<p>Ugh, I am so not looking forward to the days of spending more time driving to and from the airport, the delays involved with increased security, worried about her safety and searching for flights where she can avoid the “hot” airports. Wishing my west coast girl wasn’t quite so interested in schools on the east coast!</p>
<p>Early in her school search, we landed on a couple of schools that let out for winter break at Thanksgiving and the students don’t return again until after the 1st of the year. What is that type of schedule called and how common is it?</p>
<p>“anyone else hoping your child will choose a college nearby instead?”</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> Yes. Unfortunately we leave our east coast town for Los Angeles on Tuesday for 4 years at USC. Couldn’t be any worse. </p>
<p>I have not heard of schools with the schedule where the kids are off from Thanksgiving to Jan 1st. But if anyone posts the names, I may slip them to our D to see if she’s interesting in transferring . . . Either that, or just grin and bear it. Most likely the latter.</p>
<p>Originally, I had hoped that S would go far away to college because I was looking for excuses to travel. Now, however, my hope is that S goes some place within a 4-hour drive.</p>
<p>I don’t like the fact that so many colleges now require parents to participate in orientations over the summer. That’s expensive and very time consuming.</p>
<p>I also know that the farther away students are, the more difficult and expensive it is to get them there and to get their stuff there. </p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned, I went to college 4 hours from home, and as far as I was concerned, I may as well have been on the opposite coast because I had to do so much adapting to a new environment. </p>
<p>My husband went to college about 2 hours from his home, and also had to do a lot of adapting.</p>
<p>I don’t think that students have to go thousands of miles away to be in a new environment or to develop responsibility and independence.</p>
<p>As for the hassles of getting flights, etc., I figure that I handled that myself when I was in college, and this was well before the days of the Internet. My kids can do the same.</p>
<p>When it comes to avoiding “hot” airports, it’s important to realize that terrorism can occur anywhere, and the plans are secret. Once the plans hit the news, the airports that have been targeted probably immediately become some of the world’s safest.</p>
<p>Hayden: Maybe we should just switch kids to make things easier, as we’re on opposite coasts. ;-)</p>
<p>Northstar mom: “When it comes to avoiding “hot” airports, it’s important to realize that terrorism can occur anywhere, and the plans are secret. Once the plans hit the news, the airports that have been targeted probably immediately become some of the world’s safest.”</p>
<p>This is an excellent point. Maybe safest, but that much more difficult to get through.</p>
<p>I have to admit to great relief when S1 chose a school within a 2 hour drive. But you should keep in mind that flying is still safer than driving. Do you want an 18-22 year old driving back and forth to school, especially is you live in an area with cold winters? I will still try to convince S2 to stick close to home, but we’ll see how that goes.</p>
<p>Even without the security issues, having a kid who is far enough away to require air travel is a hassle, for many reasons. Arranging inexpensive flights for travel at Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break, and end of the year is sometimes difficult because you really shouldn’t do it until you know exam schedules, etc. It generally means that kids can come home less frequently, if air travel is a given. Transportation for them to and from airports in their college town/city is often a problem, too, as well as another expense. Getting their belongings to and from school each year also becomes an issue.</p>
<p>Add the security issues of worry, delays, and danger, and it truly makes location and ease of travel a big factor in that list of colleges to which they apply.</p>
<p>Having been through both scenarios with Ds 1-3, I will definitely urge D4 to stay closer to home, or a driveable distance, if at all possible, when it is her turn to apply.</p>
<p>My daughter has one of those colleges with a long winter break. She’ll be off from November 20 until January third. She’s about 15-16 hours from home. She has driven and flown home and I prefer the flying. When she and her friends drive, they do it straight through, often leaving around 9 or 10 at night at avoid the bulk of the traffic. She has two breaks, one right before Thanksgiving and then a two week Spring break. </p>
<p>My son will be about 6 hours from home. He has twice as many breaks and will be home in October (10 day fall break) and then less then a week at Thanksgiving and then about a month for Christmas. Knowing that he’s not that keen about driving the 6 hours I got him a plane ticket for the October break. Both will have cars at school this year but only son will drive home for breaks. Daughter will either catch a ride with a friend or fly. I’m glad that my kids can drive home within a day and for #3 maybe we’ll look a little harder at mid-atlantic schools…</p>
<p>"Do you want an 18-22 year old driving back and forth to school, especially is you live in an area with cold winters? "</p>
<p>At some point, the young people have to learn to drive in the winter, and parents have to learn how to let go. It’s difficult and painful, but that is the way life is.</p>
<p>I grew up in the snowbelt, but – due to my mom’s various fears – didn’t learn how to drive until I was 24 and living in the sunbelt. I was not as good a driver as were people who had taken drivers ed while in h.s. and had learned how to drive in ice and snow under their parents’ guidance. Two days after buying my first car (a week after getting my driver’s license), I dented my car while parking.</p>
<p>I am sure that I was a far more dangerous person on the road than were responsible 18-year-olds who had learned how to drive with the help of parents and drivers’ ed.</p>
<p>Hayden: Depending on where you are flying from on the east coast, consider using Jet Blue and flying in and out of Long Beach or Southwest out of Burbank. We always avoid LAX whenever possible These airports and easier to get in and out of, less of a security hassle and are not that much further time-wise from USC. Because of LAX’s location, the traffic is often worse than using the other airports. WE LOVE LONG BEACH! My D is going from the west coast to Tufts and Jet Blue flies from Long Beach to Logan and the fare is cheaper!!! USC is a great school for many kids and to transfer just because of the airport hassle, would be a shame. It is only 4 years.</p>
<p>Agreed that parents need to let go eventually, but there is recent evidence that the parts of the brain that improve judgment and inhibit risky behavior do not fully mature until age 25. There have been a lot of articles on this point in a variety of publications. Here’s a quick lay summary.</p>
<p>I chose not to learn to drive until I was in my mid-20s. I am a very careful and cautious driver and I had only a few mishaps after I learned (basically involving bumping my car into our narrow garage.) </p>
<p>My younger siblings learned to drive in their midteens, with a combination of driver’s ed and parental instruction. Two of them had accidents that could have been quite serious but fortunately emerged unscathed (one sibling who was driving while tired, early in the morning on her way to work, wound up with her head through the windshield–fortunately no major injuries thanks to very thick head of hair; another was distracted by an insect that flew into his car and collided with another car–fortunately at relatively low speed.)</p>
<p>There are too many sad stories about teen drivers. I would not want my kids driving long distances in winter weather, especially if they’d been up late the night before to finish work due before the break.</p>
<p>Why not encourage kids to get more years of experience in short-distance driving (and let their prefrontal cortices fully mature) before encouraging them to drive long distances in winter weather?</p>
<p>"Do you want an 18-22 year old driving back and forth to school, especially is you live in an area with cold winters? "</p>
<p>My issue has more to do with driving while exhausted from finals, or driving alone in bad weather. We DO live in an area of bad winters, and both kids have had to learn to drive in ice and snow – but it’s one thing to have a problem when you are 10 miles from home, and quite another when you are a couple of hundred miles away.</p>
<p>I understand your fears about kids’ driving exhausted after exams, but it is important to realize that for all any of us know, our beloved offspring may be doing all sorts of things that put themselves at risk – whether or not they go to school near home or far from home.</p>
<p>I think that all we can do is give them the best common sense and instructin that we can, and then when they are grown, we have to let them go – with love and with prayers.</p>
<p>I have to admit that I am terrified of my kids driving in snow. I am glad that I don’t live in the snowbelt. In fact, I eagerly moved away from the snowbelt in part to keep my kids (then 4, 8) from having to learn how to drive in the snow.</p>
<p>Then, after DS, 22, went to college – he deliberately went to the snowbelt, learned to drive there (wasn’t interested before), and a couple of months after getting his license, he drove 2,500 by himself. </p>
<p>Much as we want to protect our kids, they seem to have to create their own paths and journeys, darn the danger.</p>
<p>While I didn’t look forward to the drag of dealing with airports ( D entered school right before 9/11,) I didnt suggest weeding out any schools because of it.</p>
<p>I frankly prefered a school that would require air travel rather than driving, although for some the length that they consider a drive is a tad longer than what I would choose. One friend she had in Seattle, began school later they did @ Reed, and so every year, he would drive down to Portland to visit her, then up to Chicago.</p>
<p>Her schools were pretty much within what I considered driving distance, although in the back of my mind, was the story of a current friend of my mothers, whose daughter was driving back from her school through the mountains for Thanksgiving vacation one year alone. She never showed up, and she was found pulled off the side of the road- dead in the drivers seat. THey never had any idea of what happened.</p>
<p>I realize that was fairly unlikely, but I admit I reasoned that attending school in a town that was just about 4 hrs away, where good Greyhound or Amtrak service was available, was another plus.( especially now, considering gas is gonna keep going higher)</p>
<p>Our D’s school is about 12 hours away by car, or a 1 1/2 flight; we have travelled both ways, depending on circumstances. We all find the distance ideal, far enough to provide independence and to prevent too-often casual weekend visits, while close enough to be able to drive if flying is not possible or practical for whatever reason, and the flight is short and relatively cheap when appropriate. She has not (yet) driven the distance alone, and doing so will indeed make me nervous; there are two mountain passes, snowy in winter.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> Count me in as one who, right at this moment, wishes our son had desired to attend a school within a comfortable driving distance. :(</p>
<p>It doesn’t help that we are not in a <em>hub</em>, nor is our son’s school, so connecting flights are usually a pain.</p>
<p>I have not been able to sleep for the past few days…I’m SUPER stressed over this airline business. My son, on the other hand, is MUCH more logical than I am and is taking everything in stride.</p>
<p>I am also one of those “overprotective” parents who would put her foot down at the prospect of his driving this distance. He won’t have a car at school, so this isn’t an issue right now, but I don’t think tackling this type of drive at this age is either necessary or advisable. It doesn’t help that last winter, a freshman girl from our area who was attending school out of state died in an accident while driving home for Christmas break. Perhaps we all have to let go sometime, and I think I <em>have</em>, by supporting my son in attending school 1250 miles from home, but I’m just not ready for the driving bit.</p>
<p>My S’s school is 16 hrs away and he wants to take his car up this year. So we are driving up with him and flying back. We will fly him home during holidays but he will have a car at school although he will have to learn to drive in snow. I’m hoping he won’t venture out very far. </p>
<p>Actually, I was going to fly up and meet them at school, get him all settled and fly back with H. With all the airport mess now, I think I’ll put up with the 16-18 hr. drive and cancel the first leg of the trip. I can use that reservation to ride back with him at the end of the year. I’m overprotective, too.</p>
<p>Airports and planes are safe. It’s just all of the added security measures in effect that make flying so stressful. Just forget about all of the hype and enjoy traveling.</p>
<p>BTW, do private or small municipal airports deal with all of this stress, or just major commercial airports?</p>
<p>My son’s school is about 3 hours away and my he can take a bus (station is only 10 minutes from our house and the bus brings him within a couple of blocks of his dorm). We will drive him up and back (no cars allowed for freshman) but he’ll take the bus on visits home…many students do. We discovered this after he accepted and are quite happy with this option…
I agree that driving long distance in the winter can be a bit dicey - these are still relatively new drivers.</p>
<p>Re: long winter break. D’s school, Carleton, is on trimesters with fall finals finishing on the Monday of Thanksgiving week. Winter term starts shortly after January 1. She gets a week to 10 days off in March, then starts Spring term. School ends in early June. She’s been able to work most of the 6 weeks at holiday time, but did get a late start on summer work. Not a problem this year as she has a summer job on campus.</p>
<p>I secretly hoped that my kids would end up very near an airport that had direct flights from home. And, to my relief, it happened. Oldest was a 20 minute bus,cab, or friend ride from a Northwest hub airport, and youngest is a 45 minute drive from another Northwest hub. They experienced fewer airport and weather hassles because they didn’t have more than one flight.</p>
<p>The money we/he save from not having a car and insurance (he’s only occasional driver, got his drivers license as freshman in college although with permit since 16) has far paid for his airfares to PDX-PIT . The fare from PDX-SFO is only slightly less than PDX-PIT even though the distance is not comparable. </p>
<p>Distance does have some economic advantages.</p>