Relocating with children...

[orinoco]

Hi everyone, I am going through the motions in preparation for applying next year for 2011 entry and have often thought I need to apply to a London uni as my two little ones currently go to school here but recently I have started to think I shouldn't limit my choices. It seems so much harder having to consider schools and a nice area for them to live as well as deciding on a uni to spend five/six years at.
Has anyone got experience of relocating to medical school and taking kids with them? It would be nice to hear from others with the same problem.

[469er]

Hi everyone, I am going through the motions in preparation for applying next year for 2011 entry and have often thought I need to apply to a London uni as my two little ones currently go to school here but recently I have started to think I shouldn't limit my choices. It seems so much harder having to consider schools and a nice area for them to live as well as deciding on a uni to spend five/six years at.
Has anyone got experience of relocating to medical school and taking kids with them? It would be nice to hear from others with the same problem.

Hi there

Slightly fraudulent response here, as I didn't actually have to relocate in the end, but I certainly considered it when I was applying.

Basically, I had one very local medical school but didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. In the end, I applied to two further ones which I could just about commute to, and a fourth which would have involved us relocating completely as a family.

For that fourth choice, I considered about half a dozen destinations. Obviously, the key factor had to be whether or not the medical school there would accept my qualifications. Then I looked at what kind of place I felt it would be to raise a family, in quality of life terms; property prices; and schools. I was fortunate in that my partner was self-employed and could theoretically have worked anywhere more or less.

I went to open days at all the locations I considered, and took extra time to look around the area. I also did a lot of internet research on schools, housing, etc. When all's said and done, it was necessarily a bit of a sticking-a-finger-in-the-wind sort of exercise, not least because of the uncertainty of who will offer you a place up until quite late in the cycle potentially, i.e you can't focus your research on one place in the way you would if it was a definite option. The later in the cycle that plans became firm, the more likely I felt it would be that I might have to move on my own for first year and have the family relocate behind me. Fortunately, that was a theoretical possibility for me, but may not be for you.

A partner who is behind the plan is a must, and also the ages of the kids is very relevant. I was fortunate that mine were still small, so there were no key exam years, for example, and it was not as though they had only just, say, moved from juniors to seniors. Cashflow may also be an issue, if you have property to sell, or may have some overlap where you are paying for two residences.

I'm sure you have thought of most of this. Sorry if it's not very helpful, but, as I say, it was a plan which was unneeded in the end. In many ways, I was sorry, as relocating totally felt as though it would have been rather an adventure!