For sure, I agree with this. I just think in our case since we are walking distance to campus it wouldn’t be “coming home for the weekend”. It would be popping by for an hour or two to do laundry or ask your dad to fix your iPhone and then going back to see your friends. I definitely agree and D22 agrees that she doesn’t want to come home right at first from college. She has a friend a year older who is a first year at a school about 3 hrs away from home and D22 felt like the friend was trying to come home too much (to see her boyfriend) and needed to stay on campus and make friends there and not miss out on the fun activities, but for kids who grew up in Chapel Hill popping by mom & dad’s is not missing out on the fun activities because it’s all so close by.
I think being so close she wouldn’t be homesick at all. UNC is practically in her backyard. I could see where if she had a bad fit for a roommate she might try to escape to home, but I don’t think she would be homesick and miss us or anything. We’re just too close. She didn’t want to stay that close to home and will be going several hours away and exploring a new place.
The kids I know who grew up in the area and go to UNC are involved in campus activities (on the Ultimate team, marching band, etc), live in the dorms, etc.
Oh, and I am in no way talking in generalities about how it should be for everyone. I am just following this thought experiment of “what if my kid went to UNC” which is the university in my hometown. I think I have a pretty clear picture of what that might be like, but you never know.