And kids change, through high school. It’s often said, but when you get to senior fall, most of us see that. Early on, D1 wanted to go as far away as possible. In the end, she applied to schools about 3-5 hours away, a possible drive. I had been worried about the cost and timing of getting to her, if needed. One great midwest college described a flight to Chicago, a connection to the closest city, a 45 min bus ride, then a local taxi to campus. Uh, nope. Add TSA and you’re talking an all-day thing.
We had also looked at one of my all-time favorites in the south- and much as D1 also loved it, she realized how much the area was a culture shift from New England. (With the geo diversity in so many colleges, that’s not a big issue, today. But it mattered to her. She realized that day that she was very much a northerner.)
Do what you can afford. You don’t want her to take on too much or any debt (if you can avoid it), especially if medical school is in the future. That said, she is still in high school and could change her mind in the meantime about what she wants to study and where she wants to go. Going out of state can be a wonderful experience, but it is not the be all and the end all and it is not essential for a good college experience. You also have to keep in mind that kids have their whole lives to live somewhere else. I know kids who were determined to go far away for college, they went far away and are now living and working 10 mins from where they grew up. I also know people who went to college close to high school and ended up moving across the country after college for work. You never know where people end up…
Also, to keep costs down you can see if your state has tuition and reciprocal agreements with neighboring states or something like WUE, where kids from certain states can attend certain OOS colleges for a discounted price.
@MusakParent very true. Kids don’t need to go far away to get independence. And if the parents aren’t helicopter parents and are willing to cut the apron strings, a kid can be quite independent 45 mins from home. Kids do not have to go home from college every weekend and parents do not have to come visit all the time. Also, I’ve heard of kids who went to the east coast who still flew home quite often and the parents flew out to visit frequently…
Lastly, going into quite a bit of debt to go OOS is not worth it.
My apologies if I am rehashing; my brain just doesn’t want to absorb five pages. We live outside of Boston, so lots of different types of colleges nearby to see. My S17 is a SLOW decision maker so sophomore year we did the city vs. suburban vs. college town vs. rural search to figure that out. So we didn’t see “Brown” we saw a semi urban school, not UVM but a school in a college town, etc. He figured out he liked urban first and college town second. We then talked budget…we talked about “net cost” versus list price and he understood that in the end price would be a factor.
Both of my kids are ending up at school in Montreal. Pricing is less than in state tuition and the education is, in my opinion, superior. The cost advantage is starting to go away. But Canada has worked for our family.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, there are plenty of large OOS schools that offer merit to strong students. My D19 is a very good student but not a tippy top candidate. UofSC would have been less expensive than our in-state flagship schools due to merit aid. I would expect that your D would find academic peers in the honors college at these large universities. There are plenty of top students who choose these schools for financial or other reasons.
My D17 did not have a reach school. She fell in love with schools where she would be a top student. It was the right fit for her but we thoroughly researched to make sure she could accomplish her career goals at these schools. We had zero stress other than making the decision of where to go.
As far as having reach schools go, that is really up to you. One thing I have heard is that it can be harder to get Fin Aid from reach schools, most schools tend to give the best aid to kids who are the top students and have GPA’s and test scores that are either above or well within what they are looking for…
Then again, it is really up to you. My D only had one reach school and it wasn’t a huge reach. My S had a couple of schools that were reaches, but not huge reaches…
How many “I want to go to UCLA” posts have we seen…?
Sorry, bopper. You are correct. Northeast & California publics are indeed usually more expensive OOS than whatever your in-state publics charge. I forgot that many people here would never consider going to college in a flyover state, what with professors wearing bib overalls to class, & students having to do their daily chores in order to get their vittles.
But for a kid who wants to try out a different part of the country or living in a city, school is a low risk way of doing that. It ends in 4 years!
Of course, your D is still young and still developing her preferences. She may want to check out summer programs elsewhere to try this all on in a limited way.
My kid is OOS - UMN-TC and we’re from Virginia. He is a solid student. He was not elite. He got sufficient merit aid to make it close enough.
Here are some reasons I thought were valid for going out of state:
a) every school is different. We really like the way Minnesota runs their engineering program. Not all are the same.
b) my son truly didn’t want to spend 4 years in Appalachia. He wanted a city school.
c) my son probably wouldn’t have gotten into the program of his choice at VT, and they have a reputation for weeding people out. Who wants that?
d) my son didn’t like high school very much and wanted to close the door on that.
e) not every school is good in all things. maybe the OOS one is better in something important to her, or maybe “worse” so that the subject is accessible to her.
f) my kid plays an odd club sport (not at college) and it is available in Minnesota. It is not available in Blacksburg or Charlottesville.
g) we like the Midwest.
h) maybe your kid has a better chance of getting into the OOS one than your own home flagship?
It seems odd to stop your kid from striving or dreaming. Sure, don’t apply to too many reaches because it is a waste of money. And yeah, have real talks about family budget. But there’s no reason not to look at those big state schools - not just the famous ones, but one notch down. They offer a good product and may be the right choice.
@brooklynlydia. Yes, look one notch down. There are so many incredible engineering schools from the the 20th place down to 50. There are some really good ones below that. Through the top 100 or so. We discovered this when my son was looking at engineering schools. I made him look at many different levels of schools and we both found some very excellent programs that gave merit to boot.
I think too many people only look at the top name programs. This is a big mistake in my mind. Good luck to your son.
Thanks! Yes, only looking for the top program is a mistake. Once we started asking questions, we were surprised how different the different programs were. He’s happy in Minnesota, but cold.
Also be aware that some publics that wouldn’t be considered elite overall have a top-notch department, major, or program (some might be more grad-school oriented than others). These can be a way of getting an elite education in a field for a modest price. Here are a few:
Missouri in Journalism
Michigan State in Supply Chain Mgmt.
Pittsburgh & Rutgers in Philosophy
South Carolina in International Business
Nebraska’s Raikes School (combines computer science & business)
Iowa in Creative Writing
Engineering at Missouri M&T
Accounting at UT Austin (often considered one of the top five programs in the country)
Comp Sci at Stonybrook
Paper engineering/production at U Maine
Ohio State and Suny Purchase for dance
U Michigan and U Wisconsin for History
Moop- great post! I bet the posters here could come up with a robust list of top programs at publics in the US.
@jazzymomof7 If you don’t mind me asking and sorry if you’ve already mentioned it here, what part of Texas are you in? It’s a big state, so she could stay in state and be far away? What about Louisiana State, Oklahoma, Arkansas? I’ve heard about plenty of Texas kids going to these schools…looking at the less famous, not tippy top schools can be good too.
@natty1988 We’re in North Texas, so OU and University of Arkansas are closer than some of our in state schools. My son applied and was admitted to both, and they thankfully have oos tuition discounts for Texas residents.
Since we live in Texas and have so many great options, I feel like she can find pretty much anything she is looking for right here in state. I think Texas pride gets me, too. Haha!
This thread has given me good food for thought, though! I appreciate all of the responses. I’m open to having her spread her wings a bit further if she finds the right price and the right fit.
@jazzymomof7 Gotcha! That’s good that those schools offer discounts to Texas residents. It may be worth looking to see if there are other state universities that offer discounts to Texas residents.That’s great that there are a lot of instate options too…
Glad we are able to give a lot of great ideas! Good luck with the college process!
I love this whole discussion. We are at the end of this stressful process and when I look back, I’m not sure if we would have done anything differently, although I feel very nervous about our D’s final choices. We are from Illinois and she wants very much to major in biomedical engineering. She is an excellent student with high test scores. She is also a competitive ice skater so she centered her search around top biomed programs with skating teams, with a few safeties sprinkled in just in case the merit didn’t work out. We told her to go ahead and reach for the big schools, but have some realistic back ups. But now that we are at the end, her realistic back ups are either super far away (U of Delaware), or not as strong in engineering (U of Iowa). Even our in state U of Illinois ended up being super expensive since she received no merit there. U Delaware seems like a great fit and the price is really right, but that’s a big risk moving to the other side of the country. It’s the last school we are going to tour so we shall see. We are also waiting on 2 more financial packages and crossing our fingers she gets some more scholarhips. If not, she’ll have to decide what trade offs she’s willing to part with - skating, distance from home, student loans, quality of major program, etc. I almost wish she wanted a different major because I think her options would have been wider, but I"ve never seen her more passionate about anything in her life.
I would try running the NPC for some of the reach schools she thinks she might like. With 7 kids, some of the “meet full need” schools might be cheaper than public schools.
S19 only applied to OOS schools. Alabama offered so much guaranteed merit for NMF that it would cost us more to send him to our in-state flagship. And he liked UA so much better that we didn’t see any reason to force him to apply instate. So he applied to 4 schools, all OOS public schools. They ranged from automatic full ride to chance at competitive scholarships. We did not take him anywhere for a serious visit that we knew we could not afford that also did not offer any possibility of real merit.