<p>You all need to be gifted with a second college bound college kid who is a non MT boy whose only concern as far as packing goes is non-dorky boxers that he can walk down a coed hallway to the common bathroom in. Not sure how well just packing that will work in the Boston winters but there you have it. I’m going with it. T minus 2 weeks until we travel to tax free launching state and then actually have to think about any of this. </p>
<p>D2 didn’t finish everything she was supposed to before leaving 2 weeks ago to work at a technology -free camp. She is done the day before her scheduled move-in. (I swear, the date must have changed… I never would have agreed to that!) D1 has been helping me to outfit the dorm room with the limited opinions D2 offered before leaving. Just today, my husband asked if I shouldn’t wait to let D2 pick things out. Ummm…NO! We are not shopping on move-in day. She picked out the color scheme before she left. If there is anything she truly hates, I will return it. </p>
<p>halflokum, I have the dorky boy too. Has no interest in shopping or what I buy for his room, except he did pick out new boxers! </p>
<p>My D went on a mission trip and flew right to school for rehearsals with only her carry on so I am left packing up her room. I thought year two would make this easier to pack her up but I have been texting pictures to her asking if she needs or wants it. Luckily I only have a couple days before we move her stuff down to her</p>
<p>Just found out S doesn’t even care about the boxers, goes "commando"in sweats - eww. Fortunately, bathroom is in his suite. Nor does he care about “matching” anything. I have hit all the thrift stores - IKEA silver wear 20 cents/ea, non-breakable dishes 75 cents, “real” milk crates 50 cents, college-appropriate bicycle $20. Queen-sized sofa/futon $30 - OK, so I had to take 6 trips to two different hardware stores to find the missing hardware, but who’s pressed for time here? I think we’re going to look a bit (a lot) like the Clampetts come next week. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. . . </p>
<p>I felt like the Clampetts last year. Check out the storage units near the school while you’re there. Summer storage fills up early so if you have an idea of what there us you can call late winter/early spring next year to get it set up.</p>
<p>T minus two weeks, the piles are getting bigger (my dining room has become a staging area), and so is the stress as we prepare for D to head off to NYU. Everybody has their own issue, Husband is freaked about the volume of stuff. We are driving, and in a SUV, which you would think would relieve the pressure, but no, he wants everything to fit under the cargo cover in the back so it doesn’t “look” like we are schlepping a mountain of stuff into the city, which he is convinced will make us a target for roving bands of evil doers who plan to steal our college stuff, and sell us the Brooklyn bridge while they are at it. D has NO idea what to take and what to leave, and is alternately declaring she cannot be without EVERY beloved memento of her whole existence, or telling us she wants entirely new EVERYTHING to “start her new life” (???) And me, I am trying to figure out the whole idea of the “empty nest” thing… Not sure we are going to get there without at least one stop at the funny farm on the way…</p>
<p>@toowonderful. It’s NYC. Leave all but the most important beloved memento of her whole existence at home for her to pet when she comes home on breaks which will be an experience to look forward to. Though surprisingly the NYU dorms are … huge… by college standards, it’s not the place for excess because the logistics of getting those treasures in and out (and stored if you are like us and not driving) are a pain. She’ll realize that and regret 90% of the excess she brings be it it this year or future years when they just go back and forth for reasons that she will eventually have to admit make no sense. She doesn’t know that her whole existence also includes this new chapter and it comes with more “stuff” that she will care more about going forward. I’d encourage her to pack LESS now of those things and just promise her that you will ship to her what she finds she must have later if that happens. The smallest “if it fits it ships” box from USPS is $5.45. </p>
<p>Thanks @halflokum - I have been letting it ride (figure why argue until it’s actually time to pack) since this seems to be her release from the general stress/tension of the big move to NYC. I have also “casually” mentioned that they have things like school supplies and kitchen utensils in Manhattan, in case she discovers she needs something we didn’t bring 
</p>
<p>Question for the group… D wants to take her collection of plays and librettos- which is fairly extensive (two shelves of a bookshelf in her room) Useful or not? I can see it both ways…</p>
<p>My daughter won’t go without her plays either….</p>
<p>My daughter took hers last year, since then she has added to the collection and is taking them again. She has used then for her auditions, acting class, play reading class and will use them for her directing class. She is old school in the fact she actually likes to hold the play when reading and does not want them on her computer. </p>
<p>If there is room for the plays and librettos she should bring them. Plays and librettos are very useful, they will be used in classes, for research, seeking audition material, etc… Where I teach we have these items on the list of things an incoming freshman should bring. These are “tools of the trade.”</p>
<p>Another yes to bringing the plays, librettos, music books, etc. This is a “library” of resources that would be used in a BFA program. </p>
<p>toowonderful, I assume you arriving in NYC the night before move-in, as we did back in the day at NYU. If you park the car in a garage, the stuff should be fine. We moved our D with a big SUV too and it was packed to the hilt. We did not shop when we got there. We brought it all. I recall taking a photo when pulling out of our driveway and the car was so packed that we were not sure where to put a lamp shade and so D put it on her head in the photo (like a hat) and we took a photo. Freshmen “move-in” is quite the scene and experience at NYU given it is right in the city. Police let you come up to the dorm and unload the entire car of stuff onto the sidewalk. There is a long line of students and parents and piles of everyone’s life lined up all along the sidewalk in the city. </p>
<p>@soozievt actually, we will be arriving in the city on Friday- move in on Sunday. I just KNOW husband is going to make us take EVERYTHING out of the car and haul it into the hotel room…Where we will surely be looking like the Clampetts in Manhattan. Ah well, sometimes you just have to roll with other people’s neurosis. :)</p>
<p>I should have been more specific when describing the play/libretto collection- we are talking two shelves that run the length of her bedroom- probably close to 300 titles. When we moved into the house we live in now (4 years ago) it was 4 boxes, and has grown since then. No WAY she needs that many all at once, she needs to weed down, and I’ll ship her anything else she decides she wants as she goes. </p>
<p>LOL @ the Clampetts in Manhattan.</p>
<p>My S won’t leave home without his collection either.</p>
<p>Just bought used, LOCKING file cabinet. S is SURE his music collection is the most likely thing to “walk off” out of his dorm room. But who could possibly want his new laptop? EVERYbody has a laptop. . .</p>
<p>Bring a couple of padlocks, too. S had a drawer he could lock when he left his laptop, but you had to supply your own lock. (A laptop was stolen out of his urban Chicago dorm (not his fortunately) during freshman week, so do lock everything.) </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve got a story along that vein. When my other D (not the MT one), was going to start grad school at MIT, she was going to move into an apartment that she needed to furnish. She didn’t get to go home before she started grad school, after her internship that summer in NYC and had to take a train straight from NYC and meet me in Boston. We stayed in a hotel in Cambridge near MIT. We went shopping for furniture at IKEA (suburbs) and had a LOT of furniture boxes. While they fit in D’s SUV, we had to park it on the street and didn’t think it would be safe overnight to have a car on the street full of IKEA furniture boxes and so I had brought a two wheeler with me to Boston (was living in Vermont) and she and I unloaded ALL the IKEA boxes onto the two wheeler and made trips up to our hotel room in the elevator with all the boxes for the night (I’m sure we got funny looks). The next day, my husband was going to drive down with my SUV pulling a UHaul trailer with all her college stuff that was temporarily at our house all summer, and some more furniture and was going to meet us in Cambridge to move her into her new place and put the furniture together and set it all up. So, that morning, my daughter and I had to take all the boxes out of the hotel to her car using the two wheeler. BUT…when we got up to have breakfast at the hotel, lo and behold, the elevator in the building had broken down. I was in a tizzy about how in the world would we get all those furniture boxes down flights of stairs??? But in the few hours we had to wait for my husband to drive down from VT, the elevator was repaired and we were able to wheel the stuff onto it and make the trips back to the car, whew. The hotel must have thought we were crazy with all that we were taking up to the room (and I didn’t mention the homemade birthday cake I decorated in an MIT theme on a tray that I also was taking up since it was D’s birthday. 
</p>
<p>Just loaded up our pick up and I swear we have more this year than last. Luckily my D is already there because she would not fit. It was touch and go for a while I thought we might be taking two vehicles</p>