<p>It looks like move in day and first year orientation for the class of 2015 begins on Saturday, September 3. We will be flying in from the midwest to “drop” our daughter off. How long should parents stick around? Don’t want to leave too soon, but know that DD will want to get started with her new life without mom and dad sticking around too long.</p>
<p>It was pretty awkward at first, as I recall. Daughter really didn’t want us around at all. But we planned to stay over one night so we dropped her off, let her set up her room, hung around without her for a while, checked back in with her (didn’t eat dinner with her), stayed the night in the motel, went on Sunday to the speech by President Ruth and then when she said, firmly, it’s time to go, we hugged daughter and then drove home. Daughter was fine after the initial awkwardness because she’d already made some friends by Sunday. Ruth Simmons is a great speaker, and most of the families stuck around until then. If you are able to hear her speak, you’ll be glad you stayed for that. There are chairs all set up on the College Green and it’s impressive to see all the students and the families who are gathered for this great adventure’s beginning. The students have their first dorm unit meetings right after her speech. So it was quite natural.</p>
<p>I would plan on arriving on that Friday so you’ll have time to shop for dorm stuff - it really helped me to have that one extra day as I bought basically everything here. I believe my mom and I arrived on Friday and she left sometime on Sunday. That seemed like the perfect amount of time for her to be around for me.</p>
<p>There are several workshops/programs for parents offered that weekend, so there are things for parents to do. I think the best system is when parents drop their kids off and are around for the weekend, but know when to disappear, and find other things to do while their kids are meeting everyone. Many parents come to the Sunday afternoon talk by Ruth Simmons – and they are definitely expected to leave when that ends.</p>
<p>fyi, dd and I decided it didn’t make sense for me to fly from West Coast for a day, then leave the next day. So we sent off some boxes and she flew out solo. She was comfortable with it (had been in boarding school) and it was convenient for all. I went later, when she could show me around.</p>
<p>There are a few activities for parents on Saturday and together you can help set up the dorm, get a bank account, etc., but there are activities for the students Saturday night. I was so sorry to miss Ruth Simmons speech on Sunday, but we had a very long drive ahead of us so we headed out before it. If you can make the talk, I think that’s great (last year it was about 2 or 3 on Sunday) and you certainly could stay after that, but the students have orientation activities and I doubt there are many parents after the talk. For fun, I think someone said the Convocation (Wednesday afternoon) was on the website or youtube last year.</p>