As a senior in high school this is what I suggest…
Try to figure out what exactly scares her. Is it missing you? Not having your help? Being in a new environment? I’m usually very adventurous but I’m still a little scared to leave for college too. For me it’s missing my best friends. More specifically the possibility of not having someone who I can tell everything or who will do anything for me on a moments notice. Identifying the specifics makes it more manageable.
Visiting college again and staying over for accepted student night is always a good idea. I even know parents who booked a serviced apartment near school and vacationed there for a week and by fourth day, kid told them to leave and not drop by every evening.
However, she can go to local community college for now if she prefers it here. She can transfer to an in state school after two years.
It’s so hard to know what is just a “normal” reaction to the sudden reality that now accepted to a school she thought she wanted to go do means that she is going to have to leave home and all the security that goes with it. For every 17 to 18 year old, this is a scary step, no matter how excited they are to go, and a bittersweet step for parents too. It is important that the emotional impact of this transition is not underestimated. Funny enough, it is very hard to predict how the OP’s daugther will end up doing in the fall. Maybe having all of this anxiety now will make the actual transition easier when it happens. No one can reliably predict. What the parent can do is have a back up plan if it doesn’t work out. I guess those of us for whom a huge distance isn’t really a choice, like @GMTplus7 and myself is that our kids don’t have a choice of two hours, versus six or eight or twelve hours away, it’s going to take almost two days to get “home” no matter what.
Thank you so much for all of your help. It’s funny - I just thought the same thing - better to get the anxiety out now. What my husband and I have come to realize is that she is just scared to leave home. She has a twin and I"m sure that plays into it as they have never been apart. He is going 5 hours away and is nervous but excited. They are all different. My oldest had no problems leaving home yet admits that she got homesick. I have a feeling my daughter will end up surprising herself once she goes.
Our son seemed completely fine about going off to college, and then on the night before he left he had a melt down at a restaurant we had taken him for a farewell dinner, realizing he had never really been away from home for more than a week without a parent along. DH and I were supportive and tried to radiate our confidence in him, but were actually quite worried about whether he would be ready the next day. But he woke up that morning completely past his anxiety, ready for adventure, and has never looked back. Jitters are normal.
"Anyone else going through this? "
- We did not. My D. limited her list of colleges to the ones within 3.5 hours of driving from home, but she did not want to attend at the local college either. I would not force a kid to attend where she does not want to. It will be a lot of adjustments once they start at college no matter where they attend. You would want to eliminate as many as possible. So, if something has been identified as a negative aspect, then try to avoid it. I do not know what else could be done. When my kid mentioned that she likes if campus is pretty, we took it seriously. Since it was important to her, then it became important to us. If she decided to attend at our local college, that would be totally fine with us.
I am sure though, that the young people have a create capacity to adjust, they just underestimate themselves in this area. Best wishes!
Will she have a car? It might be reassuring to know that she “could” get home in a day if she felt the need. Chances are she’d not opt to do so very often. If it’s affordable for your family, it might be more convenient than flying back and forth for breaks. Assuming that she attends, that is.
Honestly… better to not have a car. Being on campus is the quickest way to make friends and acclimate. If she leaves when she can, she is missing that early window when everyone is looking for new friends.
My DD is nervous about college as well. We don’t think of this as a weakness (“she’ll never be independent”) but a stepping stone to being independent. There are so many resources now to make the transition easier (Skype!). 30 years ago we had to write letters and wait in line for the hall payphone. Now you can Facetime with mom or dad if crisis occurs.
Edited to add that you know your kid best. There is being smothering and then there is a conscious need to make sure the kid is ok. Anxiety and depression, diagnosed ahead of time, are REAL issues and need REAL monitoring, just to be safe.
In many places, cars are not allowed during freshman year. Driving for 6 hours under distress is not a good idea anyway. I assume that if a kid wants to go home out of ordinary situation when they are on break, I assume that their reason is that they are not happy
Yeah, I would add “must have car” to the dealbreaker thread. One thing I don’t want to have to worry about is them driving around when they’re at school. Which is why my other dealbreaker was “not rural”.
It’s ok to be scared. It’s your brain telling you to pay attention ;).
hello! im in this current situation actually. I’ll be going to college that’s five hours away from my parents. I think the best way is to simply give her encouraging words. I’m really scared to move so far away from mom and dad but when my mom randomly tells me that I have to call her every hour or Skype with them, it makes me feel better or when my parents remind me why I’m there. So, honestly just encourage her 
My oldest is more independent and went to school 3.5 hours away. My youngest has social anxiety and picked one an hour away…far enough away for some independence, but close enough that I can drive over if necessary. She was not interested in super local schools.
Maybe get her evaluated for social anxiety… You have to figure if it is just the normal off to school nervousness or something more.
@litorodriguez I really like what you said about how your mother telling you she wants you to call her every hour makes you feel better. I think sometimes kids develop more fear when they feel that they are being pushed out of the nest, and that, strangely, when parents express the need to hang onto them and look out for them, it can make them feel more confident and able to spread their wings.
I dealt with this last year. D1 chose a school 13 hours away. I knew she was scared and I was afraid the distance would exacerbate her anxious tendencies, but she really, really wanted to be there. I flew out in October, she came back in November, December, and March. She’s a very independent kid, so we Skyped once a week. She has never enjoyed phone calls, but I did get a text every couple of weeks.
When she came home in May, she was a different kid than the one we saw at spring break. Weight gain, withdrawn, quiet. Turns out she had gone to counseling, been referred to a psychologist, and diagnosed with major depression and anxiety. Her last several weeks had been horrible – she was having trouble in two classes (but underplayed the situation to us), felt incapable of taking any action to improve her situation, and very isolated as she tried to handle it on her own. We’re spending this summer on damage control and improving her mental health. She wants to go back in the fall and I think that may happen.
My intent is not to worry you with a scary story, but to urge you that when your daughter has expressed fear about leaving, you MUST be in communication with her frequently enough to monitor how things are going. My D1 knows that frequent, regular communication is one of the non-negotiables if/when she returns.
From her standpoint, this is completely wrong. She’s used to having you there day to day, moment to moment. Now it will require planning and travel.
I sent a terrified kid away to school, thinking it was no big deal and she’d get over it quickly. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Her entire freshman year was a nightmare. I think it would have been entirely different if she’d taken a gap year. Could your D do that?
My son chose a college 500 miles away from home.
He was the one that made the decision that was the school he wanted, he said he wanted to be far from home, we visited more than once before making the decision. He was excited about it, planning and buying supplies until…
The night before he was scheduled to leave for school when the car was half packed, he went out to see friends that were all heading off in different directions. Although we were supposed to leave early the next day, he stayed out to well past midnight and came home in tears saying he’d changed his mind and that he didn’t understand how anyone with friends could just choose to leave.
That was a long night! I told him that it was too late to change his mind at that point, but that it wasn’t a permanent decision, that he needed to go give it ‘the ole college try’ and if it really didn’t work out he could consider transferring at the end of the semester or end of the year.
One of his biggest concerns is with his friends all going in different directions that they would lose touch and that he wouldn’t see them anymore. I told him in the day of social media that he could stay as in touch with them as he wanted even being several hours apart.
That was over 5 years ago. He’s still at that school - he’s done a co-op that’s even required him to stay an extra year.
I see him about once a month - I go down in August (even the years when he’s renewing an apartment lease and doesn’t have to move) to buy his books and make sure he’s settled in for the start of the year, in September/October he will come home for fall break or I’ll travel to visit him, in November he’s home for Thanksgiving and in December for the semester break, I see him at the beginning of January before he heads back to school and then travel to see him in February when I have a long weekend for President’s Day, in March/April he’s home for spring break, and then I see him in May at the end of the year (even when he stays for summer classes or his co-op he always takes a short break to come home and unwind). It works REALLY well for us and frankly I think he likes his independence and wouldn’t want to see me more frequently.
He was very concerned about losing touch with his HS friends, but has managed to stay in touch with all that he wanted. He sees most of them during breaks and has gone to several different colleges to visit friends and a few have made the trip to visit him. He was just a groomsman in the wedding of one of his HS friends.
He even convinced one of his friends from HS to transfer to his school and they now share an apartment there.
I think all kids are a bit scared of change and the unknown and it may be that the OPs daughter would be better off near home or it may be that she is just worried about all the changes that she will soon go through.
I’d talk to her about exactly what her worries are. My son had a SERIOUS concern that once he left for college he would never see or talk to his HS friends again. I explained that I am still friends with someone I met when I was 7 even though we’ve both moved several times to several different states.
Talk to her about what her worries are to see if there is a way to address them (if she’s worried about not seeing family make a plan about how often and when you’ll be able to visit) or if it would be better for her to stay near home.
I was scared to death the night before moving into my dorm back in the day and I told my D that the weekend before we left last year to move her in. My H told her the same exact thing. It’s normal to be nervous, scared, etc. We went through the homesickness thing with her, Sept. was rough! Then she came home in Oct. for Columbus Day weekend and was fine after that. One thing that helped both of us was snapchat. It became this fun thing that was like getting a little present every now and then. Highly recommend!!