<p>I thought it was rather unique when our older son took a compass and drew a circle on a map, to indicate the area he felt comfortable looking at schools. Evidently this is not too uncommon. Geography is certainly one way to narrow down the list.
Our younger son had the opposite approach, if there were schools on any other planets he would not have ruled them out. His applications spanned both US coasts and quite alot of the territory in between.
Looking back on the search and selection process, if a child will be visiting/attending a distant school, an important consideration is direct transportation, both for simplicity and ease of travel and for cost savings and a lesser likelihood of travel delays.</p>
<p>DD2 is starting to consider the distance from home for her colleges (she is a rising senior). After driving from Ohio to Mass she is starting to ask “how long does it take to get from X to home”. That makes me feel better as well. Even though our Ds may go to school near our home, I have told them they need to live at the school and I don’t want to see them more than monthly. After my undergrad experience, I think it’s important that they grow on their own at school.</p>
<p>My daughter only wanted to apply to colleges in from Delaware to Boston. If she had decided to go to a Boston college it would have been a 5+ hour drive (who wants to pay $300 for airfare?).</p>
<p>My wife and I just got back from a wedding in Nashville and toured Vanderbilt. What a lovely school! (And not bad academically, of course!). Adding 90 minutes wait at the airport plus 2 hour flight = 4 hours vs 5+ to Boston by car. And $300 airfare would beat the price of gas plus 14 hour drive.</p>
<p>Of course, when comparing gas to jet fuel, you need to factor in the option of car-pooling. I would imagine that colleges have ways of linking together kids who would like to car-pool home for breaks.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, I agree with your notion about living at school. We’ve been direct about that with our D as well. I think if she’s too close to home (and accesses it too much), it’s going to be hard for school to feel like home. And we want it to be her second home for 4 years. For her (and it’s different for everybody) she needs the separation. The other thing we’ve been specific about is No Car freshman year at least. I don’t think she believes us. I think she thinks if she goes to school in state that we’ll cave. </p>
<p>I’d be interested in people’s thoughts about the car thing. Honestly I might cave if she were in a fairly rural setting. But if she’s in an city she’s not used to driving in – I worry. I also fear her attention will be diverted from school if she has wheels. I’d welcome some input from you good folks on this.</p>
<p>I agree with you about the car. In fact, one of the things I liked a lot about St Olaf College is that they do not permit cars except in very unusual circumstances. (Loren Pope agrees with us on this issue too, so we’re in good company!)</p>
<p>D1 had a car freshman year. She was OOS in rural area and played a fall sport. She could not come home on weekends because of games/practices but used the car to get to Target/bank/hair appointments/etc. in the bigger town about 15 minutes away. It has really been a nice convenience for her and us when she comes home on breaks.</p>
<p>EDIT: Kids figure out the St. Olaf dilemma. They “rent” spaces in town for their cars. H’s brother and uncle live in Northfield and say it is quite common.</p>
<p>Access to bands (and we’re talking electronica-power pop-punk type bands, the more obscure the better) was extremely important to my daughter when chosing a college. She went as far as to research tour schedules of her favorite groups and the accessibility of all-age shows.</p>
<p>At first I thought she was being way too narrow-minded, but eventually I realized that it’s really no different than looking for big-time sports (which she wasn’t) or a particular EC focus. It helped that she was also interested in large urban schools with little emphasis on sports or Greek life. </p>
<p>She wound up in Chicago and will start school in the fall. She can’t wait! I still tease her about chosing a school for its proximity to concert venues, but I must admit that this all seems to have worked out for the best.</p>
<p>Scout, I have a son who will be doing the same as he begins his college search this year. It’s fine with me … there are many great schools, so why notconsider things that are personally important in narrowing the search?</p>
<p>bbl, S took a car to his university in a large city his second year (freshmen couldn’t have cars but we had an agreement of no car freshman year before he settled on a school that didn’t allow them) as the school is in a part of the city with somewhat limited public transportation access. He wasn’t the stereotypical male driver but instead was very timid in traffic, and I was really nervous. We are pleased with how it’s worked out so far. No problems in 2 years (knock on wood for the upcoming year), and he became good at city driving fairly quickly. He’s not a drinker (came home after freshman year drinking Shirley Temples) so I’d rather have him driving when they go out than riding with friends who do drink. BTW, even if a student doesn’t have a car, if anyone in his/her group of friends has a car, the opportunity for attention to be diverted will exist if the student is so inclined.</p>
<p>He is well outside the radius (1,000+ miles), and has had friends fly here to drive down with him at the beginning of the year, but his plan to caravan home fell through the first time, and he made the trip fine alone so we have let him do so other times since. (I think we’d have had a double-standard on that if it had been our D because it involves an overnight stay in a motel.)</p>
<p>Mystery, that’s a good point: there will always be somebody with a car to make distractions accessible. As with Scout’s daughter, mine will be looking to go to concerts too! And I don’t really want her to miss those opportunities deep down inside (in spite of what she thinks!). No easy answers on the car business for sure.</p>
<p>car thing:
S was at a rural school in a rural area. Did lots of backpacking natural resource restoration work. Terrible public transportation to major metropolitan areas (e.g. airports). Would have been impossible w/o a car. Still many kids at the school do go without. D in a small city and does not use car much except to drive back and forth for summer break. S had his own insurance policy from age of 18 and paid all bills. D is still on ours but surprisingly it costs about the same as S’s. Go figure</p>
<p>I think kids can do better if they go out of their geographic area. We did that and got into some reaches with merit money. Around here it seems like everyone is applying to the same schools so the competition is fierce. What’s it to a school to pick one kid over another when they have them standing in line and they are all from the same area and fit certain types? Schools want diversity and one way you can get that is going out of your geographic zone.</p>
<p>That’s a good point, cpt, and we were told that directly at a recent selective school we visited. Diversity means regional as well as race, etc.</p>
<p>Many schools consider geographic diversity in their “diversity” scholarships. Just type “geographical diversity scholarships” into google for some examples.</p>
<p>To all the parents whose kids love Calvin and Hobbes: My eighty-year-old grandfather’s favorite books are also books of Calvin and Hobbes comics. It never stops. :p</p>