My D has her 18th birthday on the 5th day of her orientation week. We are planning to send her some cupcakes from her favorite bakery (which fortunately has a branch nearby!) and a card, and will celebrate before she leaves. She will also have a party with her friends before she heads off. My concern is what will her birthday at college be like? Is 5 days too few to expect that her roommate and hall mates will assume the role of “friends” and go to dinner with her? She makes friends fairly easily and is used to having a social birthday; is this a reasonable expectation? This is an awkward situation and I just don’t know how to deal with it or what to expect. All comments would be appreciated!
I think sending cupcakes is a lovely idea and I’m sure any of her new “friends” / hallmates at college will be thrilled to share with her. The first few days of orientation it is essentially the RA or orientation leaders’ job to make sure everyone is mingling, etc. You could let that person know that it is D’s birthday so someone at school acknowledges the date. I am sure she will have people to eat with at the dining hall or maybe she will have a few “new” friends who would want to go out with her but in our experience orientation week is pretty tightly scheduled. I’m not sure what else you are worried about or how this is an awkward situation. It won’t kill your D to have a low key birthday this one year. And it will be up to her to figure out how she would like to celebrate her birthdays in the future if she will be away from home. Don’t mean to be harsh, but moving forward you will not be so enmeshed in the details of her daily life and that is how it should be IMO.
My kids don’t feel super obligated to celebrate on the actual day. I think sending cupcakes is a great idea, that WILL bring other kids to her room or the Common Area if she goes there with them. 
I do it for my kid at school as well. But if she is already having a party with her friends before leaving home, I would leave it at that this year. She can live with only one party, celebrating with you, and cupcakes to share around. It isn’t like it is her last birthday… you can send her a gift card to go out to dinner for the next 3 years after that if you want to. But a note, we have found it quite difficult to get gift cards via mail from the food places near our D2’s campus for some reason… I call and they say they have gift cards or certificates, but can’t mail them… I have learned that when I am on campus for some reason, I need to scoot around when D isn’t with me (or isn’t looking) and get some for stocking stuffers or gifts for later on.
If you really want to do something else, consider this. I did this for both my kids as their high school graduation present. After I dropped them off on campus, I went around town and picked up gift cards & certificates for places near campus. Frozen custard, pizza, Thai food, bookstore, pie place, movie theater, etc. I had researched ahead of time, so had a list of places to go. (It also gave me something to do when I was sad about the dropoff!) I think I also had one from posters.com so she could order some stuff to decorate her dorm room. I tried to get cards in amounts where she could take a friend, especially for food. Then I got a box of note cards, made up one with the month on the front of the envelope for each month she would be on campus freshman year, and put a gift card in each envelope. I gave them to her when I dropped her off, and told her to open each one at the beginning of the month on the envelope. I figured it was a way to remind her every month that her mom loves her :), and also would get her out of the campus bubble to explore things within walking distance of campus with a friend her first year. That is something I didn’t really do at my college until later in my experience, and I wish I had done it sooner. This would also take the pressure off of having to have a group of friends to take to dinner the first week at college.
@ intparent. What a great idea–you are way nicer and more creative than I. I guess we just don’t make a big deal out of birthdays at our house. I am close to my D and we talk and text regularly but I am not very sentimental so there is not a lot of sending stuff to her (unless she forgot something LOL).
I think the cupcakes are a great idea. Birthdays do change as we move from our childhood/teenage years to adulthood and the “going out to dinner” tradition may change to some other tradition or no tradition with every year depending on who her friends are at the time and what’s going on in her life so you probably won’t “know” what her birthday will be like until she reports back after the fact. If she shares the cupcakes with her new dorm hallmates she’ll very likely make new friends!
This happened to my son his freshman year. His new friends, kids he’d known for only a few days, threw him an impromptu party. He had a blast. During orientation kids seem to be looking for any excuse to socialize. I think they may have learned it was his birthday from social media. One way to handle this would be to say something to your daughter about her birthday in front of her roommate. (“So sorry we won’t be here to celebrate your birthday with you on WEDNESDAY.”) That would give the roomie a chance to set something up if she’s so inclined.
A party before she leaves and cupcakes delivered to her on her actual birthday? I think this one is covered very nicely. D’s 18th is mid-March and she asked last night how we were celebrating. I told her by paying off the credit card for all the college search trips and application fees LOL. Maybe I should rethink that, this may be her last birthday at home, hadn’t really thought about it that way.
Celebrating before she leaves sounds good enough. Just call her that day or text her “Happy Birthday.”
I would give her money to buy pizza for people on the floor for a "birthday party but mostly to meet you party’
I like the cupcake idea- if she hasn’t already met a lot of people by then (which I’m sure she will have) then it is a great to bring everyone together and also let everyone know it’s her birthday. Since she is having a party before she goes to school, I would probably leave it at that as far as he entertainment portion. Just be sure you send enough cupcakes to cover her immediate area in the dorms (if it doesn’t break the bank). I’m with intparent on the local gift card idea (love your idea of the monthly envelopes BTW). When you are dropping her off at school it might be nice to run around and pick up a variety of gift cards in small amounts to send to her on her actual birthday. My kids really liked getting packages at school, so it might be nice to either send her a small fun package to arrive on or before her birthday, or to leave it with her when you drop her off. If you have already celebrated her birthday before she leaves, you could still just include some small fun things-socks, a school logo shirt, small gift cards, etc. Just something she can open on her actual day to make it special.
Be sure to let her RA know about the birthday when you move her in. My S turned 18 a few weeks after classes started. I also sent him a big box of brownies and he said that was a big hit with his dorm friends. We also gave him a surprise party before we left home and he really appreciated the chance to see some of his high school buddies before they all scattered.
Thank you for the advice everyone; all these great ideas to choose from! 
I am sure my D would be happy in any situation (I’m the one who is nervous, she was as cool as a cucumber when I talked to her about this), especially if she will be busy during orientation week. I, for whatever reason was, under the impression that now a days they are a lot less structured than when I went to school and was worried that she would be sitting in her room all day on her 18th.
It depends on the school. My S’s orientation week was highly structured, purposely to make kids get to know each other and make friends. It even included a community service project. There were also lots of “floor mixers” planned by the RAs in the dorms to help kids meet each other.
My D’s suitemate celebrated her 18th birthday a few days into their freshman year. She is an international student. The whole suite (6 girls total) hung out, gave her cards and took her out for frozen yogurt (FroYo). She had the best time doing a typical American thing since I guess going out for frozen yogurt is not that big back home. When my D did not make a club sports team, a neighbor brought a cupcake and put it on her bed. She was so touched that someone she barely knew would do that for her. And your kid does not have to be really outgoing for this to happen. They all seem to want to bond these first months since all they have is each other.
I got the idea from someone out here. It was actually my graduation present to each of my kids – I just told them they would have to wait until they started college in the fall to get it, and I mailed off the whole batch of envelopes to them the day I got home.
@inparent ~ love your idea! But I think I’ll torture D and give them to her, each one wrapped separately in ribbon, at her graduation party. Thanks!
I REALLY don’t think you should be telling anyone at the school that it is your D’s birthday. This is no longer kindergarten, where you arrange her social life. 
I think that expecting people to take her out to dinner is a bit much. If you are having a party for her before she leaves, how much attention does she need? I suppose that if your family has traditionally made a huge deal out of birthdays, she may have higher expectations than a lot of others…
On the other hand, I do think it is a big transition, and it is a really nice idea to send her cupcakes on the day so that she can share with some of her room/dorm mates. That will definitely help break the ice, and people will be happy to celebrate with her.
Intparent, great idea!
The problem for me with presenting them at graduation was getting them. As I said, most places won’t mail them. If you live close to the school, it would work fine. But my kids went far away to school (from MN to PA for one, and MN to CA for the other). So it wasn’t really practical.
These replies are very comforting, thank you
A million years ago I had my birthday during orientation week. It was actually a fun time to have it. My more or less local aunt brought me a cake and I shared it with the dorm. I think cupcakes are a great idea. Make sure there’s at least enough for her floor and/or wing of the floor if it’s a large dorm.