<p>As always - very good points Yabeyabe. My son is the type who is happiest hanging out with a small group of friends - whether it’s a BBYO function within his chapter of about 35 active members or playing video games with a few close friends he has known for years. He is very social within these fairly small groups - but I actually don’t see him wanting to branch out and meet new people or explore new places all that much - that’s a very valid point.</p>
<p>Elon football - I know - my older son makes fun of it all the time - although I hear Wake may be having a “rebuilding” year this year.</p>
<p>Seiclan - that’s funny about the driving range thing when you live in Florida - living in Maryland - I can reach out and touch a few states! We used to drive to Florida almost every year to visit m-i-l - and I would always forget that once we crossed the border into Florida - we still had a long way to go (Boynton Beach).</p>
<p>I live at least a half hour south of that! That is why many kids in Florida stay instate for college. DS SAYS he wants to go out of state, that is why we are exploring his options (which we won’t know for sure until he finishes this school year (Junior) and takes some standardized tests.
We are building a summer home next year on the Jersey Shore though. I am not sure if that will make us/him feel that the northeast is even more accessible.</p>
<p>U. of Miami is a very popular school around our area. It is considered a very good school for the B+/A- student. It also the reputation for being very expensive, and a party school, at least in our area. It was too expensive for us, and not what my son was looking for anyway, so we never considered it. </p>
<p>I agree with you about the airport. It is not necessarily about how many miles the student is from home once one gets past a certain driving distance, but rather how close the airport is and how costly flights are for those on a budget.</p>
<p>Seiclan, I don’t think college students 30 years ago–or today–adequately respected the rigors of nursing programs. Pulling a few all-nighters to finish term papers is a piece of cake compared to pulling a midnight-8 rotation in an ER or ICU.</p>
<p>As for driving distance, visiting my grandfather in Miami Beach a generation before the term South Beach meant anything, I remember how long that ride seemed, without even the 400 miles of “Pedro Says Visit South of the Border” that preceded to catch our attention.</p>
<p>Depending on which airliens service your airport, you may have flights to cities near some good small schools, such as Harrisburg, Richmond Buffalo, etc.</p>
<p>Every year a fair number of kids from our high school apply to Miami. The top kids often use it as a safety because of the generous merit scholarships. The ones who choose to attend are usually strong honors level students who have high grades but haven’t taken the most rigorous courses. Those kids are very happy at the school.</p>
<p>I think distance from home really depends on the kid. Kids who are independent and out-going usually can handle going being farther away. It does seem like a lot of kids in this generation are very close and somewhat dependent on their parents. Those kids seem to do better when they can get home easily and cheaply.</p>
<p>The airport issue is why I am mostly researching for him schools in the Philly area, Boston area, NYC, etc. Everytime a new possibility is mentioned, I go to the school website and see how far they are from the airport and then check the flights to Fort Lauderdale. Vanderbilt is in Nashville, Emory in Atlanta, Wash U St. Louis…all accessible. Now I need to look at Match and Safety schools that are also accessible and desirable (to DS, who wants a midsize campus based school with an intellectual vibe). Although we don’t have major financial limitations, I don’t want to have to pay $500 round trip every time he wants to come home!</p>
<p>Having just dropped off D at college less than two weeks ago (oldest), I think a lot has to do with the parents, too. Dropping off D at school was soooo hard for me - and it feels good that she’s only a 3-4 hr drive away and there’s pretty easy train/bus service too. For S (now a soph), I am open to schools that require a plane ride (afterall, I went to college a plane ride away), but that might be hard for ME if he goes that far. (does that matter? I don’t know. I don’t want to limit him) At this point, I’m keeping all options on the initial list (including UMiami and Wash U - he’s more academic than D), but also going to look at closer schools (Boston area, LACs in PA). As far as the cost of flying, the only time it is exorbitant (according to a friend here in NY whose sons go to Michigan) is Thanksgiving. The rest of the time, they are flying at pretty much “off peak.”</p>
<p>With flight cost, a lot depends on the particular cities involved. For example, it was–and may still be–cheaper to fly from Philly to Pittsburgh on a flight which continued on to San Francisco than to buy a simple Philly to Pittsburgh flight. because there was more competition on flights to SF.</p>
<p>With the continued mergers of airlines, you may find that Detroit is cheap off peak, but St Louis is not. And I suspect round trip from Detroit to FL for Winter and Spring break is much worse than Detroit to NY, because so many people head South then.</p>
<p>I’ve seen professors that had a hard time with English (at a local state school) who had something to contribute, I’ve even taught classes overseas, but it is totally beyond me why anyone would find it acceptable to invest $ and time in a good education only to deal with TA’s that can’t communicate. I was shocked to hear how common it appears to be at large universities. </p>
<p>In my opinion students should be exposed to as many different cultures and histories as possible but I can’t believe non-English speaking TA’s is the best way to accomplish that.</p>
<p>My sister lives in Miami and her older son is now a senior at Vanderbilt…16 hour drive from her home, but she said if he had to do it all over again, he would pick the same school. He double majored in Music and Econ.</p>
<p>Her younger son decided to not only stay close to home at UMiami, he’s actually a freshman and is still living at home for the time being, just to save a few $ on the dorm costs. But he loves it there and hangs out there a lot. He also double majors in Music and in Math or Computer Science. He had also looked at Georgia Tech and RPI, but in the end was most comfortable staying in Miami.</p>
<p>Both kids have many friends at both schools that are Jewish and find Jewish activities to get involved with.</p>
<p>UMiami is a very far drive from Maryland…but we know people from the Northeast (New England) that are there and very happy…yeah, the transportation does get to be crazy around holiday and school vacation time. Plus the added expense of flying…</p>
<p>ncmentor - I was reading the thread about the non-English speaking TA as well and agree with you completely. It seems to me - and I know I am generalizing - that these threads re problems with TAs and housing issues and not being able to register for the courses that you need to graduate pretty much describe issues at larger universities. That’s why I am pretty adamant - and S2 agrees with me - about keeping the absolute upper limit at around 16,000 - James Madison, Delaware and Towson. So, in our house, the big vs. small issue is pretty much focused on 1) is a school with 2000 - 2500 students too small? 2) Is a school with 16,000 too big? I wish we had more in the 5000 student range - looking forward to seeing American and Elon.</p>
<p>One of the related topics I was thinking about today is the issue of one’s “comfort zone”. I think that for S2 - some of the smaller schools might fit him better in some ways. But then, I change gears and think that college is a time to expand your horizons and try new things - and that he might be exposed to more new ideas/people/activities, etc. at larger universities. I could readily see him at a small school where he would hang out with kids from Hillel and play intermural sports - and that would be fine - except that sounds a lot like his life now in hs. I just want to be sure that in looking for a good “fit” for him - we also allow room for growth.</p>
<p>Interesting stuff. D1 told me at the end of last summer, after she’d been away all summer on a USY program, that we were unusual in that we were encouraging her to go away from home for college. I’m wondering if this is in part an east coast/west coast difference? I don’t know that I’d want to send a kid who wanted to stay close to home away, though.</p>
<p>Slithey- interesting article. Just took d to look at schools in Ohio. After YEARS of insisting she wanted to go far from home for college, after this trip she told me she would prefer to stay in NY or PA because it felt more like home!</p>
<p>Please forgive me if this school has already been mentioned, I just don’t remember. Lehigh University? Don’t laugh, everyone. I KNOW it’s been labeled a “party school”, and it probably is because of all the Greek life, however we know three people that have graduated that would not be labeled partiers…one became an engineer and two became doctors…I’m bringing it up only because it fits some of your needs…in PA (kinda cold, I know) but an hour from Philly…strong business school, jewish kids, @4-5000 kids…now they are pretty selective, however you never know! They are really big into sports and have some great teams…could that be an option?
It may be too cold for your S…what I’ve been told about that school is that there are many serious kids who work hard…I’m sure your S could meet a nice group of kids that he connects with…even though it has a party image, you can definitely create your own experience…</p>
<p>slitheytove - I do think it depends a lot on where you live and what colleges are within a 4-5 hour drive. From where we live in MD, there are so many options within driving range that it just seems like an unnecessary expense and hassle to go further away. Other parts of the country - that might not be the case. I did see that article and am glad they conclude that the distance does not matter so much for boys - one more reason I can stick with the plan to have him within driving range!</p>
<p>chochip - thanks for the thought - but I think Lehigh is too reachy for my son and I’m not thrilled with what I have heard of late regarding fraternity life and drinking. I think there was a thread on CC not too long ago about Lehigh and while there certainly are great kids who don’t party and there are certainly kids who party who still do well academically - it was not a great endorsement of the school.</p>
<p>chocchipcookie: What a coincidence! I decided today that I will take S to see Lehigh on Veteran’s Day. He had a friend over this weekend who has other siblings - one goes to Lehigh for engineering so I was chatting with the mom (who is super active in her temple) about the school and she was really positive about it. S is more of an A student, but Lehigh seems more possible than UPenn. I didn’t know about the party image (although I am very early in the research process for S). I had the impression that it wasn’t really for a B student, but I checked our school’s Naviance just today, and I see that it actually might have been a possibility (reach for sure) for D (she was more of a B+/A- student - not amazing test scores though). Since this will be only the second campus tour for S, I want to see if he likes this kind of campus more or less than Penn, and Lehigh is only 2.5 hours from here. I’ll let you know what I think after the visit.</p>
<p>Will do - feel free to PM me anything specific you want me to check out. Not sure if we’ll have time to get over to Hillel, but if we do, I will share that with the group.</p>