How many hours is your ideal range?
Is there a dealbreaker when it comes to distance for you (or your son/daughter)?
Far enough away to prevent a dayhop lifestyle, close enough to get home for holidays or emergencies. My DD thinks that means an easy flight to PA, but for others it might mean a few hours driving. A deal breaker for us at one school, for example, was a brutal drive at the far end of the flight. (I loved the place but DD was appalled at the inaccessibility of the campus.)
Ideal to us is 5 hours drive (if you mostly drive) or a 2 hour flight (if you just do one drive for move in and then leave stuff there), which what we have.
But the only dealbreaker (for both me and the kids) is not less than 2-3 hours drive (sorry Berkeley). No bringing washing home! We would have coped with a 12 hour flight if need be.
We just wanted the best school for our kids. They have been as close as a 20-minute drive and as far as a 24-hour plus journey by plane and bus.
Ideally, a couple hour drive (like S17). Far enough, but close enough for pick ups. D may end up further away. We really donât want flights, mainly because we donât have a lot of money and would rather put it towards direct college costs than trips home. If money were no object, wherever theyâre happy!
In the end, we preferred a flight to a four hour drive each way. What a pain to drive to school, pick up, and then drive another four hours home. No thanks. That particular school wasnât near an airport so driving was the only option. Iâd prefer a city where Southwest goes directâŠand often. We didnât get that. SW does fly to the city near his school direct but only on Saturdays and heâs hardly ever going to be flying on Saturdays.
He has to either take a SW flight with a layover or another airline. My H flies almost exclusively SW for work and we have a lot of miles so we prefer it. Itâs only S19âs freshman year so we donât really know yet if this flying with layovers will be a pain. At some point, we may just have bite the bullet and let him fly the airlines that go direct.
For D21, Iâd like to find a city where SW flies direct but, if thatâs not possible, then my second choice is for a city that American flies directly there. Then, we will probably switch our main credit card to one that gathers points on American so both kids can use points to fly.
Under a 5 hour drive OR very close to a bus or Amtrak station with direct and easy access to where we live OR a nonstop flight and school is near an airport. D is currently at a school that is very hard to get to and only under a five hour drive if you drive at 2 am.
It was all about fit over distance for us. D had on her list schools ranging from a 30 minute drive to a 2 1/2 hour flight + an hour drive from the airport.
She chose a school a 3 hour drive from home. Personally itâs pretty awesome for us as parents because we can make a round trip without having to spend the night.
It is nice having them a 2.5-3 hour drive away. It makes it easier for moving in and such. However, older S spent a semester abroad. I was a bit anxious at first as all I did was drive him (4.5 hours) to the airport, buy the plane ticket and a hotel room at his flight destination - which was in a different city/town from his school. All other logistics were up to him. He did fine (though his plane âdisappearedâ from the tracking website for a few hours as it had to make an emergency landing elsewhere and he had no cell service! That was not a good morning for me.) And honestly, once he was settled, it wasnât much different than being at his school here. My kids only come home for breaks and we might visit once/year. We do text almost every day and that didnât change while S was abroad.
But, I prefer them to be in driving range. We donât live near an airport. we do have choices closer than 4.5 hours (that drive saved me $1000 on the ticket), but even still thereâs not really such as thing as an easy or cheap flight.
My son definitely wanted to go to East Coast. So we just wanted an option(s) of non-stop flights (5 or 6 hours) from our local airports plus 30-45 minutes max from an airport to college dorm. Many of his friends from 1st grade chose in-state school and most of their schools are driving distance (2-5 hours) from home. So, their move-in / move-out are super easy. They also seem coming back home for a weekend occasionally using a combination of public transportation.
Distance wasnât really on our priority list when S19 applied - we are not near a major airport, so some of his more distant choices would have been one-stop flights plus a bit of a drive. Figured we would do whatever was needed.
He decided on the college just 1-1/4 hours away, though, and it has been great. He came home for Labor Day and Fall Break weekends plus one other (for a home-town event), plus S21 has spent the weekend with him up there. And we have been able to attend the two music performances he was in as part of a class. Iâm grateful that I donât have to deal with the get-your-reservations early drama (planes and hotels) that I hear about from other parents.
And I have one of the few college kids in history who doesnât bring laundry home. Ever. He is Mr. GQ and has done his own laundry for a long time - I donât do those shirt collars and pant creases quite right 
He just does it all at school.
âbrutal drive at the far end of the flightâŠâ
Wow, thatâs an enormous point that I am definitely going to keep in mind. Hadnât really thought too much about that but for us it would make a huge difference in the âconsâ pile. Thanks!
Distance wasnât a problem for us at all. Whatever was the best fit for S. He ended up about a 10 hour drive away or a couple hour flight with a couple hour drive when we get there. It is an easy drive and we have had no problem making it. He usually just drives to and from campus. He is a kid that loves to drive and has no problem making the trip. He will be driving home for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas. He is independent and spent every summer at camp for a month 5 1/2 hours away. We never let that bother us. He wanted to be away and on his own.
I know a lot of kids who went to school very close to home with most under an hour and many in the flagship city. The kids are all having a âtrue college experienceâ but get a home cooked meal a little more often.
For me, a two-hour drive each way is perfect. Far enough not to come home most weekends, but close enough that you can. Fortunately there are a few schools (with some geographic diversity of students) meeting that description. Up to five hours drive each way would be OK. D, herself, doesnât want to go further than necessary. If the social/academic fit of our local U were a better fit, I think, in her heart of hearts, D would like to stay close to home.
We live two hours from any airport. And daughter doesnât want an urban college (meaning an overland trip at the far end of a flight would probably be necessary). So flying is out of the picture.
Lots of college students commute from where they lived before college. For them, âideal distanceâ is presumably close enough that commuting is not a big hassle (probably means avoiding airplane flights or 2+ hours of driving if possible, although some in rural areas may not have much choice).
Iâm just in the choosing a school stage with my oldest so donât have any actual experience with having a kid away. When coming up with the initial list distance came into play for us more because of the cost involved than anything. Both because of the less expensive schools being closer (in-state) and the cost of travel. Flying is inconvenient for us as well because weâre not near an airport, and Iâm a single parent with a grade school age child at home, so I have to keep that in mind too.
His list has one school that is about 2 hours away, three between 3-4 hours, and one 900 miles away. The 2 hour distance one actually is the biggest change for him than any of them. Itâs a huge school in a city, when heâs from a small town at a high school with 300 kids. Iâll admit, that one does sound the most appealing to me. A last minute trip home is not a big deal even if I have to run up there and get him since he wonât have a car, but itâs inconvenient enough that heâs not going to be coming home every weekend.
I have a coworker friend that has 4 of his 5 kids in college now and they all go to a school just a few miles away from home and live on campus. I would think youâd want them farther away so they are forced to become independent, but he says he hardly ever sees them.
Distance never came up for either boarding school or college. The only focus was the benefits of each school. Of course, we would have liked to have been able to see our son more often (we never again celebrated his birthday with him after he turned 14), but it was always about the school, not distance.
Mostly chose schools to apply to within 5 hours driving (from Chicago suburbs). For fun, applied to two âdestinationâ collegesâin Denver and San Diego. I wasnât too worried: D18 âhatesâ to fly.
Why did I let her do accepted student visit in San Diego? Of course the lure of the surf and sun overcame the fear of flying, and now I am thousands of miles away from from DD! The good news is lots of direct flights and USD is only ten minutes from airport, so I guess a 5-hour âcommute.â
Another vote for the 2.5-3 hour drive time as ideal, and up to 6 hours or so being fine.
Then again, weâre in NYC, so that puts a very, very high number of great schools within range. Including most of the IVYâs (except Cornell and Dartmouth - to far, and Columbia - to close.) MIT, JHU, Williams, Amherst, and many, many more.
If we werenât smack dab in the center of such a large concentration of very good schools, I suspect that I would have been quite a bit more flexible with my preferences.