It is inconceivable that good colleges exist outside the mid-Atlantic region, New England, and the Bay area of California. I simply refuse to believe it.
@panpacific yes, the Bean boots are still going to be a big part of friendlydaughter’s wardrobe in college! In other words, 4 more years of northeast for her.
@copperboom we’re also GG fans, teen son included. I wasn’t sure how into it he was but I knew he was hooked when Rory and Dean broke up and friendlyson said “well, thank God that’s finally over!”
@SevenDad I earlier made a tongue-in-cheek joke about myself not wanting to deal with the cultural shock of moving to the south, but a point I’d seriously make is that if for the purpose of receiving proper undergraduate academic training only, there’s no NEED for going out of region for college. Unless you bestow more meaning to education do you start justifying traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles to attend a school. It seems “southerners” are more practical in that sense. They wouldn’t even care about a world renown university when it’s not regional. Isn’t it a little strange to “criticize” northeasterners for not being adventurous enough to explore schools in the south in this context? Is being open minded to educational opportunities a more pressing issue to northeasterners (and BS population even??) among others?
Kids at our school really end up all over although Mid-Atlantic and NE are probably most common. With that said, many go to the midwest and several go south as well (although anecdotally, I’d say that most of them have a connection with the south). The CCs really encourage them to cast their nets outside the Mid-Atlantic/NE area, in part because kids who need merit aid are more likely to find it if they’re adding geographic diversity to a college’s student body. Many of the students from Asia prefer to be on the west coast, and there are often a couple of kids with strong preferences for HBCUs. I’ve been grateful for the fact that at most of the schools where DS applied, there were probably no more than 2-3 other applicants from his class. (And the ones where there were tended to be schools that seem to like kids from his school, so it didn’t really amp up the competition.)
I think that for schools that have national recognition, location matters less in terms of jobs at graduation. For many of the very good schools that tend to have a more regional student body (and this includes schools in the NE as well), career placement services are much stronger in the region where the schools are. For students who are thinking about that part of a schools’ value proposition, staying in an area where you feel at home makes sense.
Couldn’t agree more. I think it makes sense to attend a college where you ‘think’ you might want to live/work afterwards. However, the landscape of higher education is changing. As costs rise students looking for scholarships will need to branch out. I think it also depends on what the student intends on studying. My father in law, a dean of academics at a big university, told our kids that a strong department in your area of study is more important than a name brand school for undergrad. His example: if you’re into forensic anthropology going to the University TN (aka Body Farm) would be more advantageous than any Ivy. Of course- how many 17/18 year olds really know what they want to study. Bigger question, should they?
@doschicos DD is headed to SPS and is thrilled
@friendlymom everything my son knows ( or thinks he knows)about girls he learned from GIlmore Girls-
@copperboom – Agree with the bigger question. Should they?
For kids who’ve been taking apart the appliances at home since they were 8 and may be deciding between physics and electrical engineering (or something that’s a degree or two away from that), the passion is already evident. But when you look at the college catalogs and see the range of options, how could you possibly have had enough exposure to all those disciplines to know if one might really call to you? Kids are asked to show “passion” when applying to college, but for some, their passion is simply curiosity. I’d love to think that at 17, that’s enough…
I’m in my 50s and still learning about myself and figuring it all out!
Absent a few unique individuals, I think it odd for a 17 year old to have a burning passion to be a lawyer, investment banker, accountant, petroleum engineer, dentist, etc. I wonder how much is programmed by the adults in their lives or by the lure of a certain paycheck. Or maybe I’m a poor parent and my kids are slackers…
Family friends present us with a small, unscientific matriculation sample; sorry, I don’t have a clue about how wide a geographic net was extended in the application process. I’m persuaded that going out of region can be helpful, the moreso for those from very competitive homes (NY, MA, NJ, etc.) and less hookiness. But that clearly does not deter a majority on the upper east coast from staying in region or close to it. And that is because there are so many quality institutions sprung from the historical development of our nation. Quality is elsewhere, to be sure, and I would advocate for collegians to experience the other coast, or the midwest, for example, but that just does not happen so much. The results below show the mix that I find fairly normal in recent years.
- a NYC family with brothers from Deerfield to Vanderbilt and SMU, sister from Salisbury to Cornell
- several Peddie faculty families to NYU, Tufts, Wheaton (MA), 2 at Delaware, Washington College, CUA, Princeton, Franklin and Marshall, Gettysburg, Williams. Outside of the region, other kids went to Elon, Grinnell, Kenyon and Macalester.
- Choate faculty family's siblings to Hobart and William Smith, Princeton, Williams
- Delaware day school friend chose Stanford over Dartmouth, but family took some convincing due to distance
Legacy and intercollegiate athletics are factors in some of these matriculations, but the point is that at the end of the day, a kid and family are going to look at their choices and make the decision that works for them. Some are thinking “strategically” about post-baccalaureate job markets and the such, but it’s awfully hard in my estimation to work “backwards” from a prediction about an individual’s situation in four years. Maybe there is more to go on (“passions”, interests, mid-career salary expectations!) at 17 than applying to boarding school at age 13, but overthinking this whole business is . . . undertaken with an opportunity cost ~O)
Along with @Charger78’s thoughts on expanding beyond New England/Northeast for college, if you want merit aid and want to attend a college that is still selective it helps to look at other regions. A lot of the schools in New England/Northeast don’t offer merit aid.
and @doschicos, in many parts of the country, the “locals” are suspiciously very friendly!!
I like midwestern nice.
@copperboom @friendlymom My mother and I are more of your kin, along with my teenage brother! I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t get the reference right away, but I am a huge GG fan.
I don’t think it’s more strange for a 17 year old to aspire to become a lawyer or a banker than to aspire to become a doctor or a computer engineer. It’s all just something they “fancy” to do with all the knowledge they have about different careers at that point of time. Interestingly, a bigger paycheck is about the only common thing among these popular careers. Maybe bigger paychecks are at least part of what make them popular career tracks for adults as well?
That being said, I’m actually for the idea of not getting so pre-professional so quickly when there’s so much one can explore during their undergraduate years. However, if there’s no consideration for post graduate profession or job placement, there’s really no “excuse” for people to step outside their region for college if all they look for is proper academic training. Take Geogia Tech. Yes, it is one of the colleges with best engineering program, but is it necessary for a kid in MA who is interested in engineering to go to GA Tech for the engineering training? Would UMass or another university in NE with an accredited PhD program fulfill whatever the training they need as an undergraduate? I think so. Southerners may get it right after all. Why bother to travel to a different part of the country for college when you can get it at your doorstep and often times get it cheaper.
Ditto on slacking family here.
How do kids end up selecting major/college (within a university) to apply to?
DS1 has no idea.
@payn4ward That is one reason, among others, my kids went the liberal arts college route. No pressure to make up your mind until the end of sophomore year. Plenty of time to explore and try out those interesting courses in areas of study you had zero exposure to in high school.
Welcome to Slackerville! 
would love STEM heavy LAC suggestions 
Know of Swarthmore (far reach), Lafayette, Union…
May end up choosing in-state flagship though. Will have to choose a college (toss between science or engineering.)
Must the school have engineering, @payn4ward? That does make it a shorter list then the rest of STEM.
No. Good physical sciences will do. Physics and Chemistry. Math too.
Not into biology. Not into medicine.
Not into making lots of money nor law.
Kind of like me I guess.
In terms of applying, I honestly think you just need to be passionate about something, even if it isnt career related. The vast majority of schools are happy to have you apply undecided, and many of the pre-professional programs don’t even start until mid-way through your four years. As long as you get in the core courses you need to be an engineer or a doctor, or an MBA, or a dancer, before you graduate, there is still time to try out many random classes along the way. Also plenty of opportunities to change your mind if you find chem engineering is not for you. The pendulum appears to be swinging back the other way now - we heard several colleges - UPenn and Northwestern come to mind - explicitly state that they now want kids who have interests that cross disciplines who will take advantage of several schools within a university while they are there.
Engineering: Bucknell (a little bit bigger), Lehigh, Trinity (CT), Trinity (TX), Smith (for any females). Then there are many 3+2 and 4+1 programs. Haverford, as an example, has a 4+1 with UPenn.
For other STEM: Wesleyan, Haverford, Carleton, Colorado College, St. Olaf (especially math), Grinnell, Smith and Bryn Mawr (females), Williams, Lawrence Univ (WI) to name a few with varying degrees of selectivity.