<p>Patient, I don't think anyone is putting down your situation. My nephew, who lives in the San Jose area, is struggling with the same issue. Stanford has strong athletics and academics and is one of the few top schools that gives athletic scholarships. Some deals are hard to beat.</p>
<p>Thank you, Patient. You've said what I've been thinking everytime we rehash this old topic. Who, exactly, gets to make the perfect rules for everyone's child? Who knows what's the best solution for the typical college-bound freshman? Then there's the constant assumption that kids who chose schools closer to home will bring laundry home each weekend and parents will drop in at school (???). I can't even fathom that! I don't do my S's laundry now....so I don't expect to do it next year. And popping in on him at college? Why would anyone want to do that? Maybe if you've never left town with your child....and your child clings to your apron all day....and they have no friends....and there's something seriously misaligned in their maturity, you might need to make rules about mileage and force them to leave. I'm not saying this is the case with any of the kids here...just that this is the only time it makes sense to me to be so rigid about college choices for our children. For a kid who you already know is making their own life at this point....and who have global exposure....I don't get this with the parents pulling the strings so much. It's almost like "my kid is going to be so worldly, and I'm going to see to it every step of the way"..... kind of misses the point, IMHO.</p>
<p>Can't they find their own way into the world? It really isn't that hard to do if we've been letting go like we're supposed to.</p>
<p>My son just read this thread and has invited everyone to come to Philadelphia to see if you think a kid won't grow up if they live on their own here...and if they won't experience anything new by going to school in University City (where Penn is). </p>
<p>He said he can see the logic of you live in Podunk and never leave (sorry, Podunk always gets a bad rap).</p>
<p>EDIT: I've been asked to add that I'm not allowed to do his laundry because I stretch his collars or shrink things.....which is his opinion ;) Funny that his sister never complains.</p>
<p>Twinkle:</p>
<p>My son went from the East (DC area) to California (LA). Our thinking was what with cell phones, the internet, and Jet Blue, California wasn't as far away as it used to be. Same holds true for NYC from CA.</p>
<p>Momsdream, Philadelphia is a cool city; my husband and I are just discovering it, now that son is nearby at Swarthmore. The museum of art is comparable to the Met in NYC, imho (not an Art expert). There are so many other smaller museums. The food scene is wonderful. South Street is great for young people. A lot of culture. University City where Penn is located is great as well.</p>
<p>My son is also 75 miles from home. He comes home a few times a semester; more than the normal Thanksgiving-Christmas scene. It is great for us that we get to see him. He gets a nice break and meets with his friends from Rutgers and Columbia and NYU.</p>
<p>I think what Patient said earlier is right also re: not need to leave your backyard if great schools exist there that fit the student. In the Mid-Atlantic part of the county (& in fact much of the Northeast - say DC to Boston- there are TONS of fabulous schools to possibly attend.</p>
<p>In my earlier post regarding the transfer students I worked with, this certainly came into play, because they were returning to a metro, tri-state area where there were many, many good schools to consider. I never considered their returning to be closer to home as a sign that they had not adjusted to college life. I really felt like they were looking for a better fit for themselves.</p>
<p>Momsdream, take the laundry & drop-ins as metaphor if you like.
Irishbird, availablity of good schools close to home is beside the point. Being cast more upon your own resources, being thrown in with students who mostly come from somewhere else, and experiencing everything from customs, history, weather, architecture, ways of looking at the world, and even food isn't. There's an educational and life benefit to getting outside the bubble of the safe, the familiar, the known. </p>
<p>I'm perfectly serene with the fact that it's not going to change that the vast majority of students do and continue to go to colleges close to home. There are plenty of high schools in this country where going to a college out of state labels you as strange and exotic...posters have cited same on this very forum. If I can help kick up the percentage of students & parents who consider doing so as alternative, well and good. There's enough insular "everything around here is good enough" thinking in the world that just a little bit less of it won't hurt anyone.</p>
<p>TheDad - Are you saying that if you lived in New England, you would have discouraged your daughter from applying to the schools which she applied to?</p>
<p>I think people have misunderstood my original post. First, I was making a point for the OP; many parents feel opposite to hers. Also, when we said "not within 300 miles" it was specifically for our D and with her needs in mind. </p>
<p>300 miles (admittedly, an arbitrary #) drew a circle that not only kept her out of our back yard but <em>also</em> out of a city where, at the time, a young man (age 23) whom she had a mad crush on was living. We thought it would be a disaster for her to build a college choice around an age-mismatched crush-- and we saw that one brewing (with guy's encouragement!) No way was I going to subsidize that train wreck. Finally, my D has had a unique life experience (long story) that also informed our position on her needing to get out into the world and be far enough away that it felt "far" for her. Like in the animal kingdom, some young are ready to fly but need that little shove.</p>
<p>Certainly we know kids who grew up in our town and attend nearby schools who see their families no more often than they would if they were 300 miles away... Other kids, for a variety of reasons, need more proximity to family. So it is a kid-by-kid decision.</p>
<p>Had we felt a nearby school was <em>in any way</em> in her best interest, we would not have said what we did. I would assume parents of kids attending colleges near home are also using their best judgement about what their kid wants and needs. </p>
<p>Finally, if there was a clear danger to my kid being far away (for example substance abuse history, psychological problems, etc) I would probably take the opposite position and say "no farther than X miles."</p>
<p>PS </p>
<p>I find it interesting that 80% of my D's apps are to schools 1500-3000 miles away-- WAY farther than the 300 mile line. If every school was 302 miles away it might be a sign of some major unreadiness or a major miscalculation on our part. But I think once she had the shove, she flew.</p>
<p>I think we'll agree to disagree here. Selecting a school where most of the students are from somewhere else has more to do with the school than the town in which it sits and that town's distance from your own front door. </p>
<p>According to the "far away" model, my son would have been better off going to (let's use Miami because it's a great school and is far enough away) Miami. 48% of Miami's students are from Florida. Instead, my son will attend Penn (where only 18% of the students are from the state). Given that knowledge, which student will experience more in the way of new customs and meeting people from somehwere else? Yeah, he'll meet more people from Florida at Miami...but he'll meet more people from EVERYWHERE at Penn..... But the international population of students was what most appealed to him. Perhaps immersion in the Floridian culture would be of some benefit, but I doubt it (nothing against Floridians...as I would LOVE to be one right NOW!!). Most schools have a similar profile of in-state students. Schools with a hefty out of state populations (more than 80%) and global reach don't seem all that common. </p>
<p>I'm also no expert on campuses across the country. But, when I have gone to Penn's campus I have been impressed by the vast amount of international cuisine/restaurants. I'm sure that this will be a new experience for my son, who really hasn't spent any time in that area before. We have visited quite a few distant schools, and found most places (especially the more remote locations in New England) to be pretty much off the map for the things we would like to experience in the way of cuisine. We visited Amherst and ate at Subway and Chilli's.....and maybe they had a strong presence of international cuisine, but I didn't find it. And, maybe they have their own regional cuisine. (?) I don't know. Maybe a view at this site will convince some that you can try different types of food, even when close to home, if you have the availability of such options .. Restaurant listing of Penn's campus. <a href="http://citypaper.net/rest/UniversityCity.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://citypaper.net/rest/UniversityCity.shtml</a> (and this list is only the bigger, more well established places...there are tons more "hole in the wall " spots - which we all know can be much, much more authentic - one place even has belly dancers, live musicians and hookah pipes) So, no, I don't think he's going to miss out on trying new foods just because he's staying close. </p>
<p>I just don't see forcing him to give up some of his key criteria for the sake of putting the miles at the forefront. I don't see giving up on an amazingly diverse, culturally rich and alive city just so that he go "survive" somewhere far enough to make the mileage cut. I think the only thing he would be surviving is the LACK culture and diversity, which isn't the kind of "new experience" I want for him. </p>
<p>Not every kid lives in a bubble that suddenly requires the parental pin prick at 18.</p>
<p>achat, </p>
<p>Philadelphia is museum-crazy. My son was at PMA earlier today visiting his former boss from his internship. He loves that place and thinks the museum employees (curators, conservationists) are the coolest. Dali is on exhibit 2/15 - June, I think. Maybe you'll come into the city for it. That is, if you like Dali </p>
<p>The restaurant scene is another story - it's too much for me to keep up with. I don't know how they all survive, as there seem to be so many popular places.</p>
<p>SBMom-
I'm in agreement with you...it is a kid-by-kid decision, IMHO. I'm just concerned about others feeling that there is a "one size" approach (rules to choose by) to college choices.</p>
<p>patient, momsdream and theDad - I agree with all of you. Is that possible?:confused:</p>
<p>Momsdream, Wow, your son interned at PMA!!! Wow, I am soooo impressed. Yes, I like
Dali, I'll visit one of these days. I love visiting PMA. And my son had an intro Art history class last semester and he would go there and I'd join him, so I learned a lot from him. Sort of like 2-in-one for the tuition we paid! That course was concentrated on Renaissance, not contemporary. So I learned a lot about Northern Renaissance etc.
Thanks for the suggestion.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo, exactly. I'm a disciple of the Chelsea Clinton theory: if you live on one coast, go to college on the other. (Which is how she made the decision on Yale vs. Stanford.) If we lived in New England, I think she might have been looking at Pomona, Scripps, Stanford (hey...just as easy to get rejected from NE as here), Whitman, UCLA (terrible idea from here since TheMom works there and she did summer programs when she was a sprout and knows the campus far too well...and I think it's a bad fit for her anyway). Closer to home both Oberlin and Carelton probably would have been on the radar screen. </p>
<p>The one element that might have thrown the thesis out the door was ballet: some of the surviving Seven Sisters like Smith and Barnard have the superior ballet she was looking for access to and that idiosyncratic criterion might have caused a conflict in decision making. (Her two irreducible criteria were very high academics and access to advanced ballet..."access to intermediate only" need not bother applying to the list.)</p>
<p>Momsdream, I agree that not one size fits all. However, I don't regard anything I've suggested as a parental pricking of a bubble. Penn vs. Miami isn't a good match-up, imo; Penn vs. Stanford would be. (It doesn't help that I respect Penn and loathe Miami.)</p>
<p>JmMom, the ability to entertain contradictions is a sign of intelligence. :)</p>
<p>I was just curious. My son followed the Chelsea model as we are from Pennsylvania and he goes to Stanford. Most of the other colleges he applied to were on the East Coast, although only one of them was very close to home. Personally I agree with those who have said that it is desirable to attend a college where students come from all over the country and the world. My daughter will be attending a school about 500 miles away from our home which has students from every state and only a small percent of local students. It was actually the furthest away college she considered - the others were all at least 3 hours from our home. I really don't think it matters how far it is from the student's home, although it is great for my son and the rest of our family to learn what life is like in California.</p>
<p>
I will sleep well tonight. :D</p>
<p>TheDad,</p>
<p>You are SO unfair ;) ... using Stanford as your comparison (my personal fav). Stanford is the ONLY school that I can think of that I really feel was a better match.</p>
<p>But, if you recall my "way back when" posts about Stanford, my S has a fear of the earthquakes. Nontheless, Stanford's RD application evelopes were sittng the the school GC's office until Dec 10 - per my persuasion. </p>
<p>However, I don't really believe that Palo Alto would offer anything more than the campus of Stanford - I could be wrong, but I don't think there is a lot in the way of culture and history there. And, Stanford's campus wouldn't offer anything more than Penn (with the exception of architecture - and weather). Anyway, I don't think the museum situation was up to par. </p>
<p>So, as much as I love Stanford.....I still don't buy the mileage theory. I love it for other reasons and if it was in my own backyard, I would still find it just as appealing.</p>
<p>Achat, yep, he did intern at PMA.....twice. During the first internship he prepared and installed a featured exhibit - going to other museums to collect the pieces, X-raying the art, designing the exhibit, etc. He was thrilled. When he returned for the second internship he worked with the back-office operational end...making spreadsheets to catalog data, research, etc. He lost a little of his enthusiasm that time. It's an amazing museum. Does your son like Art History? If so, they have something in common! That was cool that you shared that with him. I favor impressionism because of it's "alive" appearances. I wish I could find a broker for him to intern with this summer. That would be a cool alternative to the museum curator business.</p>
<p>The more I think about this "send them far" approach and I think of California, I have to caveat by admitting that from Jan 2000 until summer of 2003, I had an office in Burbank. I flew out a couple of times a month and in the summer often arranged meetings to fall on a Thursday or Friday so that I could take the kids and spend the weekend in LA or drive to Laguna. If the kids couldn't go, I would often fly out on the first AM USAir non-stop flight, meet with the client (time zone changes allowed me to arrive in time to meet for lunch and hold an afternoon meeting)and fly back non-stop on that evening's red eye...being back in Philly at 6am and home before the kid s woke up - less than 24 hrs after leaving. Thus, I don't think I ever really viewed colleges on the left coast as being so much different than being right here.</p>
<p>You know maybe for adults (who have exposure to lots of other adults from all over) the two coasts are not so different... But to an 18 year old who has grown up in one place, it is a whole different culture-- because it is that first, concentrated exposure to "new."</p>