I think I would be ok with d going further but I think she needs to feel she isn’t too far to come home easily for a weekend if she needs to. I don’t think she will actually come home regularly, but knowing she could might make a big difference for her, if that makes sense. My dh and I did both agree that it wouldn’t be best for her to either live with us or other family (many live close to her most likely college).
D has a friend whose mom wanted her daughters to go far and live in a completely different part of the country. The older daughter chose a college 20 minutes from home. She knew it was the right place for her and didn’t waiver much. She lives on campus and comes home for breaks but not really otherwise (aside from the extra evening here or there coming to see her sister’s band concerts). Sometimes we think we know what would be best, but our kids decide otherwise. As long as it’s within budget, I will let my d decide as well.
@mom2twogirls Agree completely. I would never push a child to go too far away for college. My husband and I went to undergrad one hour from home and were only ready to move farther away after graduation. It will be up to our kids if they are comfortable going far away when they are 18. We are taking a spring break trip to some of S19’s schools and it will be very interesting to see if he thinks they feel too far.
I started the search by pushing my kid to look at schools that are at least an hour’s drive away because my husband is already getting separation anxiety, and I suspect if the kiddo was in college close by my husband would be over there every weekend ‘helping’ with theater set construction or taking kid and his friends out to dinner. I had a donut-shaped geographic area to look at colleges - farther than one hour, within a day’s drive.
But my kid visited some colleges in California when visiting my sister last year, and he occasionally talks about colleges in the UK or Ireland. I am hoping that he doesn’t go somewhere that we have to fly to see him, but it’s his life and his choice so I’m not actively opposing it.
And honestly, if on a really slim chance he gets in to Stanford I don’t think I would stop him going.
All of the colleges on the ‘definite’ list are east coast. But those ‘maybe’ colleges are pretty far away.
I’m expecting S19 to go within 1 to 5 hours away, but that’s just a guess. He still has no clue and doesn’t want to talk about it. I can’t believe it’s almost 2018. It definitely has not hit him that he is applying to college in 2018. Hopefully he’ll have a list by September, even if it only has one safety school on it.
He did wonder aloud about when his ACT score from the re-scheduled test might be in (He took it on Dec. 16th instead of the 9th). I’m guessing after all tests taken on the actual test day are scored, so not until February. I’m sure I’ll still check every Wednesday and Friday.
I think he is officially bored with winter break!
Every fall semester there are threads about homesickness in college posted by students on CC. They feel homesick and desperately want to transfer back home after moving in college a few weeks. I think kids who have never been away from home may need to think about homesickness when applying to college. My S11 and D13 went to college far away from home and did not have homesickness. My D19 wants to be away from home too.
@eh1234 Kids bored here already too. I instituted an hour of mandatory reading yesterday since they never have time to read for fun and I think both of our kids have forgotten how much joy it brings them. After that hour of reading, I think they are convinced. S19 spent 90 minutes reading in his room this morning before breakfast. I bought him The Secret History and I think he’s enjoying it.
We still have twelve days of break left and it’s going to be frigid here so we need to find more things to do inside other than be on their phones looking at Instagram videos. I might drag the kids down to the Museum of Contemporary Art today or tomorrow.
I also dread S going away. He is a homebody and very attached to us and us to him. Our older D is very independent. She was always off busy doing something. She really wasn’t home much even in high school. S on the other hand is always around. He only did a sleepover summer camp once and it didn’t go well so we never did it again.
He started off saying he wanted to stay close to home. We were only originally looking in MA, RI, and NY. Now he asks why all the schools on the list are so close. I truly can’t imagine him going far away. I guess we will add some further schools if he wants but I want most of them closer.
DD started on her For the Love of ACT Science book last night. We went through Chapter 1 together, then she said she couldn’t handle taking the practice test at the end so I washed dishes and when I turned around she was taking it. She does want a 30 so hopefully she will stay motivated.
She is one that has a travel bug and thinks it might be cool to go far away for school. BUT, she has a hard time being away from her sister who is at college one hour away… I would prefer her to be less than 4 hours so she can come home/we can go there without too much trouble. Right now we’re looking at 4 schools- 2 hours, 2.75 hours, 4 hours, and 9 hours away. Her current favorite is the 2.75 hours which is not bad (and an easy route to drive), and puts her in the direction of some older friends that she could visit easily. But it doesn’t have one of her choices of majors. And, the 4 hour and especially the 9 hour have achievable automatic full tuition. The one 9 hours away is also not close to an airport so that doesn’t help either. If only there was one school that had everything we wanted!
Hello everybody! We are in the middle of our vacation visiting family and friends. Came up to MA from FL - D19 and D21 are FREEZING! We are having record low temperatures here - this morning it was 8 degrees and -11 with the wind chill. @-) D21 already knew she did not want to go to college in the cold weather, D19 is quickly changing her mind. She can’t imagine living in this for months on end. Luckily since we are just on vacation we can just huddle in the house and don’t have to do anything if we don’t feel like it!
D thought she would want to go to school up north but even before being here in this freezing weather she had started to question herself. After we visited Rollins she realized it might be nice to be a few hours from home. The problem for us is living in south Florida there is not much within a few hours drive.
Hope everyone had a great holiday and has a wonderful New Year!
As a parent of a kid on medication, the issue of medication management including ongoing follow up is definitely on my radar. Of course, unless she’s a commuter I won’t be there to make sure she takes her daily pills for ADHD, anxiety and depression. She did spend 2 weeks last summer at a residential camp and apparently took her pills more or less as scheduled. My ideal scenario is to have her living on campus to be more independent, but be at a reasonable distance away to facilitate ongoing treatment and make it relatively easy to come home for visits, doctor appointments, etc.
Our S18 has pretty much settled on his college choice. We’re in Georgia. The college is In Ohio. We’ll miss him, but he could fly/train/greyhound in an emergency. None of our family ever stayed close to home for college (me: 9 hours away, my mother: 15 hours away). It’s not deliberate, just how the college choices ended up).
I think that makes sense @Corinthian
@homerdog I can’t decide if the Secret History is one of the worst, or one of the best, books I’ve ever read! I hate the style, but the plot is both awesome and horrible.
One TASP essay done. One. It’s only due in two weeks and there’s 4 days left of vacation. Plenty of time. Oy. I really hope this isn’t a preview of college app essay procrastination.
I seem to have convinced S19 to look at some summer options. He likes the idea of a summer writing program but the two we’re considering are pretty competitive and he needs to write something for the application. He needs to send transcripts and get a recommendation as well but those are the easy parts. I haven’t the foggiest idea if he writes well enough to be accepted.
Some of these programs are insanely expensive and I hear they don’t necessarily look great on apps, so we’re really just looking at programs for things he’s truly interested in and on campuses where he may apply so he can see if he likes living there. It’s more about him exploring an interest and getting a taste of living on campus before he’s launched. He’s been to XC camps but those are with his buddies and not the same.
S19 doesn’t have much going on this summer except running with the XC team every morning. He needs more to do. We will probably go on some sort of vacation but, since we are stuck here while D21 is at her mandatory summer ballet intensive for six weeks, S19 needs a plan. During this break he has proven that he has about a week of relaxing before he’s stir crazy.
A year from now, the applications will be in.
I’m not ready! I’m not ready! I am SO not ready! He’s still a baby!
OK, freakout done.
Happy New Year everyone!
Hoping everything falls in place for all our kids this year. They have so many decisions to make, so many things to do…
I kind of feel helpless in all this, just making sure they are well feed, driven to their activities on time, lending them an ear when they want to vent and being a sounding board when they want to discuss ideas. I am confident they can all handle it…now me, that’s another story.
Happy New Year, 2019 board!
Hi everyone, this is my first post on this discussion. I’m trying to catch up on the posts (I’m still reading posts from early Dec.) What a wonderful group you guys have here! Thank you for all of your help for parents like me who are learning.
S19 is a good student (4.0 30/1310) at a very small private non-ranking school in TX. He wants to do film/tv production and/or screenwriting at a top university. Our EFC is 0, we want to avoid loans. UT Austin is a reach because he’s out of the top 7%, but its still his 1b choice (USC is 1a). Syracuse and Chapman are also on his list. UNT and UTA are safeties.
Any film parents here?
@romns116 I would have him retake the ACT and/or SAT next summer/fall for the highest score possible, to increase USC chances and to increase possible merit packages at other schools. He might also check out LMU - don’t know about their financial aid though like Chapman, there may be some merit available. The NPC at both schools includes a merit estimate, if you haven’t already seen it.