One thing holding us back from out-of-state places we might consider

Parents Forum
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<p>Thanks to all who posted their viewpoints. I think what would be neat is if I could convince him to visit the campus. If he ended up liking it (and could gain admission there), I think the rest would fall into place for his worries about leaving the area. </p>

<p>Funny, I always assumed it was a public university. I think the small size of it would appeal to him. It's weird how we have assumptions about places that aren't around us. I've now heard of colleges I never knew existed. This board is really helpful.</p>

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<p>Your son won't need a car in Chicago. Plenty students don't have one. You could drive him to school, park where the school tells you, help him move in, and then drive home. It's very doable.</p>

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<p>As others have said, your son not only won't need but won't want a car in Chicago. It's a hassle, especially for a college kid. And as far as getting to and from home, recognize first that that's only a few times the whole year -- Thanksgiving, the term breaks, spring break. You probably only need to drive that twice -- to drop him off in the fall and pick him up in the spring -- and I'm sure the U of C is very helpful to parents as to how to do that. On the other occasions the easiest thing would be for him to take the train to as close to home as he can get and for you to pick him up there. No big deal.</p>

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<p>Orangepop: You can visit U of Chicago by car. Park on the Midway
Plaisance. You would be driving on an expressway the whole way, there
are three exits for Hyde Park--pretend you are going to the Museum of
Science and Industry, get off at that exit. You are next to Lake Michigan,
so you cannot get lost. Drive past the Museum and turn south and watch
for "Midway Plaisance" and take that west (away from the lake remember) and
drive until you see campus. Look at satellite photos on internet.</p>

<p>Your son doesn't need a car on campus as a first-year. From Iowa, I
would drive, not bother flying. (gas, yikes!)</p>

<p>My son moved into his dorm there last Sept--all we did was pull up to
the curb and open the doors. The upperclass housemates were waiting
with bins on wheels and they took ALL his boxes and guitar and everything and delivered them right to his room! It was the easiest move in my life! And I had wasted a lot of time, writing his name, room #, house name, dorm name on every box--for nothing, lol.</p>

<p>If you can handle visiting Northwestern, you can handle UChi.</p>

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<p>I flew 3000 miles to get to my college...yeahhh it's a bit more of a hassle than it was for my roommate who just drove an hour and she got to have more stuff in the room and didn't have to deal with summer storage like I did, but it's really a small pain that lasts a day or so and that pays off in an entire school year. </p>

<p>Most people don't have cars in college. Parking spaces are hard to find and public transportation is usually quicker or easier. </p>

<p>Kids adjust to the travelling thing really quickly. When you haven't travelled, it seems really intimidating(I know it did for me)...but now I navigate my way through buses to trains and through random airports I've never been to before on my own with relative ease. Most of transportation(train, bus, airport, whatever) is relatively user-friendly from my experience(just look for the signs, or ask someone who works there, and they usually point you on your way). </p>

<p>I know small town kids who are at my university. They adjusted just fine. They find the culture shock kind of fun(as do we when they tell us about small town life).</p>

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<p>Both of my older boys went to colleges 7 hours away by car. Though the distance is drivable for us, after the first year, we tend to rent a car to go there and fly back and vice versa. That way we have the car to haul stuff up there and have while we visit, but do not have to drive the trip home. We often just do a day trip that way, saving on a hotel room, and it is cheaper that way too, since one of us goes up with the student, saving on two airfares, and returns with a one way ticket when he goes up to college, and one of us flies up there and rents a car at the airport, picks up the kid and stuff and shares the driving home at the end of the year. Once they were there for a while, they found other kids who live near by that they could ride with, even for that distance. There were a few times that they took a bus or train from a location a couple of hours away or we picked them up somewhere about an hour away. Neither kid had or has a car at college, nor will my third.</p>

<p>My third picked a college cross country. He will be flying out there early as he has some things to do with friends in the area, and H and I shall join him later with a car laden with things before move in day. We are making this part of our vacation and driving cross country with a rental, and will fly back home. We are so looking forward to this.</p>

<p>These days, there is not much they really need at school. Since everything can be done by computer or ipod or cell, there isn't the need for the stereo system that was our generation's baggage. You can buy most things there; if you buy at chain stores you can pick up items there that you choose locally. I have always purchased the computer at the college because they load with all the necessary software, and it just makes it easier. I usually ordered the linens from the brochure the colleges send, as well. There really is not that much more to get. You can find Walmarts, Targets, Dollar Shops everywhere, and you can send a box to them as well.</p>

<p>Once they are at the college, they learn about shuttles, buses, rides to the airports. The bulletin boards are full of that info. None of my kids have had trouble getting to airports to get home. It's going to be more of a challenge with this third one since there are NO direct flights from his city to ours, and it's going to mean 2 flights with a transfer. I can tell you that it did make us pause, but he really loved the school.</p>

<p>I would have preferred a school within 3 hours away with good transportation available. He had such choices, and the distance and trouble did come into consideration in the final decision. He felt strongly that the school of choice was worth the extra hassle in transportation, as did his brothers when they made their choices. I can tell you that as I drove on route 80 west, many a time I would look wi****lly at the exit for Bucknell U which was about half the distance from our home and kid's college, and was his second choice school with a tough decision made, and think, "if he went there, I'd be there now".</p>

<p>There are disadvantages. If something happens, you cannot be there as quickly or as inexpensively. I had to eat some plane tickets that I got ahead of time that could not be used because of change in plans that occurred. However, it has given them whole new worlds away from home.</p>

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<p>It's true your son wouldn't need a car at the University of Chicago.</p>

<p>It's not necessarily true that your son wouldn't WANT a car there. The kids with cars find lots of things to do with them (including having lots of friends among kids without cars). While public transit is pretty good in Chicago, there are lots of places students like to go that are 90 minutes from campus without a car, and 20 minutes with.</p>

<p>But that's all for the future. Going to college in Chicago doesn't require a commitment to drive around the city. It does require a commitment to live someplace quite different than where he lives now.</p>

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<p>My son comes from a town of 8000 (must sound huge to orangepop ;) ). Some of us bemoaned the arrival of our first traffic light a few years ago; I still consider it an interloper.</p>

<p>My son has gone to school in New Orleans and Baltimore. The first involved getting to and from by air. The second largely by car (we drive him and pick up at beginning and end of school year).</p>

<p>He hasn't had a car at either place. Might he occasionally use one if he had it? Sure. Is it worth the cost? No. </p>

<p>If you think your son might like what UChicago has to offer, I'd suggest a visit. If you and he think there would be benefit to stretching his horizons for college, then exploring some big city options might be nice. If not, he can have quite a broadening experience at any college, including those in his backyard. </p>

<p>There is also a world of options in between - colleges in different parts of the country but in similarly small town/rural atmospheres to where he has grown up.</p>

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<p>Guess what...being so curious about this place brings up a new feeling for me....what if my son really, really likes it if we visit and then he doesn't get in. I've never thought of a place for him yet that there was much question about admission.</p>

<p>I guess this would be the "reach" schools I read about on here, and I guess it's good to have a goal like that. It doesn't hurt to try! </p>

<p>I can imagine the anguish of not being admitted to your top choices...but I'm sure that is part of the process many students have to go through.</p>

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<p>Going back to the original question:</p>

<p>People deal with transportation in lots of different ways. For us, Southwestern Airlines has made transportation relatively easy, and less expensive than we feared it would be. UPS has handled transportation for a few items that could not be carried as baggage. Other people drive their kids to and from college, as reported above.</p>

<p>Once a kid is in college and has his bearings, many other transportation modes may suggest themselves: getting rides with other Iowans for gas money and company, busses, trains, etc. It may make sense to take a bus to someplace in between, and you meet him there. People figure out ways to do things.</p>

<p>Realistically, you can probably count the number of times he will travel between home and college on your fingers. If you're lucky, you might have to use some toes, too. It's a finite number of trips, a finite number of days of inconvenience, with each event involving a menu of different options and trade-offs. Travel difficulties can loom large in peoples' minds, but measured against the scope of the college experience they are pretty unimportant.</p>

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<p>One of my friends at Chicago comes from town with no stoplight in a county with one stoplight. S won't be the only one.</p>

<p>In my opinion, it's not going to be the to and from that will be the biggest burden, but it will be the adjustment to city life. JHS mentioned that Hyde Park (where Chicago is) doesn't have much of a city feel to it, but I think that JHS and I are used to other factors of Hyde Park, like the fact that we live in a racially diverse neighborhood, and that if you leave your bike out without a lock on it, it might not be there when you come back.</p>

<p>I was perfectly adjusted to living in a city, but I was not initially comfortable with living in a racially and economically diverse section of a city. This is of course not to say that I try to be racist or classist, but rather than I grew up in a pretty homogenous environment where everybody looked like me physically and had about as much money (or more) as I did, so I had my own sort of "culture shock."</p>

<p>In either case, it's definitely a school worth visiting and it's worth checking out the neighborhood (if you visit, please message me so I can set you up with a Hyde Park "walking tour"-- most visitors don't know where the retail and shopping sections are, so they end up wandering around the hospital complex or something). If you decide to slash the school off your list for logistical reasons, at least you gave it a fair shot.</p>

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<p>hehe! Had to chuckle as my city girl took her car to school in Iowa her freshman year as she exclaimed "I need something to to get away from all those cornfields and windmills!" ;)</p>

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<p>unalove, I was only trying to say that driving in Hyde Park (after taking I-55 to Lake Shore Drive and getting off around 57th) would not be especially challenging, or much different from what one might encounter in Iowa. I didn't say that Hyde Park wouldn't present other challenges. It would.</p>

<p>You may not drive anywhere, so you may not appreciate that. I drive in cities all the time, but taking a wrong turn and winding up on the lower level of Wacker Drive a few years ago practically gave me a heart attack. It was really scary. So is driving around Manhattan, or San Francisco. Driving almost anywhere in Boston is a nightmare. So I can appreciate if someone from rural Iowa feels nervous about driving around Chicago. He should. He should take it very carefully. But that doesn't apply to the part where you get from Iowa to the University of Chicago. You can do that without extreme urban-driving stress.</p>

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<p>Orangepop, all students interested in "reach" schools should be ready for not getting in. Encourage your son to approach the application process realistically, and to consider all his options and that includes those all-important "'safeties." (One of the mantras on CC is "love your safety" - a very wise mantra it is.)
That shouldn't stop you from taking him to see the UofC campus or any other school he's interested in. These trips will open his eyes and his mind to a lot of fascinating opportunities. And it's an interesting rite of passage for both kids, and their parents. Try to enjoy it!</p>

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<p>We live in Wisconsin. My 3 boys attended schools in Rochester NY, Portland OR and Oberlin OH. We found Rochester easy to fly in and out of. UR is not that far from the airport and cab service is very easy to get and not all that expensive. The one who went to Portland had to make a conscious choice to go to school that far away. We told him we would only pay for flights at Christmas and a the beginning and end of the school year. He loved Portland and never had any regrets about going to school out there. And none of my sons have had cars. They manage quite nicely.</p>

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<p>Here's the situation in reverse: My son, a die-hard urban kid from a big city on the East Coast, will be going to a state university in a college town in the Midwest because it's a great school for his intended major. Except for his cousins, he's never really known suburban kids, small-town kids--or, for that matter, kids from any part of the country but his own. He's grown up with racial and economic diversity as the norm. He travels by bike or subway and does not have a driver's license yet. He's politically liberal. One of of his best personality traits, though, is his adaptability, so I'm crossing my fingers that the culture shock won't knock him over. In our family we talk about how variety is good, and getting outside our own little bubbles (urban, rural, or in between) is healthy. It depends on the kid, I'm sure, but it's only for four years, and it's a way of trying out other experiences. A campus in a huge city, as others have suggested, can have a hometown, small feel (though some surely don't). Your son's own life experiences will contribute to the mix. I hope you can encourage him to at least visit different places and see how they feel to him.</p>

<p>My S did put some political buttons on his backpack when we went for a campus visit. He said, "When I leave my bubble, I want to make sure people know who I am."</p>

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<p>geezermom - depending on what state school your son is attending he may be surprised at the diversity. One of my friends has a niece from a small town in Indiana who attended Purdue this year and was amazed at the size of the international community and has learned so much about other cultures - the Korean students apparently petitioned the cafeteria and now there is a Korean food option almost every day.<br>
We live in Asia now so our kids will have to fly to/from whatever school they choose and they don't even have driver's licenses. But, back in the day, when I left Houston for UMich I only flew home at Christmas and spring break week and had no car and things were fine. Most colleges are geared for students without cars - even the remote campuses have lots of buses.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
To me, going to Chicago sounds like an exciting possibility but if he doesn't feel comfortable, I know it just won't happen. I thought provided him a way to get there other than driving would help him relax about it. He could take other transportation the first year and then after that he'll know more what it is like and might feel comfortable taking a car.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm missing something. If he were to get in, why couldn't you drive him for move-in and then just drive back to Iowa after dropping him off?</p>

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<p>Both Ds are going to college in Boston, 1100 miles away. Once you're out of driving range, it's not that big a deal whether it's 600 miles, 1000 miles, or 3000 miles. We have Visa cards that rack up a free flight for every $8000 charged. It's GREAT having them in a city where a car is unnecessary. Obviously, there aren't the gas and maintenance costs, but they can go to an event where people are drinking and never have to worry about riding with a drunk driver. And when they graduate and buy cars, they'll be able to start their post-college lives with new cars, not four-year-old cars with nearly-expired warranties.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
We have Visa cards that rack up a free flight for every $8000 charged.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Which Visa card is that, please, gadad, and why didn't you tell me about it before I paid for a wedding?! :-)</p>

<p>
[quote]
If he were to get in, why couldn't you drive him for move-in and then just drive back to Iowa after dropping him off?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes, that's what I was wondering as well. </p>

<p>orangepop, I assumed you'd be driving him up and then driving back. I didn't think you'd be leaving him in Chicago with a car, as so many times, a car is unnecessary (and some campuses prohibit freshmen from having cars; don't know whether UChi does, however).</p>