Worth going to a college on the opposite coast?

Hello all. Lots of West Coast schools have caught my attention. Pomona may even be my ED choice. However, I live on the East Coast. Are Cal Berkeley and Pomona worth traveling thousands of miles for?

What metric are you using for “worth”? The most objective one is "travel " cost. Flights booked in advance between say Nashville and San Francisco are about $500 for a round trip. Three round trips a year? So $1500. Flight cost are not much less between say Miami and Chicago. I expect that your sense of worth must be a subjective one, one that can’t really be quantified.

The better question is probably “Are Cal Berkeley and Pomona worth paying $50K+/year for?”

My friend (valedictorian of our western PA public school) just finished her freshman year at Pomona and love-love-loved it.

First ask your parents if they’re willing to spend $55k per year on a UC. What are they saying?

If your family can comfortably afford it and you are willing to deal with the hassle of flying then it is fine. If not then re-think your options.

My general rule for my two kids was that if they wanted to fly to a school they had to be able to explain why that school was better for them than a school we could drive to. Both ended up going to undergrad schools within driving distance but my S did go to a masters program halfway across the country – but it was a great choice for his grad work.

Yeah, definitely. I went from west to east, but going far away for school is the best.

Aside from the financial issue there are many other things to think about. We’re from NY and both my kids were admitted to California schools, both wound up in Illinois so neither were within driving distance. Here are some of my thoughts based on my experience:

  • NY to LA flights are fairly frequent so that’s not much of a problem and given that some kids are eight to ten driving hours from home it’s easier on the parent than driving round trip.
  • There is a three hour time difference which was a bigger deal in my house. Most of the phone calls come at night when you’re day is winding down and you review what has happened and how you feel about it, especially Freshman year. I told my kids that I will stay up until midnight NY time which was 11:00PM Illinois time and anything they needed to say had to be by then. If they were in California that would be 9:00PM, still the heart of the day for a college student, but I would never stay up until 2:00 or 3:00AM waiting for a phone call, nor would I be happy being awakened at that hour. It sounds weird but think about that three hour time difference.
  • Personalities - The Claremont Consortium was one of my younger daughter’s choices and after visiting, she realized that she could never slow down to a California speed. For her, too much had a “not a big deal” attitude and she didn’t think that was something she could adapt to. My older daughter turned down USC and UCLA for personality differences as well, she decided that she was not a California kid, hated the idea of having to drive most everywhere, and a real city (Chicago, NY) was more to her comfort level. I will say that both my girls found the midwest also a bit different in personality but one that they could better fit with.

These were my family’s thoughts on the east coast-west coast concept. Use it as you like.

We had two who were far away for college. Assuming costs of tuition/living expenses are the same (transportation is often but a rounding error after that chunk 'o money), then it’s back to what you want from your education.

In addition to amtc’s points, I would add that both kids wanted to experience living in a different part of the country from the one they were raised in, and it’s easy to do in college because of all the existing infrastructure when you arrive: housing, social life, food - all taken care of. Not so when you move across country for a new job, for example. (Of course, you can do this in grad school too if you are headed that way.)

One was located near family, which turned out to be useful - a car available for borrowing, a place to go when she got sick, a place to hole up in the week before finals when things get a little intense on campuses. The other was not near anyone - and learned how to ask for what he needed from friends, from the admin, from the community, which turned out not to be hard since he was at a small school in a small town.

And yes, there are cultural differences between different parts of the country so there is an adjustment to be made. The weather in CA is especially conducive to pushing yourself to try new things - bad weather can be an excuse to hide in your room or the library (alternatively, if you are easily distracted, it can be an excuse not to study.)

Both kids loved their experiences away: S’s goal is to settle there permanently. D is heading abroad for the next phase of her life so no telling where she’ll end up.

But we know many reasonable parents in our neighborhood who said, "it’s got to be driving distance unless there’s a really good reason.’ We get it and we envy that they could turn up for their kids sporting events or performances, that their kids were more likely to partner with someone who lived in the same part of the country so holidays weren’t ‘share-situating’ and their kids could reach out easily when they had a crisis. But we have, we hope, instilled in our kids the desire to challenge themselves, try new things, take (reasonable) risks, and explore the wider world. We have confidence in their ability to succeed - or if they fail, to pick themselves up again and move on. College away from home was a good way for them to practice this.

Thanks to you all for the replies. I am fortunate enough that the high out of state price tags are not a big issue, I was simply looking for opinions/experiences about what its like going far away for college.

Just my two cents, but I don’t think I would want to be that far from my family. I go to Northeastern, and live about 3 hours away. I found that to be the perfect distance; far enough apart so that I wasn’t constantly coming home or having parents drop in, but close enough that coming home for a weekend for whatever reason was quick, easy, and cheap by bus or car.

I went to summer camp most of my childhood, and I thought I was pretty good at being away from my family without being homesick; but I definitely hit a few bumps and was glad I was in the same time zone as my family and close enough to see them every so often. There is definitely a tough transition period for everyone, adjusting to an entirely new schedule in a new environment with new people, and just knowing that I COULD in theory get to my parents easily made me feel a lot better.

That being said, if Pomona (or another school) is the school, don’t turn it away because of this. Evaluate how much you think it might affect you to be in a different time zone, to have to fly home for breaks, whatever.

The type of travel you would experience certainly has ample precedent; many eastern colleges have California among their three most represented states from which they receive applications. Your direction would be different, but your essential path has been well traveled.

More specifically, however, I’ve been in California in September, and that’s when I most wanted to head east. There’s something about crisp fall weather that is particularly collegiate.

Only one of our fou went cross country, from west to east. In her case, her major was offered more readily on the east coast, but she also wanted to try something new. For us, the biggest issue was travel during bad weather and during peak holidays. She always allowed an extra day traveling back to school as she frequently ran into delays due to weather or other things. She also had to fly into major airports and then take a bus about 3 hours to her school so the school’s distance from a major airport is something to consider. Other than travel it was worth it. She loved the colder weather and the different personality of the east coast as opposed to Calif. If you can afford it and have the stats for the school’s in CA I say go for it.

Think about your future. Do you want to live in the west coast after college? If you do, this is probably the best time to make the transition.

What the west coast offers:

  • Silicon Valley/Tech Capital of the world. Absolutely the best place to be if you are interested in tech or computer science.
  • If you are interested in finance/law within the tech industry, the west coast would be optimal for that too. Lots of biotech is burgeoning in southern california as well.
  • The weather is pretty awesome.

IMO, the west coast is the better of the two, but most of the great schools are on the east coast. Probably not worth paying OOS for Cal (unless you are in EECS) if you can get into the top east coast privates or Ponoma.

The Northeast (mid-Atlantic + New England) has the nation’s capital, Wall Street, great museums and historic sites, as well as the country’s richest concentration of excellent colleges & universities, all more or less within a few hours train ride of each other. There are good reasons why so many HS students consider the East Coast a desirable college destination.

Two of my kids did go West after HS. Each one followed specific attractions (rather than a desire necessarily to head in that direction, per se). Once you’re on a plane, the distances separating any major US cities aren’t that big a deal.
However, once you’re settled in a major city in the West (Denver, Santa Fe, SF, LA), an escape to another big city tends to be more of a major road-trip, rather than the spontaneous 1-day or weekend event you can enjoy from DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC, New Haven, Providence, or Boston. Even NYC to French-speaking Canada (Montreal) is about the same distance as SF to LA. On the other hand, if you’re an outdoorsy type, the West has many spectacular attractions. Personally, I think the SF Bay area is a more attractive college setting than the LA area.