Unfortunately, my pocket agrees with this list. I will be paying for Penn State for the next 100 years. Now, ask me if it was worth it? It sure was!

I'm SO at a loss at what I would suggest or NOT suggest for my hypothetical kids.

I don't think I'd suggest my alma mater. It's way better for graduate/professional study. I wouldn't be OK with commuting to school either - residental all the way. If I could do school over, I would've wanted a more traditional experience (locally, a SUNY or, out-of-state, a Big Ten?) so maybe I'd recommend that.

*lights match* maybe not over my dead body per se, but I am very on the fence about my kid going to an HBCU. I've met some great people from those schools, but...meh. Not 100% sold.

I was avoiding this but since you went there....

My daughter or son will not be attending CERTAIN HBCUs. I have about 5 HBCUs that I appreciate academically, professionally, and socially. I won't specify which ones. My child will know. :)

^^^^^^
tld221 and DrPhil brought me out of lurking retirement on this one. I feel 100% the opposite.

Although I definietly have my "5 favorites", my child can NOT attend a non-HBCU for undergrad. Go to graduate/professional school (almost) anywhere you want, but for undergrad HBCU or bust!

Yeah, but your team broke my heart a few years back in Commonwealth and well, we aren't at LSU either. Therefore, no LSU! :D

I'd be thrilled to send a child to my alma mater's rival (both are highly selective private schools and very generous with need-based aid). But I admit that I'd have a little sadness to go along with my bursting pride if she got into both and chose the rival.

Oh the good ole days for both of those!:(

UNCC, JCSU, JWU, Belmont Abbey or Queens. If either insist on staying in town 2 years is my limit, and they can spend them at CPCC, which has been in the Top 3 Community Colleges on several lists for years.

Plus there's a trend at UNCC of kids who are Charlotte/Metrolina natives having apartments in the University Area or living in the dorms. That's just crazy to be a college student living in the same city as your parents and paying for separate housing. If you want to cut the apron strings, cut them both and go away...don't keep hold of one for dear life after cutting the other.

Oh, and don't get me started on the siblings both going to UNCC and the in-town parents paying for separate apartments for BOTH girls.

My universities were 5-10 minutes from my parents' house. My family almost never saw me. :D

I was having a gooooooooooooooood time living in dorms (in undergrad) and in apartments (in grad school). Hanging out, roadtripping, being awaaaaaay from parents and family stuff. A goooooooooooooooooood time. :)

At my undergrad, it was required to live on-campus, so the local kids all lived in the dorms. They didn't go home all that often. Of the ones I knew, most of them ended up spending their whole junior year abroad (as opposed to the semesters that most of us did).

I guess it's different in the case of a major university. I can't justify letting my kid have an off-campus apartment when they're going to the community college around the corner.

Yeah. My oldest step-son was a college freshman last year and we made him live in the dorms eventhough it was 5-10 minutes from our house. We never saw him either unless he was out of money, university break where the dorms/campus are closed, or needed an extension of his meal plan.

If he had stayed home he would have stayed here the entire time and gone to class, rather than meeting people and learning how to take care of himself/being responsible and doing his own thing.

Agreed!

This is why I did not go to LSU. My parents wouldn't have been able to butt out if I was in the same town. I always wanted to go to LSU, but it was more important to be 180 miles away.

Cannot agree more. I went to school in midtown Atlanta, while my parents live in the south metro area (F'ville/PTC). The one summer I commuted was just ... not good. I learned the academic stuff, but there is so much more to college than just the academic stuff. You really need to be learning the whole package!

I needed 1,500 miles. :o

Soooo true... the living-on-campus experience is so important, even if your parents live right around the corner. After 18 years, who wouldn't want to move away from mom and dad and curfews and expectations that you'll be in bed at a reasonable hour and "no beer pong for YOU, young lady / young man"?

My parents were ok with wherever I wanted to go to school as long as it was somewhere that would provide a good quality education. The only school where I was expressly forbidden to apply was Yale, as New Haven wasn't exactly the safest city at the time. (I wouldn't mind sending a hypothetical child to Yale, though. New Haven is reasonably safe these days, though there are areas I wouldn't want to enter by myself at night.)

My husband's parents, OTOH, wanted him to go to an Ivy League school close to home. He was forced to apply to Yale, even though he got into MIT early action, because MIT isn't Ivy League, and his mother wanted him 1 hour's drive away instead of 3-1/2 hours. :rolleyes: I can guarandamntee you that if he'd gone to Yale she'd have driven up unannounced from time to time.

Anyway, like I said upthread, my hypothetical child's happiness would be most important, whether she picked a school around the corner or on the other side of the world - as long as she stayed away from HAHVAHD and from any school where "mandatory chapel" or "women must wear skirts" appears in the school rules.

My mom's rule of thumb was that you should go to college close enough that you can get home when you really need to, but far enough way that you can't come home whenever you want to.

LOL. When my sister and I would come home for holidays and summer, my parents would give us a 10PM curfew! Seriously. At school we came home whenever we wanted. WTF? Thank God I didn't decide to stay in BTR for school. My parents are hyper strict and nosy. They would have been all in my business.

In college, my mom was all the time "Stop calling me so much." If I was a more sensitive person, that might have hurt my feelings :p

I'm taking a new twist on this...

Over my dead body my daughter would go to... any school if she was just going there because her boyfriend was going there.

^ Cedarville?

Igree 100%, worst choice ever. Although I can imagine it can be hard to convince a ohmigodimsoinloveandhesthebestboyfriendeverrrrr teenager of this

BYU's "honor code" also freaks me out a little bit...when otherwise bright students are kicked out for having premarital sex, I think that's a problem. Colleges should only interfere in your personal life when absolutely necessary, IMO. Academic honor codes are great, of course, but this is different.

Now it's so easy to get most places (maybe not cheap, but easy) that distance really isn't an issue anymore. I never felt like I couldn't get home if I *needed* to, and I rarely ever wanted to do so.

My parents were definitely going to be all in my business, so I got as far away as I could (literally). Even now, I think my father would have a heart attack if he didn't hear from me for 2 weeks.

Semi-offtopic:
OMG my sister almost left OU for said (coughlosercough) boyfriend in the middle of this year. Thankfully, they are now just friends. She realized he is not her future.

My best friend from home was the textbook girl who left her first choice college to follow the older boyfriend to a lesser college. She left OSU after her first quarter (where she was surrounded by other HS friends there too), went to the lesser college where she moved in with the BF off campus right away. She made one college friend there. One, and it's only because they shared a major. (And they are no longer friends). Her major was something that you MUST go to grad school for in order to have a career in that field. BF (then fiance) didn't want her to go to grad school (too expensive, and besides, HE was going to be the bread winner, since he was a finance major), then he insisted they live in our mostly dead-end hometown area. Fast forward 8 years, 3 kids, unemployment (his) and now a divorce... she is working for $10 an hour and living with her mom and her kids, and he also lives with his parents and just found a job after nearly 3 years of unemployment. LESSON TO YOU COLLEGE GIRLS WHO WANT TO FOLLOW YOUR BOYFRIEND..... DON'T!!!!!!

On the flip side:
Theta sister who had been with her boyfriend since their sophomore year of high school and her boyfriend shared the same major (pharmacy!!!!!). She went to ONU, he went to a school on the east coast. They loved each other, both knew what they wanted to be and it was even the same thing, but agreed they had to experience life away from each other. They stayed together through 6 years of college in a LDR (with a few "breaks"), have now been married for 5 years and are expecting their first baby.

/endofftopic


Vi, I always forgot about Malone. I don't know anyone who went there and I think you were the first person I even heard about it from.

So yeah, I'm on Team "Follow your boy/girlfriend to a college for the wrong reasons and I'll throttle you!!!!!!!!!"

This guy on my hall, who ended up dating one of my best friends for a few years, came to college with his girlfriend. He was especially needy, so he probably followed his HS girlfriend to college.

Around the middle of the second semester--she realizes she's a lesbian. OH SNAP. Before this realization, she was his world, so he ended up scrambling to make new friends.

I feel old now. Thanks. :p

How do you know my ex?

Oops, nevermind. I still bat for the same team.

HA! Oh, karma. You win again.

My freshman year roommate was the gf who left her hometown but couldn't live w/o her HS bf. She did everything in her power to get him to transfer, but he absolutely hated the city and school when he visited. Plus, his school was one of the tops for his major and had no desire to move to the East coast. Rather, leave the West coast.

While (AFAIK) girl did not realize she was a lesbian, he broke up with her before spring break, which is wayyyy longer than anyone anticipated.

It's okay. :) I was only born a couple of years after the airlines were deregulated, so I do not know of this world where it once cost thousands of dollars to fly to SF from NYC!

What about safety issues? Would you let your daughter attend a school in an area that is especially prone to crime?

Definitely.

I assume you mean "high crime rate."

Many colleges and universities are in the heart of cities. There is no massive gate to separate the campus environment from the city environment. That's a good thing. My children are raised to understand that most crimes are not random but are instead based on people's routine activities. Be smart, whether you are a college student or not, and you reduce the likelihood of person and property victimization.

Also...how bad are most college towns really? Even those in the core of a city usually have excellent police/security coverage. None of my friends at Columbia or Penn got robbed/mugged on campus, and those schools are in the "roughest" parts of their respective cities.

Actually, I almost went to Temple University. The week or so before I was supposed to start school, someone was stabbed ON the campus! After that, I immediately decided to go to Penn State instead. I guess it all worked out.