Since you are a vet tech - I assume I don't have to tell you any of this... but I will just in case.

Vet schools are especially focused on accepting in state students. Most vet schools accept very, very few out of staters. The option of applying to a bunch of vet schools and moving to where you get accepted just doesn't work.

Personally, if you are serious, I'd go to Ohio State's vet school and relocate when you complete your DVM (assuming going to vet school is a reasonable short/mid term option).

LOL at JRPs comments. :)

Here's a good site:
www.findyourspot.com

fall foliage is easy

finding "appalachian culture" a bit more of a challenge and limits your choices

On 5/23 the OP posted that they had decided to move to Holyoke, Mass.

Guess further speculation isn't needed for this one.

Although I don't know what "appalachian culture" she's concerned about missing when she moves from southern Ohio. SOUTHERN OHIO = APPALACHIAN CULTURE?!?!?!?

As a matter of fact, starrsville, yes. I know several families who migrated from West Virginia (miners) to the Cincinnati area. Not so difficult to comprehend, really, if you look at a map of the US.

Interesting. I get that folks move to different areas of the country. Other than family contacts, what kinds of Appalachian culture does one find in southern Ohio?

A very interesing read - Janisse Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. One strand in the book discusses the fragments of Scots-Irish origins still in use in some dialects. "window" pronounced "winder". "It's" pronounced "hits". A lot of this is lost in consecutive generations. Saw a lot of this in my great-grandfather's generation would have called his neck of the woods "appalachian" - but I think it would be very rare to hear those pronunciations in the same area nowadays.

try: www.findmyspot.com

You answer a few questions and it gives you the top 10 places you should move to based on your answers.

OP has decided to move to Mass.

Starrsville - SE Ohio in particular is very rural & Appalachian in most things. The county I grew up in had only 10,000 residents (smallest in the state) as well as the poorest. So we were very much tied into coal-mining, farming, logging, hunting, fishing & the like. (Although the biggest cash crop in the county was/is marijuana). We have our own accent as well, which leans towards a southern accent. There is one county High School. You get the idea...

Interesting, SAnParis. I saw something that amused me here in coastal SC this week. A billboard about something for the Hatfield and the McCoys...and the Rockefellers. I thought about the S'n Ohio comment. Kentucky is a whole lot closer than coastal SC - but they are promoting that aspect of "Appalachian culture" on the coast hundreds of miles away. :-)

It is funny that I am from the area (originally) but I still think of the old Mountain Dew adds, guys w/the corn cob pipes & moonshine stills (which we also had in reality). Funny what kind of image that brings to mind. I thought that WV & Kentucky were both trying to shed that image. Funny that someone else would use it as a kind of advertising gimmick.

What the heck kind of Appalacian culture is there in Massachusetts?

Don't get me wrong I love that state, but "good economy, warmer climate and beaches" isn't exactly how I think of it.

Read "The Long Emergency" and then you might just stay put. The southern attitiudes wont get you too far

I am a Southern California resident since birth and my husband was born in Ashtabula Ohio with relatives near Columbus. We have visited Ohio many times. Here are some things to think about before you move to California:

Everything is "fast" here. We are always surprised by how slow life seems to be when we visit Ohio. Here, the freeways are fast, people have to fight traffic to get anywhere (takes 2 hours to go 40 miles sometimes - or worse), and the culture is extremely different than Ohio.

We have our share of problems with illegal immegration. Some cities near me are as much as 85% hispanic now, and that is just the legal residents. Estimates are that the So. Calif area has over 8 million illegals. So if hearing Spanish bothers you, don't come here.

The weather is nice, of course, hotter the more you go inland. Nowhere near the rain you get in Ohio and our winters are very mild.

Housing prices are very, very high. We have a 1900 sq foot, 4 bedroom home on 1/3 acre in Riverside county (inland, "cheap" area compared to Orange, San Diego, or LA Counties). We purchased the home 4 years ago for $250,000 and now houses like it are selling for $650,000 routinely. Even the outlying cheaper areas and older houses in "bad" neighborhoods are very expensive. We sold a 50 year old house in a neighborhood that is now all hispanic and runned down for $171,000 4 years ago and that same home just sold for double that price. I don't believe our salaries make up for the price of housing.

Even central Ohio has a large Appalacian community. I lived for several years in Columbus, and there was a very large influx of people who had moved there from West Virginia. As one of the previous posters said, all you have to do is look at a map.

If you want to finish your vet degree, move to Blacksburg and become a VA Tech Hokie. It is a beautiful part of the state. Very mountainous and "southern". I guess it is probably a 3 or 4 hour trip to the beach.
There are plenty of opportunities for vet assistant jobs in the Shenandoah Valley as well! You will definitely see changes of seasons here!

Indianapolis, will still give you your fall folliage. The Governer is doing a good job on truning the state along.

Author: starrsville
Date: 06/19/2006, 11:04 pm
OP has decided to move to Mass.

To Alarmist,

You say that you are in So Florida and bought in East Tenn

I re-located here from Jersey and I too bought a piece of propoerty in Tenn. Mine is in Mt City.

Beautiful ppart of the country. If I could live there now i would. I would also give the Asheville and Boone parts of North carolina a consideration. It appears that COLA is low, housing is affordable and future growth is promising.

How about the Angel Fire area of New Mexico? Anybody been there?

To tampabay,
The OP has already decided on where to move. Why top this old thread?

Suggestion - start a new thread with the conversation you would like to have. This one has gone off in so many tangents it gets confusing.