I am debating on going to the following schools (I’m a junior and haven’t gotten in yet obviously but just want opinions:
UMiami
UFlorida
Boston U
Boston College
I want to go to a school that’s not too close to home since I wanna start living very independently.
However, knowing me I’m going to get really homesick and miss my parents since we are very close and I trust them with everything. They’re really chill and understanding and it’d be hard for me to leave them.
I live in Old Tappan, NJ and want opinions on kids who went away for college.
Boston is approximately 4 or 5 hours away by train.
Florida is approximately 21 hours by train.
I want to be able to come home during the weekends whenever I feel homesick and want to see my parents.
Would Florida be doable or should I stick with Boston?
From what I’ve seen, being more than 5 hours away( by car or train) is ok if the student is quite independent & homesickness & frequent travel are not likely to be a major concern. It might be ok to be farther than that if both the college & the hometown are close to a major airports, so reasonably priced non-stop flights are possible (but neither Fla school is close to a major airport). So, from the way you describe the situation, the Florida schools don’t seem like good options.
Are there any schools near Philadelphia or Washington DC that you like? Given the likelihood of frequent travel, being able to use the numerous transportation options along the Boston-NYC-Philly-DC corridor would seem to be the best strategy.
We live on Long Island. Here’s how I figure the whole going-away thing:
As long as you’re over a bridge-- ie, more than half an hour away-- you’re away. At that point, you’re as independent as you want to be. My son went to school near Philly-- 3 hours, door to door. My daughter is in New Hampshire. It’s supposed to be 5 hours, but it always turns into a 7 hour commute. Of the two, I would much prefer the shorter commute.
Here’s what I suggest: draw a circle with a radius of 300 miles around your home. For us, that’s roughly Boston to Baltimore, and west past Scranton. You’ll find hundreds of schools within that radius. Then start to concentrate on other important factors: the cost (that should be the first consideration!), whether or not you’re likely to be accepted (No sense in falling in love with a school you can’t get into), whether or not they have your major (ditto), and the general feel of the school.
You’ll want to start visiting schools this spring and summer-- even this winter if you can manage it. Take a look at the NJ State schools; they’re far more reasonable to you financially. Even if you’re confident you don’t want to go there, visiting a few schools will give you a better idea of what you’re looking for in terms of size, urban/suburban/rural, and a bunch of other factors.
Florida could end up easier due to Southwest flights. Check your carriers and closest airports. If you truly want to go home on weekends whenever you wish you need to look at colleges closer to home. Even a 4-5 hour drive on a weekend doesn’t give you must time to be home.
Florida is a very expensive flight and even if the flight is only 3 hours, the security and airport travel time will make it a huge hassle to go home for a weekend. If that’s something you really wanted consistently, Florida is probably not on the table IMO. Train is obviously not an option for FL, you’ll be flying.
Homesickness is hard and I don’t want to say it shouldn’t be a consideration because family is important, but you will still have holidays and summers, and going home too frequently can interfere with building a healthy and independent social life at your school, regardless of if its close or far.
As others said, wait until you get acceptances/COA’s back from the schools, but I wouldn’t eliminate any by travel time to home alone.
I agree that you can be very independent near home. I went to a school an hour away from home (with a tunnel along the way). I think my parents showed up once unexpectedly, and I went home one weekend fall of freshman year for a big, big high school football game. That was it. I felt a million miles from home.
Currently one of ours attends college about 2 miles from us, after vowing never to do that. They never thought they would go to school in the same town. We see them when they want us to see them. And once in a while we might have to hand off this or that. We often go 2-3 weeks without seem them, and then usually it’s at their initiative. So a lot depends on how you do things, and if you and your parents’ expectations are aligned.
If you do go to Florida, which might be great (and great weather), or somewhere else far away, it will probably feel like home pretty quickly (thought not immediately), and you’ll probably want to go home less than you think. You’ll be busy and lots will be going on.
But you have some time, so keep thinking about. Explore around. Would you be interested in VA or NC schools? You get nice weather there as well (for the most part), and they are more drivable. Check out the University of Richmond if you like BC (it is smaller) and Miami.
Good luck, have some fun visiting and getting to know some different places.
Most kids only come home a few times during college (thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, and summer break). All kids get a little home sick it’s normal but part of becoming an adult (18-21) is getting out of your comfort zone and not relying on your parents for support all the time.
If you book in advance, you can get some cheap flights to Florida or other east coast states from NJ.
Getting home on weekends is going to be quite difficult if you are more than a couple of hours from home, particularly if you don’t have a car. I think that I once figured that a plane ride that didn’t go anywhere would take at least four hours, between getting to the airport, checking in, going through security, waiting to board, taxiing out to the end of the runway, taxiing back in, deplaning, getting checked luggage, and getting home. Even without the expense you can’t do this very often. Even the drive from Boston to New Jersey is something that you are not going to want to do very often once you are in university.
We do have some experience with trying to get home from university in a snow storm. If you attend university in Boston, this will happen. Of course, Florida is a lot further away for you.
Also, if you live on campus, then you can attend university just a few miles from home and you will be independent and in essentially a different world compared to living at home.
Finally, the cost of education is something that most students need to take into consideration. You have great in-state options available in New Jersey, which will probably save you a bundle compared to the schools that you have listed.
You probably should first find out what your budget is. However, you should definitely at least apply to your in-state universities so that you have that option open when it comes time to decide which school to attend.
One of my kids wanted to be close enough to get home easily. S/he chose a school that lies along the train system that runs from Boston to DC; there’s Amtrack, NJTransit, Septa, Metronorth, LIRailroad, etc.
Also along that corridor there’re buses – megabus is quite cheap.
In other words, anywhere along the train system (or near the train system) would allow you to get home fairly easily. For example, if you chose American in DC, you could hop a megabus or train and get home to NJ fairly easily. Similarly, Connecticut College lies along the Amtrak line.
Sometimes schools are a little ways off of the train line, but it’s fairly easy to get a Lyft to the train station and/or there might be other students heading toward the closest train station who could take you.
Sometimes schools are so frequented by students from NJ / NYC that you can get rides from them. Schools like Muhlenberg come to mind or Ursinus.
There are many options for students from NJ who want to have the option to come home some weekends.
That being said, my child who DID want to come home and chose his/her college accordingly, has never come home for the weekend. S/he came home at autumn break, Thanksgiving, Winter Break – and skipped spring break because s/he has a school-related trip planned instead. Instead of coming home on weekends like s/he expected s/he is coming home rarely. In fact s/he is weighing the option of staying for the SUMMER to do research on campus and to help with the freshmen orientation.
It occurs to me that these driving distances are relative to regions of the country. Going to college an hour’s drive from your home in Massachusetts is really significant. Being an hour away in Texas…not so much. Heck, if you live in Los Angeles, you could go to college IN LOS ANGELES & still be about an hour away.
I’m from Bergen County as well, although the southern part (not the bubble).
I did my freshman year (16-17)in Philly, before transferring to BCC. I found it to be a good distance; far enough away to feel “independent”. An hour and a half on NJTransit for only $16. The only time a train was canceled was because of the snow, and I got an Uber to college for $30. NJTransit has a been a mess since the summer, but I’m not sure how much longer that’s supposed to last.