, TX. Why NOT Chicago?</p>
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<p>Would you have the same hesitation if missypie said that her D was considering NU or U of Chicago? IOW, is that a DePaul-specific concern or a Chicago-specific concern? Would you have the same hesitation about Boston if missypie said her D was considering Harvard or MIT? I do agree the DePaul name is not a “national” name and resonates primarily in Chicago – to me, that would be a bigger concern than whether or not she’d like or enjoy Chicago.</p>
<p>Well, to me the two things go together. It’s like going to Kansas State for law school. That’s super if you plan to live in Kansas. I think DePaul’s reach is not terribly broad- especially in this economy. Chicago is an awesome city and has so much to offer, but not everyone takes to the climate and the size of the city. I would NOT worry about that as much with a Northwestern or UChicago degree, OR if graduate school is pretty much a given. A lot of my concerns are stemming from the current economy and the fact that for law school (which this is not, I realize) the grads hardest hit right now are the Loyola, DePaul, Temple level-schools which provide great educations and USED to feed the firms in their cities really well.</p>
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<p>I don’t disagree, but I think that will be true of most schools once you get past the very top rungs. It often seems that every large city has a DePaul-like school: A good school, not the tippy-top, but solid enough, and with a good reputation in that specific city but that diminishes as you go further away. Fordham was cited upthread as a similar school. I don’t think Fordham is any more national in scope than DePaul is. Are there others that come to mind at this academic level that are more national in reputation?</p>
<p>I think that what MOWC is trying to gently say is that if your child does not get into a [Top 10] [Top 20] [Top 50] school, her parents should save their money and send her to an in-state public.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to put words in MOWC’s mouth. I see her point that DePaul might “tie” your D more to Chicago for the long haul than, say, NU or U Chicago in that the name doesn’t resonate as much elsewhere, but I just think that is characteristic of most schools once you move beyond the very top and that’s just how it goes. Certainly some of the in-state publics you are talking about aren’t tremendously national in scope either.</p>
<p>I would venture to say that maybe 1% of the colleges/universities in the US are “national” in scope.</p>
<p>If DePaul appeals, I think a large in-state public (like TX) might NOT appeal. I think there is great value in the Loyola/DePaul schools but the reason they have a lot of commuters is because many of the students are already IN those cities and probably intend to stay. Like I said, if grad school is a likely option that changes the equation since grades/test score will be the bigger factor. I just know a lot of Texas kids who wound up going to the NE to school and did NOT like it (including my son for his first year at Penn). I think Chicago is an easier adjustment for a southern or Texas kid ( I do draw the distinction 
), though.</p>
<p>It seems as though missypie’s D is “up for an adventure,” though, and doesn’t wish to follow the crowds to her own state u or the neighboring state u’s.</p>
<p>I definitely get how some schools may tie you to an area more than others for the long term, but you’re also spending those 4 years there. The Texas kid who doesn’t take to Chicago for whatever reason isn’t going to like his four years in Evanston or Hyde Park any better than his four years in Lincoln Park or Rogers Park, just because the NU or UChicago name is more national. </p>
<p>I think the other thing is that for those of us who are looking outside our own region of the country, you always have to sort of take that leap of faith. My kids’ first choices as of this writing are both schools in / near Boston. Do you know what my kids’ exposure to Boston life is? A total of one afternoon spent walking around the Back Bay, Beacon Hill and Comm Ave, plus the time spent looking at campuses, and then the nondescript suburban business park hotel. They won’t have any more of a knowledge basis for choosing a Boston-based college than missypie’s D will for choosing a Chicago-based college. If it looks and feels appealing on a visit, then sometimes that’s really all that can be known ahead of time, if that makes sense?</p>
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<p>I would imagine, without the benefit of data, that the majority of students at U of Oklahoma or Oklahoma State are also local to that area and probably intend to stay in Oklahoma or thereabouts. They may not be “commuters” since the population of Oklahoma isn’t as tightly concentrated and there aren’t public transportation options like there are in bigger cities, but their ties to remaining in the local area are potentially quite similar.</p>
<p>I went to Indiana without EVER seeing the place! It was certainly an adjustment, but one that I was able to make. I do think the reach of the state universities is a little greater than the DePaul/Loyola schools. I know in the southern states companies interview at/hire from all the surrounding state universities (recognizing, of course, that the SEC is superior to all others… )<br>
I am just really paranoid about this economy and the job market, I guess, and just finishing today’s WSJ has not helped… I am also surprised at just how many of my own high school classmates came back to/remained in our hometown or the immediate area. I did not, and somehow I thought people branched out a little more. I think today IS a more mobile group of grads, and I sure don’t expect a kid entering college to know where they are going to want to live and work.</p>
<p>So you would say that if a student can’t get into her own state flagship (or doesn’t want to go there), some other state flagship would be preferable to any other school other than the very top schools? So U of Idaho would be better than SMU? U of Oregon better than Bradley?</p>
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<p>My son, a California kid, did not like his first semester at Penn, but gradually found like-minded students later. Some kids just take longer to adjust and some just never feel comfortable so after graduation, if they last that long, they go home.</p>
<p>My D does this moderately sophisticated analysis…she wants the other students to be somewhat like her, but not exactly like her. She certainly doesn’t want to sign up for 13th grade.</p>
<p>We visited DePaul with one of my boys. Loved, loved, loved it. Didn’t hurt that I love Chicago too. Lived there for a few years when I was first married. One of my close friends from those days lives inthe Chicagoland area still and her daughter graduated from DePaul. She had originally gone to U Missouri but decided she preferred to be in Chicago. </p>
<p>I think that this is truly an underappreciated school along with a number of others I’ve found such as the University of Denver, SMU, Butler University, to name a few. For kids who want a city school, this is one that should definitely be on the list along with GW, NYU, BU, Pitt. The only drawback I could see in the school is that it is mainly regional, with the vast, vast majority of kids coming from Chicago. One of the reasons my friend’s D loved going there so much was that so many of her friends were there and she was only a couple of degrees of separation from nearly anyone there. If your student goes there from out of area, that is not going to be the case for him/her. </p>
<p>This is not a situation unique to DePaul. Any and all regional schools, those that lack a national reputation where most of the kids come from within an hour of the campus. When we visited schools in PA, that was one of the things that I pointed out to my son a couple of months ago. He loved Pitt, liked Duquesne. Also liked Dickinson and Gettysburg. Pitt and Duquesne tended to have more commuters and local kids than Dickinson and Gettysburg. Looking at Temple U, Lasalle, and Villanova, it was pretty clear that he would find more out of towners at V than the other two Philly schools. </p>
<p>Even in cities like NY and Boston, you have the more local schools and the national schools. Suffolk is very much a local, commuter university in Boston. BU, BC have kids from everywhere. NY has St Johns and Pace which are more local than Fordham or NYU. Sarah Lawrence has more out of town kids than Iona College though they are within minutes of each other.</p>
<p>This seems a little self-fulfilling … a student shouldn’t go to a school in an area where he’s not from, because there aren’t any students that aren’t from there!</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Just read your post, Momofwc, and, I , like you, laid eyes on my college when I arrived for Orientation and the start of the school year. Didn’t visit any of my schools. How things have changed.</p>
<p>Missy, many times kids like the atmosphere of certain flagship schools and if they cannot get into their main state school, look for one that is similar in other states. Penn State comes to mind for me. Very selective state school, and turns down more kids than it accepts for the main campus. Those kids who are not accepted have the option of going for two years at a satellite campus and getting automatic transfer to the main campus upon satisfactorily attaining junior status. But many don’t like those smaller, local schools and prefer to go out of state to UWestVirginia, Ohio U, U Delaware, to name a few schools. My friend’s son who did not get into U IL U-Ch campus chose to go to U Iowa over any of the other state schools in Illinois. I think he was thinking about trying to transfer into his state flagship, but was happy and settled well enough in Iowa, that he finished there. </p>
<p>The popular state flagships not only have a big student population, but %wise, enough OOS kids that it translates to a large number of them. Also, as student centers, the campus is generally far enough from most populated areas (again, think Penn State) that you are not going to get a lot of commuters. The campus is truly a city unto itself and is usually the draw of the area. That is not the case with most city campuses that have to compete with the draw of a major city. Most don’t bother to try, and consider the city resources as part of their campus. I live in NY, and because we don’t have a true flagship, (though I see references to UBuffalo as such), we don’t get that kind of draw to the SUNY system from out of staters. Also. our universities, other than Buffalo tend to be smaller with many small colleges to fill local needs. Other than Buffalo, Binghamton, StoneyBrook and Albany, they are all colleges, not unis. </p>
<p>My high school son is definitely lukewarm on the SUNYs. He goes to a Catholic high school and most of the talk is about the better known Catholic colleges. Everyone is applying to BC, Providence, Marist, Fordham, GT, Villanova, Loyola, Fairfield, it seems to me. 9 of last year’s class ended up at Holy Cross and probably more at a number of the forementioned schools. I don’t think 9 kids went to all of the SUNYs combined even in this economy, with our state schools a true bargain. I guess predictable considering the kids have not been going to public schools from that high school. </p>
<p>But I’m getting way OT. I loved DePaul, and I didn’t see anything “wrong” with it. It would have made my list for a city school.</p>
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<p>Right, but the bottom line is, once you get past the tippy-top, it’s all regional. Can you think of a college at the DePaul academic level that has a true national reputation and national student body? Other than some of the large state schools?</p>
<p>Um, schools like American, Catholic, Fordham, Villanova, Gettysburg, to name a few, have a lot of student not from the immediate area as opposed to some schools right near them that do. George Mason, for example, Temple, Lasalle, Pace, Juniata College are all peer schools to what I initially listed, but the latter are more local, suitcase schools than the former.</p>
<p>Does it need to be said that a girl from Texas who loves DePaul is not interested in how many people from her state go to her college?</p>