Don’t be the girl who goes to college with a boyfriend.

“Don’t be the girl who goes to college with a boyfriend” is the warning Lara Jean remembers from her mother as she faces college plans that may separate her from Peter Kavinsky. Margot uses it not to dismiss Lara Jean’s feelings, but to challenge the assumption that her first year at William & Mary should be only a step toward transferring to the University of Virginia to be with him. The phrase gives a family inheritance the force of a practical question: can Lara Jean let a new place become her own before deciding what comes next?

The advice and its context

The saying comes up when Margot asks Lara Jean how she feels about not going to the University of Virginia. Lara Jean says she is still planning to get there: after a year at William & Mary, she expects to transfer, having spoken with Mrs. Duvall about the possibility of admission if she earns good grades. Margot questions why Lara Jean is already planning her departure from a college she has not yet attended, then asks whether Peter is the reason.

Lara Jean does not immediately answer. Margot acknowledges that no other school may give her the same feeling as the University of Virginia, but worries that this attachment could keep Lara Jean from experiencing William & Mary on its own terms. Her concern is not merely where Lara Jean studies; it is whether she will inhabit her first year or spend it waiting for the next one.

A warning against making college a waiting room

Margot connects her concern to their mother’s advice: “Don’t be the girl who goes to college with a boyfriend.” Lara Jean remembers the words and agrees that she has not forgotten them. In the conversation, the maxim works as a caution against allowing a romantic relationship to dictate the shape of a major transition. Margot urges her to give the freshman-year experience a fair chance and to consider that she might genuinely love William & Mary.

The advice is not presented as proof that Lara Jean should stop loving Peter, nor does the conversation resolve her transfer plan. Instead, it presses her to distinguish between choosing a school for herself and treating it as a temporary holding place until she can join him. The tension remains personal and specific: she finds Charlottesville uniquely beautiful, yet Margot invites her to notice what William & Mary might offer, from its campus weather vane to the food and familiar family outings associated with Williamsburg.

Growing up through different routes

Elsewhere, the story places Lara Jean’s college timeline beside Chris’s less conventional plans. Chris intends to take a year off, work on farms for room and board, and consider possibilities such as a surfing school in New Zealand or learning to make wine in Italy. Later, when Chris wonders whether she may be missing out by not attending college alongside everyone else, Lara Jean reassures her that college will still be there whenever she wants it. These exchanges broaden the saying’s concern with timing: the girls do not have to enter adulthood by the same route or on the same schedule.

The family also recognizes Lara Jean’s growing independence in concrete terms. When Dan worries about her going to Beach Week without adult supervision, Trina reminds him that Lara Jean will soon be living on her own and frames the trip as practice. Her advice about using a buddy system offers a different kind of preparation: independence need not mean refusing care or guidance.

Romance, family, and cultural belonging

The maxim’s emphasis on choosing a future for oneself exists alongside Lara Jean’s enduring connections to family and heritage. Margot advises her to make her own friends at college and join the Asian association, explaining that she missed having an Asian-American group while studying in another country. Her counsel presents college as a place to form an identity and community beyond a boyfriend, without suggesting that those ties must replace family or cultural belonging.

That belonging appears in the sisters’ plans and conversations. Lara Jean imagines applying for work in Colonial Williamsburg, while wondering whether historical accuracy might keep an Asian person from being hired; Margot counters with the example of Phillipa Soo playing Eliza Hamilton and encourages her to imagine the opportunity. Later, Margot insists that Korean food is a major link to their culture and that Trina will join the whole family, including its connection to Korea, when she marries Dan. These moments keep the advice from becoming a simple injunction to sever attachments: the story distinguishes choosing one’s own path from disowning the relationships and inheritance that help make that path meaningful.

The future remains open

Lara Jean’s plan to transfer to the University of Virginia is still part of her thinking after Margot’s challenge; the conversation records a reconsideration, not a declared change of heart. The family’s plans for the summer further place separation beside connection: Dan and Trina arrange for Lara Jean, Margot, and Kitty to spend all of July in Korea with their grandmother, staying with a great-aunt in Seoul, taking Korean-language classes, touring the country, and attending a Korean pastry-making class. The trip realizes a wish their mother had shared, while Lara Jean also recognizes that she will be away from Peter.

The phrase therefore remains a touchstone rather than a rule with a settled outcome. It asks Lara Jean to avoid making romance the sole measure of where she belongs, while the surrounding story shows that her choices will be made among several real attachments: love, education, sisters, family, and cultural memory. Margot’s advice matters because it asks for openness to an unknown first year, not because it dictates what Lara Jean must ultimately choose.