<p>So, do any of you have comments on siblings going to the same college? My son is a freshman at a school about 400 miles from home. Daughter is a current junior and is looking at a couple of schools, including the one her brother attends. It is a small school of about 5000. My son loves the school and couldn't be happier with the choice. I can see both pluses and minus' going to the same school. I was just wondering if anyone had kids that had done this and can share the experience!</p>
<p>Both DS (Junior) and DD (Freshman) attend the same school 400 miles away. There have been no drawbacks that we have encountered so far and there are some very nice pluses.</p>
<p>Both my kids, two years apart like yours’, went to the same college. They led very different lives there and did very different things, but both had great college experiences, and each benefited from having the other around. The benefits for their parents, in terms of convenience, were enormous. There were no downsides that I know of, unless you count as a downside your brother blurting out at your graduation, “There’s [X]! [Sister] went out with him freshman year. Ooops! I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that!” Or your sister saying, “I met [Brother’s] girlfriend. She’s all Foucault-this and Foucault-that.”</p>
<p>The younger one fell in love with the college helping his sister move in, as one after another of her classmates hit on him (he was a high-school junior, so basically indistinguishable from a move-in freshman), several by chatting him up about the Tintin t-shirt he was wearing (he had never met a girl who knew what Tintin was before).</p>
<p>My second daughter is probably going to go to the same school as her sister. It is a big school though, so I doubt they will see each other very much. The two have very different personalities and interests. The main plus I see is that in an emergency, they could help each other out until I could get there. I suppose in some families they could share a car. Don’t think that will work in my case, though.</p>
<p>My senior has applied to the school where his brother is a sophomore. It’s 500 miles away and about 5,000 undergrads. It’s S2’s first choice school. I don’t see any downside to them both attending - just hoping he’s accepted!</p>
<p>Both of our kids went to the same college (Hampshire), with a one-year overlap. Even though they are very different kids, they both had great experiences and very much enjoyed hanging out with each other. They even took a class together. I suppose that there could be potential negative outcomes to siblings attending the same school, but I should think that would only be for small colleges (<3,000). In larger schools, if siblings didn’t get along, they could have little to do with each other.</p>
<p>We may be in this situation next year. D1 is deliriously happy at her 5000 UG school. HS senior D2 has it as one of her top choices. After 4 years together in a 600 kid HS I thought they might be better off at different colleges. But, D2 loves the school for her own reasons and both sisters are very comfortable with the idea. I have to trust their wisdom in this. If D2 gets in and wants to go I will just be grateful we will have only one parents weekend.</p>
<p>My DD, who is a HS junior, has said she doesn’t want go to the school where her older brother goes about 300 miles from home. She has visited the campus several times and really likes it, but she wants to blaze her own trail and doesn’t want to be “in her brothers shadow”. The school has 15,000 students so its not like they would be falling all over each other and DS will be a senior when DD starts college. The school is especially well known for my DS’s major and DD’s intended major. Oh well. She will likely apply as a fallback since most of her favorites are far away in a different part of the country - in case her infatuation with the other region wears off.</p>
<p>D3’s first year roommate was the younger sister of a boy who also attends their 5000ish school. He was, I believe, one or two years ahead of her, and their circle of friends only intersected in a couple of places. Mom did seem a little stressed on move-out day as the family was trying to empty out both dorm rooms and get to the storage place before it closed!</p>
<p>My S2 is a transfer sophomore at the school his older brother graduated from two years ago. They never would have been on campus at the same time, but S2 is benefiting from his brother’s and his parents’ knowledge of the school and community.</p>
<p>D transferred to be at the same U as her two-year-older brother, 2500 miles from our home. S was in engineering & D initially undeclared & later cinema, so they didn’t run into one another in any classes. It was helpful to both of them & us that both were at the same campus but it was totally their choice. There are TONS of other people and things to do there so they didn’t cramp each other’s style in the least. There were a lot of pluses for them and us with them being at the same school. S helped D store her stuff and S was able to live in D’s apartment over the summer when she came back home for the summer. S referred her to his LL so D could live in the same building he had enjoyed after he moved out to his job. S helped D move into her place & got her to her orientation. Logistically, it was great because I could just send packages to one of them and have them share (forcing them to get together more often than they might have on their own). They even drove up to SF together over spring break to see relatives in S’s SR year. The disabilities office knew us from S and were very nice when we registered D there as well. We were familiar with the medical center & shuttle option to get there as well from when we learned about all of it with S. Happily, one of my best friends lives 30 minutes away from their campus, which is great for all of us.</p>
<p>If the kids get along and the campus is one that meets each of their needs, I see no minuses, only pluses. It was the only school D applied to as a transfer. She fell in love with it when we moved S in the prior year; liked it MUCH better than the other Us we toured.</p>
<p>Happily, S’s job has him flying to LA monthly. While there, he often connects with D and some of his friends from his U.</p>
<p>Another vote for no minuses here, assuming both students are ok with it. My D is a senior and S a sophomore at a 2500 student LAC that is a thousand miles from home. Each chose it for his/her own reasons. S’s freshman year they even did several of the same ECs, and they intentionally meet for lunch or breakfast once a week.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a younger sibling does not want to go where the older one is (wants to blaze a separate path) or if an older sibling does not like the idea of a younger one horning in on his/her turf, that’s a different question. My D originally had some sense she might not want S around, but changed her mind when she realized he was interested in the school for the right reasons, which had little to do with her.</p>
<p>I can’t even imagine it. My second kid refused to even go to the same high school as her brother. If she could have figured out a way to go to a different middle school, she would have done that, too.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses so far! My biggest concern is that they went to a smaller (>500) high school. My son is much more outgoing and involved . My daughter (the one two years younger) tends to be quieter. I think in high school she was comfortable with being the quiet, studious, little sister. Since her brother has left high school, she has turned all concentrations on getting out and spreading her wings…I just want to make sure she flys on her own with out always having her brother to guide her. I guess I should be happy they like each other and would even consider this! </p>
<p>Sounds like many of your kids went to colleges about the same size (5000) and they are not “falling over each other”. Even at a smaller college they can be independent from each other!</p>
<p>My younger sister was a freshman when I was a senior at UT-Austin. She had been given the use of a car as a HS senior, while I didn’t have one. So her first year of college, she was told that I had priority to use the car when I wanted to. Oh, my, she went ballistic! That was a little rough.</p>
<p>She even lived in the same dorm, so I had to be careful she didn’t find out about some of the partying I did, in case she told our parents, lol!</p>
<p>My sister goes to the university of Miami and although I am applying there, I’d hate to attend the school since she goes there.</p>
<p>That’s probably because we never got along to the point where I can’t stand to even be in the same room as her.</p>
<p>I want to feel independent and free and I feel like seeing her around would ruin that experience.</p>
<p>Also, I definitely look forward to the nightlife part of college and my sister loves to take advantage of any opportunity to get me in trouble or make me look bad. If I was drunk at a party or kissed a few guys she would definitely tell my mother.</p>
<p>I guess it really depends on your relationship with your sibling and how much independence you were searching for. For me, I prettying refuse to go to UM because she is there…</p>
<p>This depends on the siblings’ relationship to each other and whether they have fears of being in the older sibling’s shadow/dogged by a tagalong younger sibling. </p>
<p>Seen several siblings who had no problems leading separate lives on the same college campus. </p>
<p>Some friends have mentioned that it wouldn’t have worked for them due to sibling personality conflicts or the need to be separate from each other to blaze their own respective paths. </p>
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<p>Every one of my older cousins who had siblings made it a point to go to separate campuses far from home to avoid the dangers of the tattling sibling. </p>
<p>I bypassed this problem entirely by going to a Midwest LAC where the nearest extended family or family friends were a few hundred miles away. :)</p>
<p>There were about 5000 undergrads in my college and my brother and I overlapped one year I think. I barely ever saw him, though he did end up dating and marrying the woman who was one of my best friends!</p>