I’m currently on the waitlist for the Fall 2015 semester at the University of Delaware. I was accepted for the Spring 2016 semester there, but I didn’t want to start my freshman year a semester late so I declined that offer. The University of Delaware is my first choice, but I need to choose another college to go to in case I don’t get off the waitlist. The other colleges I was accepted to are:
James Madison University (5 hours away)
Rutgers New Brunswick campus (45 minutes away)
Richard Stockton College of NJ (1 hour away)
Monmouth University (1 hour away)
I don’t know which one to choose! I was leaning towards James Madison University, but then I visited it last weekend and I realized how far away a 5 hour car ride is. I don’t know if I want to be that far away from my family since I’m really close to them. I liked Monmouth University until I saw online that their academics aren’t very good and a friend of my mom said that all the students there don’t take their work seriously and just party. I didn’t really like Rutger’s campus. Richard Stockton has really bad dorms so I probably won’t choose that college. What should I do?!
No one else can decide this for you. If you were my kid, I’d say to choose the best college based on academics. Once you’re settled in a school and get involved academically and socially, you won’t feel the need to be so close to family, honest. Five hours is okay for an occasional weekend trip home, and you really shouldn’t be coming home any more often than that. You can keep in touch with your family via Skype, etc.
I politely and respectfully disagree with MommaJ. Her experience is different than mine, but that doesn’t mean either of us are right/wrong. Just different.
I say that, since you have no credit, that the co-signers of your loan and their own loans, should have a say as well. Not a total say, but a significant say. They are the ones whose retirement & home are on the line for faulty decisions – especially if there are multiple college-goers in the family. You are just inconvenienced.
I have no idea what your criteria for selecting schools was. I agree with MommaJ that cold feet from a distant college can be overcome, but my experience tells me that those who worry about it prior to actually attending the school have a high failure rate. The ones who are most likely to get through the cold feet are the ones who couldn’t wait to move somewhere new and adapted through the homesickness.
If you do go away, bear in mind that you are most marketable post-graduation in the region of the college. But JMU is a good school and crepe myrtle trees are a reason to stay.
“Bad dorms” freshman year should be a consideration, but not a disqualifier. “Dormitory” is Latin for “a place to sleep”. If you do college right, that’s all you should use it for. If it fits your bed and is clean, that’s good enough. There are 168 hours in a week. You’ll spend 15-18 of those hours in a classroom. Hopefully, no more than 50-70 in your dorm. That’s about 90 hours of other stuff. How you spend that 90 hours is key.
There are other considerations re: Stockton. It wants to expand, return to its AC birthplace and be an economic engine for the AC area. It wants to be a big university, a D-1 school. It was to start now. A great idea! But the vulture capitalists (mostly international hedge funds) who own AC have held it up because they want a piece. The visionary president just resigned.
I say keep applying and shopping until you find one that you know is right. There are plenty of options. But define your goal first (college is not a goal, it’s a path) and work back to where you are now. If that is unclear, select the least-risky value option.