For those that chose out of state schools, how did you decide?

[mirabillis]

I see all these great college acceptances in the acceptance thread with such a wide variety of colleges. I always wonder if most of these are in-state schools for the applicant, which narrows your focus considerably. Or are many of these out of state choices? And if out of state, how do you cast your net and decide where to apply? There are a million different university options if you're looking nationwide, how do you decide?

 

*eta - typo

 

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by mirabillis

[regentrude]

My DD is going to school out of state because she wanted a top tier research university with a strong program in physics and a graduate program in the field, but with a broad offering of subjects (i.e. no STEM college). We started from the top of the ranking list, went down the list, eliminating schools that did not fit her other criteria, and she applied to several schools. None of these schools are in state.

 

DS is going in state. His top choice of location for non academic reasons is a city in our state, and it happens that a school with a great program in his field of study is located there. 

Edited December 18, 2016 by regentrude

[JanetC]

My older daughter very much wanted a small private school, and those can be very expensive on the coasts. If she wanted that, she was going to have to hunt in the midwest and the south, where small LACs with merit aid are more common.

 

My younger daughter has a very focused interest, so that is the determining factor in her college list. She is still working on her final list (still has 40 schools) but if she added geographical restrictions to her already narrow interests, all that's left close to home is our state flagship.

 

Remember that deciding where to apply needs to be done in the fall of senior year, but deciding where to attend can wait until spring. Depending on travel logistics, there is time to visit your final choice or two before the May 1st deadline.

[justasque]

  My dc have applied to schools across the country.    We researched to find out the top schools in each dc's area of interest, then visited them several times, especially during open house weekends where we could get a more in-depth idea of the school's program, the courses that would be taken, etc.Once we had a list of possible schools, the dc applied, got into several, and the comparisons began again.  Distance was a factor, but excellence in the area of interest  was the driving factor.

Take the time to look deeply at each school's course of study - required and optional courses.  They will differ school by school, even within the same major.  I will say it did make it easier when the dc had a fairly uncommon major; it cut the list of potential schools down quite a bit.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

DS wants to do Navy ROTC, so his search started with the list of those schools.  

 

Then he cross referenced with schools that have his desired concentration.  This was complicated, because it is a field that has a lot of different names at different schools.  

 

Then he cross referenced with schools that have his desired foreign language.

 

He added several schools with strong offerings in his intended major and language, even if they did not have a ROTC unit.

 

Because several of the schools are selective (5-15% admission rate) he applied to more colleges than other students might.  His thought was that he really couldn't count on being accepted to any of the highly selective schools, so he needed to also have a good number of schools were he was a likely applicant.

 

We live in a small state that does not have a strong degree program in his desired major.  There is no Navy ROTC in our state.  Also there is a strong likelihood that we will move before he graduates from college, so college location is less significant.  He is applying on the East Coast, West Coast, and to some schools in the Mid West and the South.  Program offerings mattered more than proximity to home.

 

ETA:  We found the search engine at College Confidential helpful.  It's possible to tweak it a lot to emphasize what is important to the student.  

Edited December 18, 2016 by Sebastian (a lady)

[creekland]

We're different than the vast majority of parents (at least if the school where I work is common) in that we wanted our kids to go a minimum of 4 hours away from home in order for them to experience living in a totally different area.  Ideally I wanted them OOS, but that wasn't a deal breaker.

 

Oldest wanted to get involved in microfinance as a teen, read a book on the subject, and wanted to go to the school where the authors taught/worked (Covenant College).  He did.  I got concerned about $$ so made him find a couple of other choices (still based upon his microfinance desires), but he was never really interested in them after we found his financial package worked for us.

 

Middle wanted pre-med OR research, so wanted a larger school, but not too large.  We both asked around and U Rochester's name came up a lot.  He wasn't sure he wanted winters there, so decided not to apply, but at Thanksgiving he came across a couple of different people who talked with him about the school and he changed his mind putting in a "last minute" (for us) app.  We didn't visit it until Feb and he fell in love.  Again, finances worked.  He had high stats, so we also had him apply to U Alabama and Pitt as safety schools financially.  One can't count on some of those upper level schools working out with finances - CSS can give interesting results and we're (mainly) self employed for our income.

 

Youngest was positive he wanted Marine Bio - tropical specifically, so I spent time on the internet asking around.  We visited four FL schools and he ended up liking the one he's at (Eckerd College) the best (they are at or near the top in the field according to essentially all we asked and via national accolades).  He never applied to any safety as he didn't like any of them.  His Plan B was to remain home and work if the finances didn't work out.  Fortunately, they did.

 

Both oldest and youngest swapped out of their original desires - but both still tell me they like/liked the school they chose.  It's extremely common for kids to like where they end up going, so it's not super critical that they remain with their first loves (for majors or schools).  Going with a first love for major gives one something to search for though.  

 

Then one has to decide if they want a smaller or larger school.  Smaller schools are more personal, but you need to search them carefully to be sure they have what one is looking for because they can't "do" everything (well).  Larger schools tend to offer many more options and opportunities, but there are also more students there in classes, etc.  Personally, I'm a larger school fan (went to Virginia Tech myself), but two of my lads chose smaller.  That's fine with me TBH.  It's their life, not mine.  We support their desires and loves (to a point, of course - mine knew financial packages were critical to what we could afford).

[happypamama]

My DH looked at a huge out of state school (neighboring state, about five hours from home) because he originally thought he wanted to go into engineering. That school had an excellent reputation for engineering and was a reasonable distance away and in a semi-rural area that appealed to him. He also looked at a smaller school a little closer to home (three hours or so) but closer to a city. I don't remember much of what he said about that one, but clearly, he fell for the bigger school, and it was the only place he applied.

 

I looked at the same big school because he had already been there for two years, although even as a teen, I think I was wise enough not to pick somewhere just because of a boy. But even though he didn't stay in engineering, he was happy there, so I looked at it. I fell for it with the first visit because few things are as lovely as that area in the fall. Once I looked deeper, I was still impressed. They had a program I liked and a top rated honors program. And they gave me pretty decent scholarship money.

 

I should add that there was no way either of us ever would have attended any of our in state schools (small state). Most of them didn't offer the academics we wanted, and the big one was first, too city for us personally, and two, way too much grade 13. We didn't really have much in common with our high school classmates and wanted to break away. (Which I realize is also true of our school for its locals, but it wasn't for us. We only knew three other students from our high school there over the total five years we attended.)

 

Big vs. small is hard. Do you want big so there is plenty to do and lots of people to befriend, or is that overwhelming? Does a small school offer a personal touch or is too "fishbowl?" Personally, we found that the bigness of the school gave us plenty of opportunities for stuff to do and allowed our very introverted selves plenty of anonymity in big general education classes. (Biology for non majors is no stress when there are 1000 students in the class!). And somehow we never felt the hugeness except at football games. But within that, my small program and small honors program got me the personal touches that really added to the experience. Otoh, my introverted brother looked at the school because I was there and because engineering, and he was totally overwhelmed by its sheer size. For him, it wasn't even worth considering. I look at my own kids, and I can see where one of my introverts and one of my extroverts would like our big school but also where two of our others might be completely overwhelmed.

 

I never once have wondered if I should have looked at more schools or if I should have gone somewhere smaller or a different distance from our hometown. It was right from day one. (I'm right this second stuck in their teaching hospital, so the school logo is everywhere, and it is oddly comforting, like the school treated me well, and so my very tiny baby must be in good hands too.)

[Julie of KY]

We made a list of schools - started with our state schools and only added ones out of state that had something significantly different to offer. It could be size, program, quality of students, quality of program, etc.

 

My son choose to go out of state (but still close) because there was nothing like it in out state.

[8filltheheart]

My kids' application process is dictated by large scholarship opportunities. My current sr is only considering OOS schools bc there are no instate schools that offer what she is looking for.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

DS always knew he wanted to go OOS. He also knew he wanted East coast. How he chose his schools was frustrating and it was all over the place. He really had no idea what he wanted to major in (he had too many interests) and applied to all of his schools as undecided. He had actually committed to the instate flagship (which we could not afford and were quite anxious about) when he was accepted off the waitlist at one of his reach schools. That school gave him a phenomenal aid package; one that allayed all of our anxieties. It meant he would be able to study abroad (something his scholarships at the flagship would not have covered) as well as allow us to provide some other things for him. We still have to be careful about how we spend our money - I drive to drop him off and pick him up due to airport proximity & outrageous limo expenses- but we can live with the trade offs.

[The Girls' Mom]

We looked at OOS schools, but none offered anything that would draw us there.  The girls qualify for several in state scholarships, our state schools have decent tuition costs anyway, and one dd's program of choice is really only offered at an in state school.  The other dd wants to be a teacher, so cost is the #1 factor.  If her scholarships don't pan out, she'll start off at CC anyway.  

 

When we began looking we started with the major they were interested in.  Then we ruled out areas that we did not want to look at.  Then we looked at scholarship opportunities vs the estimated cost.  (while factoring in things like plane tickets/travel for far away schools)  Our nets got smaller and smaller until we ended up back at our home state.

[wapiti]

To me, "in state" implies public colleges and universities, obviously within your home state.  Once private colleges are under consideration, there's no reason to limit yourself to state boundaries.  There are so many factors.  IMO the two biggest ones are cost and quality of program/major.

 

State schools tend to have less financial aid available than well-endowed private schools.  While the sticker price at state schools is usually lower (for in-state residents) than private colleges, well-endowed private schools might offer enough financial aid such that the final cost would be less than the in-state public, at least for some families.  Other families end up in the hole where financial aid is insufficient due to other family financial constraints that don't figure into financial aid calculations.  For families who must pay full sticker price (us), in-state public schools typically work out to be less expensive.  It depends.

 

And then there are merit scholarships, which is a whole other world that I don't know much about yet.  There are some schools, public and private, that offer merit to attract top students.  Tippy-top schools tend to offer no merit, at least not in the absence of financial need; these schools already attract top students.  The further down in ranking, and the higher the student's stats compared to other applicants, the more likely that merit scholarships might be a possibility.

 

Comparing quality of programs/majors can be a little trickier.  Another related factor to consider is the academic fit of the school; some lower-ranked schools have special honors programs etc.  And then there's the elephant-in-the-room factor, getting admitted!  Once you locate some programs that are of interest, check out the school's Net Price Calculator to see what financial aid might be likely.  And google the Common Data Set to see if admission is at all realistic.

 

Then make a list of reaches, matches and safeties.  If a school wouldn't be affordable according to the Net Price Calculator, it doesn't make much sense to put it on the list unless there is a possibility of merit scholarships at that school.

 

As an example of an attempt to put many factors together, our state flagship might be an admission safety for my kids (who will hopefully have pretty nice stats but probably not tippy-tippy-top, we'll see).  In my limited understanding, the state flagship would be a good choice for them for some STEM majors, especially considering the in-state price and probably a decent academic fit in those majors (so, a good value!), but for other liberal arts fields, it may not have the best academic fit and therefore not necessarily the best value...  I don't know enough to say for certain, but that's my impression so far.  We only have a couple of private colleges in our state and I anticipate that many/most of our kids will end up out of state.

 

Even for kids who end up at the local non-selective state college, it can't hurt to at least look around at other options for potential value.  Expand your horizons.  (Here out west, there are also options to attend certain non-flagship public schools located in nearby states at their in-state prices, some of which are cheaper than our own in-state prices.)  We didn't have the internet back in the old days; now so much info is at our fingertips.

 

ETA, my kids are in a gray area (high ability but tend to work slowly) where their test scores will depend in part on how much prep goes into them.  That prep can turn out to be quite valuable, either in the form of admission to a higher-ranked program or in the form of thousands of dollars in merit scholarships at lower-ranked programs.  This summer my oldest will be trying an in-person prep course, something that we never did back in the old days; it was on sale LOL so I have already booked it.

 

Things may change in a heartbeat, but at this point it looks like my oldest will be undecided on major.  I anticipate that we'll be looking for a school with "good" to "excellent" programs in a variety of fields and where her stats put her in admission range... not sure how else to go about that.

Edited December 18, 2016 by wapiti

[katilac]

We went to college fairs to talk to reps from a lot of schools quickly, and we went to every "college x in your town" presentation that we were invited to or aware of, even if the school wasn't on our list. This gave us a lot of information to sort through and we started to get a feel for various colleges. 

 

dd's didn't want brutal winters and lots of snow, so that knocked out a few states. She did want a change in weather and geography, so it couldn't be too close. (she got her change in weather, and, in true college kid fashion, once sent me a text with the single word "tornado")

 

She wanted enough majors to have choice in changing her mind, so that knocked out a lot of smaller schools. 

 

She wanted to live on campus, so that knocked out a lot of really large schools (they often have a housing crunch). 

 

Merit aid and overall cost were definitely factors, and schools with a scholarship matrix (guaranteed aid based on test scores and GPA) were likelier to make the short list. 

 

Research and internship/job opportunities played a big part. Of course all schools will put their best foot forward, but you get a feel for what programs have substance after a few visits. 

 

She wanted to like the city itself, in case that's where she gets the first job after graduation. Likewise, she wanted it be close enough for visits back and forth every few months (her to us or us to her). She really wanted under 5 hours each way, but it wound up being 7. Like scoutermom, I am her chauffeur, but I think her drive is worse than mine! 

 

 

[teachermom2834]

My ds went out of state but still only 2 hours away. He wanted a small school and his sport played a role and ultimately he got a financial aid package that made it very affordable.

 

I realize that you didn't ask about those who choose to stay in state but my next ds will not be looking out of state at all. He is a better than average student but probably will not have any specific needs that cannot be met in state. He doesn't want an unusual major or extracurricular or have any specific need that cannot be accommodated in state. He will get good merit aid at the state public universities and no other school, private or out of state public will make financial sense for him. He will not have test scores for good enough merit out of state to offset the higher tuition. The only exception is Alabama. That is the only state that I can see him qualifying for enough aid to consider.

 

I realize many kids do have specific goals or circumstances that make going out of state attractive. But for lots of average kids with common majors and limited funds in state schools just make sense.

 

Now, if money were no object there are some amazing schools out there! But for our family the bottom line is a critical factor.

[MarkT]

1)  academics - see wapiti's post above -  I assume In-state means a public school 

2)  cost of travel -  draw a "comfortable drive distance in hours"  circle around your town -  if you have to fly to the college that could be a show-stopper

   (my two older siblings went to fly-away colleges but I can't imagine carting all that needed "stuff" on a plane these days)

[creekland]

1)  academics - see wapiti's post above -  I assume In-state means a public school 

2)  cost of travel -  draw a "comfortable drive distance in hours"  circle around your town -  if you have to fly to the college that could be a show-stopper

   (my two older siblings went to fly-away colleges but I can't imagine carting all that needed "stuff" on a plane these days)

 

We only cart it there (by car) once - when we drop them off the first time.  Every time they leave after that for summer they rent a storage area with friends and leave their stuff at college.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, only youngest has had to rent a place.  The other two had places on college or with friends where they could leave it for free.

 

Whether flying is a deal breaker or not depends upon the cost of the flight and what one is willing to spend.  Many times if I can get a $100 flight home for middle son (6 hours away) that can be cheaper than driving - esp if we were to spend the night and needed a motel/food/gas, etc.  That also doesn't count any future savings from a free flight due to his points building up.  If he were to take the bus, the cost is down to $50 or so.

[Guest2]

Our DS was interested in schools with a strong on campus religious center. He eliminated small religious schools because of their small size . He didn't want to be 1 of 3-5 students in a class junior and senior year.

 

As parents, we also wanted a strong enough accademic program for employment and/or grad school. Some of our friends' kids have gotten crazy wonderful scholarships and then after getting a 4.0 at their schools couldn't get into a graduate program (based on the accademic rep of the undergraduate school).

 

We both looked for schools that had lots of clubs and activities to choose from. An enviornment that is friendly and welcoming was important, and In the end we found two acceptable choices at the two larger schools in state. That did narrow the scope quite a bit, but I think it could apply to OOS.

 

He might have been interested in looking further away, but finacially it didn't make sense to fund more travel, ect, I guess we would have looked at the megabus os Southwest airlines locations for cheap transport. If he had found any school that met the other criteria, we would be happy to look at them, but to be honest, he wasn't super invested in the college search. He chose two schools, was admitted to both and went to one.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Silver Brook

[hopskipjump]

For us, the interest in our-of-state schools grew because of two factors.

 

1) Athletics/Recruiting. DD is an NCAA athlete, so that reasoning alone probably doesn't apply to too many people, lol 😄

 

2) Scholarship potential. Locally, our state schools give puny scholarships. With the academic scholarships she was offered at OOS schools, it would have cost us more to keep her in state. (This blew our mind when we realized it... we had always assumed in-state would be less costly.)

 

The travel costs (for us) balanced out because dd traveled a LOT her last two years in high school. So it costs less now to fly her home than it did to send her traveling everywhere else during school. lol

 

For us, the only downside has been her car. We didn't send it with her (25-hour drive) and she really could use it. So we go back and forth about that decision quite often...

 

(She did wind up earning a full-ride+ scholarship... if we had tuition/room&board costs PLUS travel costs... we would have had to make a different choice...)

[katilac]

I also wanted to add that in state is not always closer than OOS. The farthest in state school is only about one hour closer than where dd wound up. A couple of OOS schools were much closer than that, just a couple of hours. 

[Arch at Home]

For DD1, we initially did a series of college visits in a number of different settings (big school/little school, urban/small town/rural) to get an idea what DDa would like. Overtime she figured out that she was interested in small, selective LACs. We then found a list of schools that her favorite school considered peer schools. In reviewing that list, she determined that she was not interested in ones with an active Greek population and I limited her to those schools near an airport where Southwest flew into. After reviewing the websites and going to college fairs she was able to narrow it down more. In addition, DDa attended a pre-college program at a women's college in a major big city. This experience added two more tip top women's liberal arts colleges to her list. In addition, she applied a couple of less selective liberal arts colleges and universities to give her options. Finally, we are lucky to have a highly rated, small, state liberal arts university which is her fall back. She applied to a total of 13 schools. This number is higher than most because of the number of tip top schools with low acceptance rates and high price tags.

 

At this point, the less selective liberal arts colleges and small universities are slowly dropping off the list. The ones that are still on have scholarship competitions which may make them interesting. This leaves her with the highly selective LACs and the state liberal arts university. The state school has already given her enough money that it is unlikely that any other will top it financially; however, the intangibles like quality of food (high on our list of criteria), rural, and more limited opportunities and potential connections may eventually work against it. April is going to be an interesting month at our house.

 

As for DD2, she also wants a small school. Unlike DD1, DD2 has some sense of a major. I did a quick Google search for less common major and turned up 12 schools with at least half being large state schools. We are already considering removing the Southwest restriction due to this more limited list and are encouraging DD2 to do a pre-college program at one of the larger colleges on the list. I can see DD2 applying to the small state liberal arts college, one or two large state universities (may or may not be in-state), a large private university, and a number of smaller LACs with her more selective major. As she is only a Sophomore, this could easily change, but I am starting to plan visits based on this direction.

[Luckymama]

I see all these great college acceptances in the acceptance thread with such a wide variety of colleges. I always wonder if most of these are in-state schools for the applicant, which narrows your focus considerably. Or are many of these out of state choices? And if out of state, how do you cast your net and decide where to apply? There are a million different university options if you're looking nationwide, how do you decide?

 

*eta - typo

My D wants 2 things: an International Relations major (easy enough to find on lists) and high-level Arabic (very much NOT lol).

 

I made a list on a legal pad of all the schools I could think of that might be a contender. There are almost 100 schools on the list. I searched the name of each school + Arabic to check the course offerings. I crossed off any school that did not have 6 course offerings beyond the advanced level (D will enter at advanced, the typical 5th semester).

 

I compared the remaining school's International Relations programs and eliminated the weaker ones.

 

We are in the position of having a high EFC that we are unwilling/unable to pay, so I next eliminated schools with unfavorable Net Price Calculator results (bye Yale), private schools that do not give any/many merit scholarships (bye Stanford), and public schools that do not give merit scholarships to out of state students (bye Texas with the amazing Arabic program, bye all UCs, bye Wisconsin).

 

10 schools were left. D dug deeply into their websites and eliminated 2 in early summer. 2 more were eliminated in late summer. 1 was added in late summer because their Arabic program became an Arabic Language Flagship.

 

https://www.thelanguageflagship.org

 

She has applied to only 4 schools. All are large to very large out of state flagship universities. Three have Arabic Flagship programs; the other is essentially a flagship without the govt backing. She qualifies for automatic merit scholarships at three schools (full tuition plus at one). She is in contention for additional competitive scholarships at all four schools which range from $5K+ to half-tuition to full tuition to full ride to full ride+.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Luckymama