The smarter your kid, the farther from home he or she may go to college.
The higher students score on a standardized college entrance exam, the more distance they may put between home and their college choice, a new study shows. A similar link exists between the education level of the student’s parents: The more educated the parents, the farther from home their son or daughter tends to venture, the study finds.
The results don’t necessarily mean high-scoring students can’t wait to get out from under their parents’ thumbs. The findings are “less about miles traveled and more about opportunity,” says Steve Kappler, an assistant vice president for ACT, the testing company based in Iowa City that released the findings. “The higher your score, the more opportunities you have. Students with more money have more opportunity. ... They have the ability ... to hop on an airplane and go check out a school.”
The study, which examined ACT scores of about 1.17 million students in the high school graduating class of 2012, found that the median distance between home and campus for all students was 51 miles.
Distances varied widely by test scores, which range from 1 to 36. Among students scoring a 33 or higher, the median distance was 170 miles; among those who scored below 24, less than 50 miles. A 2009 study of SAT scores, published in the Journal of College Admission, found a similar pattern.
The ACT data support other research showing that low-income students who score high on their entrance exams limit their options because they don’t know enough about the college selection process – including the availability of financial aid at schools they may have never heard of.
If students had their druthers, more might go farther afield. A 2012-13 survey by The Princeton Review, a test-prep company, found that college applicants differed with their parents about how far from home their ideal college would be. More than half of parents said less than 250 miles; more than 60 percent of students said more than 250 miles.
Kaylyn Hinz, 20, started her studies at Georgia Perimeter College, a community college near her parents’ home in Covington, but not by choice. “I didn’t want to go there at all because everybody from my high school was going there,” she says.
The problem? Low ACT and SAT scores. “I’m a horrible test taker,” she says. After a year, she transferred to Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta, where she originally had hoped to go. Distance from home: 34.9 miles.
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