<p>Shennie: Thanks for sharing your experience. I will probably go to the TMS a year from now when our EFC no longer qualifies my D for financial aid (my other D will graduate from her college, which will cause our EFC for my Obie D to double). </p>
<p>ahuvah47: All the phone numbers you need are in the Big Book of Forms. IF your D is being lax about taking action, you should get hold of the Big Book of Forms and study it yourself. That’s what I did. There are numerous deadlines for everything from housing, to sending an ID photo on a specific format, getting Obie Dollars onto the ID card so it’s on it the day she shows up, etc. Once I went through the BBOF and saw all the deadlines, I knew my D would never get to them, so I created an Excel spreadsheet to track it all. It’s a good thing I did.</p>
<p>Shennie-- thank you for your experience. It helps to be able to plan.
Plainsman–It may not be that D is Lax, as much as naive about how all this works; either way, I will be studying the Big Book today and respond accordingly!
thanks for your help. D and I were already discussing Obie dollars. She thinks it is a good idea. Do you have any thoughts about how much your child used the card verses cash? I did read the thread posted last year but it seemed to be referring to a system that may have been upgraded since the thread last year?</p>
<p>Can’t say anything about an upgrade. It may be true or not. I haven’t heard. But she found having both Obie dollars on her ID card and a bank ATM card helpful. Several places in town take Obie dollars but not every store. Obviously, if she has a car or a classmate with a car and ventures out of town to a mall somewhere or to a multiplex (Oberlin has only one movie theatre with one screen), it might be helpful to have a Debit/Credit card just in case. Some parents don’t see a use for one or the other but my D used both.</p>
<p>So I know Oberlin is a challenging school academically. How do the students deal with balancing academics and their social lives? How does one affect the other?</p>
<p>^
Dig into the Oberlin website. It should be there. If it’s not there yet, and you’re just trying to book a room at the Oberlin Inn, you can forget about it. The Oberlin Inn sells out a year in advance of Family Weekend.</p>
<p>I put in $200 for my D. By coincidence, her roommate’s mom did the same. But we also opened an account for her at a bank so she would have a debit Visa. My name is also on her account so I can monitor from home and deposit electronically. I put a lot more into that account so she could buy her books, have local checking (just in case–turned out to be handy to pay her monthly cable TV bill), and a place to have her campus job check electronically deposited. There are a couple of banks in town, but I think most students use First Merit.</p>
<p>Starting out with $200 Obie Dollars seems pretty standard. That got me through my first semester (Oberlin is not very expensive, unless you do all your shopping at Decafe). Keep in mind that there are some things – photocopying, printing beyond your print quota, getting coffee at Azariah’s – that you can only do with Obie Dollars.</p>
<p>If anyone’s on the fence about banking in Oberlin, I’d strongly recommend it. I opened an account at the credit union last fall after banking at home for all of my freshman year, and it is so much more convenient. [url=<a href=“Registrant WHOIS contact information verification | Namecheap.com”>Registrant WHOIS contact information verification | Namecheap.com]Oberwiki[/url</a>] has a decent roundup of the local banks, though some of their info is out of date (e.g., I bank at the credit union and have never had problems with their ATM or their hours). First Merit is easily the most popular, but there are a lot of complaints about their service. Also, there are usually representatives from all the banks at the resource fair on the first day of orientation, so that’s a good time to scope out your options.</p>
<p>Yeah, the problem with an out of state Debit/Visa card from a bank that doesn’t exist in Oberlin/Lorain County is that ATMs will charge a fee to extract cash. If you use a First Merit card with a First Merit ATM (Wilder Hall, CVS, or in town at the bank) you can avoid those fees. According to my D, once in awhile it’s kind of nice to have a little cash, especially if you’re heading to an out of town mall on a lazy weekend.</p>
<p>My D was able to make made her 200 Obie Dollars last the entire academic year. What with Flex Points on her meal plan and checking account with ATM VISA card from First Merit, she was able to make the Obie dollars go the distance. Her campus job direct deposited her pay into First Merit, money she used for discretionary spending, and taking her friends out to eat and movies in Elyria and North Olmsted when they visited from their colleges. Everything worked out.</p>
<p>My S has a bank account at our hometown bank. It worked for him and I was able to check his balance and add money into his account when needed. Being a boy, shopping is the last thing he ever wants to do. He didn’t need his checkbook this year…we’ll see how it goes.</p>
<p>karioki, the credit union I was referring to is the Ohio Educational Credit Union; they have an ATM in Wilder and an office on East College Street, a little past the Apollo.</p>
<p>Can you tell me how to check for dorm assignments? I went on oberlin resed website and clicked on housing application and logged in. Is that the page it will show up on? Seems like many in the class of 2014 have their assignments already.</p>
<p>Last year, first years received an email notifying them that the room assignment had been made and how they could check it. At least that’s what happened with my D. Then again, I knew when it was coming because I had a couple of telephone conversations with the helpful people in the resed office. </p>
<p>I do think it is a little bit early (it’s still June!) and there is no cause for concern. That said, you and your student seem to be itching to find out. If your son/daughter hasn’t received an email, I think you should just call resed. Don’t be shy.</p>