<p>Oh, kind of interesting…of my D’s thirteen closest friends and HS teammates of the class of 2012, only two went to college in Texas! A pair of twins split UT and TAMU - the rest went OOS. Two to LSU, two to Univ. Arizona and the rest on either coasts! Pretty unusual - only one is trying to change and that is from Univ. of Vermont to Univ. of Arizona.</p>
<p>My D went from one coast to the other. Much like your D she wanted to see another part of the US and forge her own path. Did she ever get homesick, yes. Would she have if she were just an hour away from home? Yes. It is the nature of the beast, moving out of the comfort of home. Being known and moving through life easily is now gone. Forthe first few months they get used to this new life, new friends, and even a new bed! It all can make a child homesick. My D would not change anything about her experience. She loves her friends, school, and college experience.</p>
<p>It is a great time to stretch and grow. Best wishes to your D as she chooses her next step. She certainly has great choices in front of her!!</p>
<p>Onesonmom, that’s so cool! :)</p>
<p>Thank you all for the feedback - this is my first to leave the nest, so it is all new. @texascollegemom and pugmadkate, nice to hear the endorsements for Northeastern, her Boston choice. Guess she won’t be the only Texan on campus if she ends up there. I am so impressed with the school, programs and campus and can really see her there.</p>
<p>@bethievt, she has never lived in the North, only visited, so it will be a major change. Snow is so pretty…the first week.</p>
<p>I think you should lay out the pros and cons for each choice with her in a dispassionate manner, but it has to be a choice that she makes and owns. </p>
<p>My own D is not that far away (300 miles) but I went to college 1200 miles away from home. It was very hard the first year. I also really wanted to do it. Your D will face some temporary homesickness and sense of cultural displacement if she goes to MA. It will pass and she’ll be happy if, and only if, she does not feel pushed out of the nest.</p>
<p>I don’t think my son experienced any homesickness at all when he went to college (20=hour drive away or 2 flights connecting in Chicago). We did see him almost every month though, that first year.</p>
<p>As far as the cold goes, the proper clothing can keep anyone comfortable. Lots of college kids enjoy playing in the snow. She wouldn’t need to get anything in advance. Her friends from cold weather states would be happy to advise.</p>
<p>As others have said, two great choices. She can’t really go wrong.</p>
<p>I agree with NJSue, “…it has to be a choice that she makes and owns.” A friend once told me that if the college choice turns out to be less than ideal, you do not want the guilt of being the one who pushed for the choice. </p>
<p>Most likely your daughter will be happy with either university. I think the month of April is the time seniors really start to realize they are about to make a huge life change. Graduation is close; they are all receiving college acceptances and trying to decide where to go and they are having their final high school experiences with kids they have often grown up with. I think a lot of them get nervous. August is a completely different story. Most of them are truly excited to leave. They’ve grown comfortable with their decision, their friends are scattering over a period of weeks and even months and they’ve been prepared. Parents have helped shop and pack, colleges have had introduction days and they have had four months to get used to the idea of moving on whether they go far or near. They will go through a lot of change in the next four to five months.</p>
<p>I am laughing remembering that my older son pretty much calculated how far away he would have to be in order to discourage me from unexpected visit! (apparently he doesn’t think I have a life of my own.) He is a 5 hour drive away and if he came home by plane it would be longer since there is no direct flight. It’s a drag but mostly just beginning and end of the year when he needs help moving in and out.</p>
<p>I would tell your daughter that you support her decision whatever she chooses but that she will be busy and make friends wherever she goes and if the far away college is her first choice she should go for it! When I first moved away from home, across the country, it made me anxious until I realized that life is pretty much the same wherever you go and with skype, texting, FB and email its like you are right there next door anyways.</p>
<p>My well travelled and (I would have thought) fairly independent D is a freshman at our state flagship, a couple of hours from home. We parents have been somewhat surprised to have her home on quite a lot of weekends. She has a car, so it’s easy for her to drive home. All this visiting is perhaps due to a combination of factors - she had a lot of health issues for a significant chunk of first semester, she had a problematic boyfriend relationship on campus that she was coming home to avoid while working around to a break-up, but perhaps equally, she wasn’t quite ready to cut the ties with mom and dad.</p>
<p>I suspect some will read this and think we should be (or have been) tough, push her out of the nest more vigorously, etc. However, DH and I think that, just as with toddlers reaching developmental milestones, it’s perfectly OK for her to be moving out of our orbit at her own pace, a little more slowly than the average college freshman separates from family. We can see she’s been getting more differentiated as the school year goes on, and are fairly confident that she’ll be ready to go away on her planned study abroad a year from now, and when the time comes, to grad school wherever. Meanwhile, we’ve enjoyed seeing more of her than we expected, this school year.</p>
<p>So to OP, I concur with others that you should let your D make the decision, and be ready to be a sounding board, discuss pros and cons etc. if she wants.</p>
<p>I told our kids that I would rather drive them to the airport then drive them 5 hours to school :D. How long is the drive to the in-state option?</p>
<p>I’m another Texan whose kid had to make a similar decision. My S chose to leave Texas but his choice really seemed to be the better fit for him. I had to look and your other posts to see which honors program you were talking about. It looks like it is P2, which is a very unque and wonderful program that she will not find in another school. If this is what appeals to her then Austin would be the better choice. If she isn’t ready to leave home I wouldn’t worry. My second S limited his applications to UT and TAMU that was all he wanted to consider and this was right for him. In our decison maiking process whether it was looking at schools within the state or accross the country it came down to listing what my kids liked about each school and weighing out the pros and cons. Parental participation came in as we discussed the pros and cons of each school. (S2 however eventually took a week where he wouldn’t talk to anyone and made his unflappable choice by himself…I’m sure the Texans on this thread can appreciate the pull and tug he experienced deciding between TAMU and UT) As the mom of a kid who had to medically withdraw this semester I can say it is so much easier to deal with issues from within state than accross the country. If there is hesitation about going far away then staying closer to home may be right. Oh, and my S who left Texas for school, I don’t think I will ever get him back, even with UT as a real option for the next step. He really wanted to go to the school he chose and never looked back. We have no family anywhere near his school. I think if a kid is going to make the big move they should really want it. It wasn’t my thought the first time around, but when S2 chose to stay in state I was thrilled! If your daughter puts that many miles between home and school she should really want it. If she doesn’t enjoy having her closer to home. There will be other opportunities to experience other parts of the country and the world when she is ready.</p>
<p>Op,
I would consider the costs of the downside: if she started in Boston and later decided to transfer to UT-Austin.
Did she receive any merit or financial aid at UT-Austin? If she were to apply as a transfer student to UT-Austin, would the COA as a soph be the same as if she had started at UT-Austin as a frosh? And would she be able to get back into the honors program as a transfer student? </p>
<p>If this is the case, then by all means, she should go to Boston. Don’t let her know that she has UT-Austin as a backup. This is the best time in life to try new things!! And you would have peace of mind to know that she has options if it doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>That being said, DD is very independent and adventurous and moved from CA to the northeast for college. The weather difference is such a shocker that I really don’t know if she can take it for 4 years. We would have never anticipated this because she always said that she was sick of the warm weather. So sometimes you never really know what it’s like to live somewhere else until you just DO it.</p>
<p>“People make the leap when they’re ready. The beginning of college is not the only opportunity.”</p>
<p>I second and third Marian’s quote! And her son’s experience was very similar to our oldest D’s. She had top choices on the opposite side of the country as well and got the proverbial cold feet as senior year wore on. She had skipped a grade, so she was also a young senior. In the end she chose a state school that is a six hour drive away and still a very different experience. Academically, it covered all of the bases but she does at times wish she had at least as a compromise considered some of the private schools ‘away’, but on this coast (but she is glad that her life as worked out the way it has due to her original choice). </p>
<p>To compensate, she did work at jobs across the country every summer while in college (five different states) and did one summer abroad honors program and junior year overseas as well. She met her husband when he came over to the USA to work for the summer and said they were probably drawn to each other because he was from the country where she went abroad her junior year. Our granddaughter was eventually born overseas…so you never know how it will end up!</p>
<p>OP, your D will be fine. Compared to the travel my daughter has to do from Honolulu to Washington D.C. – about 12 hours – hers will be a piece of cake. She may be homesick the first year but if she really wants that Boston school-- she will get over it.</p>
<p>Oh, and you’ll be fine too! :)</p>
<p>The drive to Austin is just over 2 hours, so very do-able. Yes, the Honors program at UT is P2 vs. University scholars program at NEU.</p>
<p>YoHo, I think you touched at the heart of my angst - Boston is affordable right now due to the excellent full tuition merit package from Northeastern. We do not qualify for any need based. If she turns down NEU and then changes her mind, I do not think she would get anything even close as a transfer. OTOH, we are full pay at UT. If she goes to Boston and then changes her mind, I do believe UT would take her as a transfer (others have done it) and it would still be affordable, however P2 would be out as you must begin as a Freshman. So one door or the other does close with her decision.</p>
<p>I have enjoyed reading about the different, yet equally successful paths your kids have taken. I know she will ultimately make the right decision for HER - I just wish she would do it already so I can sleep better at night!</p>