<p>My mother is afraid of flying, so thinks that I should be too. Thus I cannot apply anywhere where a plane must be taken. It is perfectly fine with her, however, if I go to a school 10+ hours driving time away, instead of somewhere that is 3-4 hours flying time.</p>
<p>Am surprised the above issue re: Peugeot's mom hasn't come up more often. I know it's unreasonable, but flying scares me to death. Don't think my children have any idea how much - I really don't talk about it. I know they'll be heading off to all sorts of exciting places in the future, and don't want anything like this to ruin it for them.</p>
<p>eponymous I completely agree. Especially if the kids end up going to a place not very different from home... what kind of maturation or life experience will the student get??? That is a large, and I think overlooked component of an undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>I also agree w/Eponymous. In our case, my D received a full tuition scholarship to an OOS school. It's a little further from home than what I'd like: 5-6 hrs by car/1hr by plane. But the school does offer bus transportation to get the kids home for the holidays, so that's good. The school has what she's looking for - plus more, if she changes her major. It'll also give her the opportunity to "grow" and mature. Mom can't always be around.</p>
<p>Peugeot & lspf72 -- I know the moms mean well, but the risk of dying in a car accident is much, much higher than the risk of being killed in a plane crash. I am particularly sensitive to that issue this week because my daughter has flown home from the east coast to attend a memorial for a dear friend who attended a local community college and who was killed on the road last week, in an horrifying accident that resulted in the deaths of at least 5 people. </p>
<p>I looked up some stats on the internet. Here is what I found:
In any given year, a person's risk of being killed in a car accident is about 1 in 6000. Young male drivers, ages 16-23, have traffic fatality rates 4 times higher than average.... so that makes it 1 in 1500.</p>
<p>It was harder for me to get good figures on the risk of being killed on a commercial airline.... I saw estimates as high as 1 in 250,000 and as low as 1 in 11 million -- but even the 1 in 250,000 risk that my daughter faces taking planes back and forth to college seems a lot more tolerable than the 1 in 1500 risk that my son faces driving back & forth to his campus a mere 300 miles away. </p>
<p>We don't have to stray very far from the CC board to find parents whose kids have been in serious car accidents within the past couple of years - I remember at least 2 or 3 among CC regulars -- though fortunately the kids all survived. I would guess that the risk of being in a non-fatal injury accident is far greater --- I found stats that say that this number is 40 times the number of fatalities, so that gives us something between a 1 in 150 chance and 1 in 40 chance of being involved in some sort of mishap while in a car, with possible injuries of course ranging from very minor to extremely serious and life-shattering. </p>
<p>Obviously, our kids who fly to college also ride around or drive cars from time to time, so it isn't really an either/or thing. But I think those long drives to/from college, especially with a driver who may be fatigued and driving much of the way on unfamiliar roads, are a particularly big risk factor. </p>
<p>I just hope that Peugeot's mom, and parents like her, will reconsider before vetoing a plane-ride campus in favor of a campus that is entails a fairly long drive. Obviously, there is risk in any choice we make, and there may be many other more valid reasons for a parent to place geographical limits on college choice .... but fear of flying is not really a rational premise on which to make the distinction.</p>
<p>I agree with you Calmom but I'm guessing that anyone that has a fear of flying knows it's an irrational fear. But it's a fear nontheless. My husband's Uncle has a fear of flying that he was able to keep in abeyance for a number of years until 9-11. He's a smart guy and will even make fun of himself for not being able to fly but he just can't get over it.</p>
<p>My daughter drives or flies home (16 -17 hours by car) and when they drive home they do it straight through. At first the reasoning was that they were too young to get a hotel but now it's just that the traffic is less if they drive all night and they are used to staying up into the morning anyway.</p>
<p>I think many parents and students don't really think about college and the whole exploring thing. They simply look at possible majors and affordibility, see that there are 100 colleges to pick from within 3 hours and that's that. If you ever look at a map of the United States with pinpoints of colleges you will see that the East Coast (and I really do not mean just New England) has the majority of the colleges. To many parents, and their kids, there is no reason to have to even look further then the next state of two over to find the perfect college. They don't think they are restricting their kids that much.</p>
<p>A couple of points.... DD just spent 5 months in Chile doing study abroad. Even if your kid is attending college 5 minutes from home, he/she can still "go outside his or her comfort zone" etc. etc. by studying abroad. Another point....Texas is such a big state, one should just consider it several states - thus going to a school with 95% Texas folk from all over the state is not "provincial" in the same way that going to a school that is 95% Rhode Island
folk. Still another point... I would strongly counsel my kid against going to a commuter school, especially close to home, but a school with a strong residential campus and lots of activities close to home - I'd be fine with that. My sister ended up at college back in our home town, hung out with two good friends from high school, etc. Now in her 40's, she is still best friends with them, and their families socialize weekly. They live nearby and together they have a support system that most people can only dream of. It's not necessarily a bad idea to maintain strong ties with high school friends!!!!</p>
<p>Well, I don't know about that, AM. Texans can manage to be provincial no matter what part of the state they're from. A contest vs. the Mainers would be a good 'un, ahyup. Maybe it's misleading just because the Texans are so darned noisy about it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A contest vs. the Mainers would be a good 'un, ahyup. Maybe it's misleading just because the Texans are so darned noisy about it.
[/quote]
Please translate for confused Texan here. :) Whatyasayin?</p>
<p>I came from an area in the midwest where most of the kids go to the state flagship or other state schools. In fact, a very large number of students went to private colleges within an hour, and still within the state. Many also stick around afterwards finding work in the area, often through family or community connections. A law or business or undergraduate degree from certain local schools or the big State U is likely to open more doors there than an HPY degree. Though most who have anything to do with education are familiar with the top name schools and there is a respect that comes from the name recognition, it doesn't mean that it is going to open up their hearts or wallets which is often essential for some jobs. The law firms here are filled with grads from the local law firms right up to partner levels, as are the judges. Top students who are HPY material eschew the east coast schools for State U and the local elite college that top students elsewhere regard as a safety.<br>
Not a bad life, in fact a better life than I see here in Type A country for the most part. But limited in a way, too. A year abroad is just not the same as living elsewhere for 4 years. And even going to the neighboring state where the schools and climate are just as familiar is not going to change the "culture". To send a child out where there are many different kids from all over the US with similar academic interests and capabilities is a mind widening experience. </p>
<p>That is why many of the less selective colleges make me pause at times. When you send a kid to one of those schools, you are often sending him for 4 years of a local culture in a state that is not really mainstream. There are some wonderful colleges in Minnesota. But many of them are populated by mainly Minnesotas or neigboring areas. How that experience is going to translate here in the North East is uncertain. Also there is the comfort factor. The equivalent schools here have more geographic diversity. The top schools in the midwest tend to be full of kids from nearby who all know each other. That does play a role in the comfort factor for college kids going away from home too.
On a pragmatic level, the fact of the matter is that, alot of the jobs will be here in the North East, the main cities of Boston, NY and Washington DC , Philly are not just academic meccas, but in also sought in terms of job and life experience. So you see more movement in sending kids from elsewhere to the North East than you do in any other directions, making the NorthEAst schools the most competitive in terms of admissions.</p>
<p>A year abroad is just not the same as living elsewhere for 4 years
Unless you do what the son of a friend is doing- he went to Venezula for a couple months to figure out what he wanted to do for college- it turned into a couple* more* months and now he is attending the university there-not study abroad just attending as an international student.</p>
<p>A year is not 4 years. If a year turns into four years, that is a whole different thing.</p>
<p>My parents didn't really have a distance limit set, although I don't know if they would've let me go overseas, but that never even came up as a possibility so it doesn't matter. However, my dad really didn't want my older sister or I to attend a school centered in a huge city (such as LA, NY, DC, ect). Even though we grew up 30min from Washington DC and could easily handle ourselves, it was "it isn't you i'm worried about, its all of them" type deal. The biggest city that I applied to was Austin, TX, as USC got thrown out the door since its in one of the worst sections of LA. I ended up in a small town in SW Virginia, and happy.</p>
<p>SBmom - </p>
<p>We have taken a similar approach. In an effort to have our kids consider good LACs outside of Calif., we've taken them to the East and Midwest to look at schools. We have shared our own experiences with community college and state universities while encouraging them to consider a residential LAC.</p>
<p>Eldest son (who enjoys travel and is very social) chose a christian college in San Diego. It's a perfect fit for him and he loves wearing his flip flops year-round.</p>
<p>Youngest son (who is more of a homebody and on the shyer side) has applied only to East and Midwestern schools. He's received two acceptances so far, so we're prepared to send him far.</p>
<p>I wouldn't have been able to predict these two kids course several years ago. They grow and mature in ways you cannot forsee.</p>
<p>calmom-- pls. reread my post-- As kathiep said, knowing it's unreasonable doesn't make it go away. Wish it did. In my case it's definitely tied in to a fear of heights. I did appreciate the figures on airline safety, though. </p>
<p>As for cars, it seems every time I pick up Newsday there's another sad story. I don't know if it's a trend or I'm imagining it, but it seems worse this year than others, despite the mild winter here.</p>
<p>If a distant school had a partuccular program that my child couldn't get at a closer school then I would not stand in their way of attending, no matter the distance. However, since we live on the east coast, with a multitude of fine colleges, with diverse majors and programs, I don't see the need at this point for my children to attend a college more than a 2.5 hour, direct flight from home and in the same time zone. The expense and inconvenience of a furhter distance starts to wear after a while unless there's a really good reason to endure it.</p>
<p>We would have let our son go anywhere he chose, but were seceretly relieved when he chose an in-state school a six hour drive away. Though he normally flies home, we could get to him in an emergency.</p>
<p>I didn't want to be too far from home - I love my family, I am grateful to my parents for taking care of my education and the idea of never seeing them bothers me. ditto for my siblings, though one is sixteen and the other is four and a half. So my calculus when applying for schools already factored in distance. The problem is, I live in close proximity to a lot of colleges, but I felt they weren't good enough schools for me. If you put a distance limit, and then end up not getting into the better schools nearby, you might have to settle for a school that doesn't have the right academics, student body, whatever, and you'll be unhappy.</p>
<p>Also, I live near a big city and got into one of the good schools there. I felt that living on "campus" (read: uh...no campus to speak of, haha) would not really be a college experience, and would also be really expensive b/c prices there are really high. But at the same time, I felt that a one-hour commute would seriously detract from my college experience as well. So I'd feel guilty for living in the city when I could save my parents a ton of money by living at home and taking the train in every day.</p>
<p>I ended up choosing a school 3.5 hours away by car, near another big city, so I take Greyhounds from one to the other, and local transit (subway and bus) to get to the Greyhound stations. This makes the total trip 6 hours. With a free Friday and late classes on Monday, I could leave Thursday evening and come back Monday morning. Still, there have been times when my parents needed me home when I couldn't do a very long weekend, in which case the plane ride was relatively inexpensive and my mom picked me up on her way back from work in the city. The flight is LITERALLY ten minutes long - I managed to listen to five songs before I was told to put away electronic devices. At the same time, 3.5 hours is not too unreasonable of a drive, so my dad was able to bring up the van when I had to move out/in, and my family even managed a day trip one Sunday when they left at around 8 and got back at around 11.</p>
<p>We told our daughter that we needed her to stay in-state so we could afford to send her to college and then she wouldn't be saddled with student loans.<br>
Fortunate for us, we live in Virginia and have great state schools to choose from. She applied ED and will be going to William and Mary in the fall.</p>
<p>atrmom, Congratulations! If I lived in either VA or NC, I would have said the same thing!</p>