<p>Good idea, I’ll suggest that he’s tries that. By the way, I am the only one who is surprised that AU does not send out any advance info to Eagle Summit participants (i.e. where to park, where to check in, what to do with your luggage, etc.)? It seems like it would be quite helpful to give that information before you get there. I only have the schedule of activities because someone posted it on here. In my opinion, everyone should be given that info before they go. I’m not sure why the school doesn’t do a better job of providing pertinent info.</p>
<p>I attended last week so may be able to answer a few of your questions. Parking was in the Nebraska lot and the fee is waived for the two days. Your son should have received an email with check in information. If he arrives early enough, he can drop off his luggage in his room prior to the first session. Otherwise he can wait until mid morning when his orientation leader arranges the drop off. The schedule of activities posted earlier was identical to this year’s schedule.</p>
<p>So, it seems they are sending the information, but to the students, who may or may not be sharing it with their parents. </p>
<p>We should get used to this, I guess!</p>
<p>AU isn’t sending information to the students, either. They’re really terrible at communicating…</p>
<p>Indeed, it’s 4:50 p.m. on Friday in the east, and my daughter will be attending Eagle Summit on Monday. No email.</p>
<p>I have found a lot of things to like about AU–and I really hope I’m still going to feel that way four years from now–but communication really hasn’t been one of them. Which is kind of ironic for a university that’s so proud of its SOC.</p>
<p>Thank you to AUBookworm for providing the good info (the type of info that the school doesn’t seem to want to provide). The check-in e-mail is apparently the confirmation e-mail that they sent to the student when he/she signed up for Eagle Summit. It gives some information, but not much as it should. So as usual, I am learning much more from College Confidential than I am from the school. Looking forward to Eagle Summit on Monday!!!</p>
<p>Actually, LR, that email did clearly say where to park, and when and where to check in. It also told you when and where to check in for early arrival. The only question of yours I see that it didn’t address is whether your son has to shlep his overnight bag around with him for two days.</p>
<p>I agree that AU should send more info - at least a schedule and parking information. And, it should be sent to parents, especially since we pay to attend. Wish I had remembered to mention this in the evaluation. I will say that once you arrive, you will have plenty of information and guidance. The program was well run.</p>
<p>It is good to show up by 8:30 so your child can get his or her stuff dropped off in the dorm room. Stay until the end if you can- my D won a gift certificate for the bookstore in the
drawing. The summer reading book was available for purchase at a good price. They also had a nice organizer/ calendar for sale, if you have a child who might use one. It has AU specific dates and info.
drawing.</p>
<p>I’m embarrassed to admit how eager I am to see the Container Store model dorm room setup.</p>
<p>I love that store.</p>
<p>We love The Container Store too. Sign up for their emails and you will get a 10 percent coupon. Or, wait for the upcoming college event in your area for 20 percent off. We went to the one in Tenleytown after orientation because underbed boxes were on sale.</p>
<p>When you arrive on campus there will be people there to tell you where to go and what the student should do with their overnight bag. Advance communication can be better but it will all work out.</p>
<p>I seem to remember a lot of this information being made available on the website back when my son was a newbie (he is a rising senior now). Have you checked the housing or orientation web pages?</p>
<p>Definitely ask your student to check their email and also their spam accounts…I remember having to print out the parking pass.</p>
<p>My son was one of those kids who just didn’t seem to be on top of checking out “official” email…and he did not want to share all of his new log in passwords, etc out of his growing sense of independence. </p>
<p>My H finally told him that if we missed anything we should have known about, any financial penalty would be borne by son…and that H might not be overly quick to respond to any requests S might have during the school year. Wouldn’t you know it? S missed the info about opting out of the campus health insurance…so we did not pay that amount! It galvanized S into running around to all of the offices to get it straightened out…otherwise there went almost all of his spending money for the year.</p>
<p>boysxs3 - wish I could say that with age comes wisdom. My S will be attending law school in the fall and he was about to pay his tuition and the $2,000 health insurance fee. He never stopped to look at the breakdown on the bill. I had to nudge him quite a bit before he even called the office to find out how to remove the fee from his bill.</p>
<p>FYI: Printing a parking pass is no longer necessary. Everyone parking in the Nebraska Ave lot will automatically get to park there for free without a pass. That’s how it was on the recent Freshman Day also.</p>
<p>Reporting in on Day 1:
The parent program was jam-packed–both physically (the room was at capacity) and agenda-wise (we heard several hour-long presentations back-to-back). Some of the information repeated, and then built upon, material presented at Freshman Day, but some was new. I felt like I got quite a bit of new information. Also, I think Chris Moody, the Executive Director of Housing and Dining, is a gem. What I heard from him, and several other members of the staff, was a genuine interest and expertise in the field of young adult development. I don’t know if this is a field that has just become more prominent in the last 30 years of if I attended a college that didn’t give a hoot about it or what, but I have to say, it’s a whole new thing. They have paid Resident Directors living in each dorm who have master’s degrees in the field. We had grad students who wanted a free place to live.</p>
<p>We heard from the campus security directors–they used to run the Capitol Police! We heard from the guy who runs the health service. We heard about drug and alcohol use (some interesting statistics–over half the students apparently don’t drink, but those who do, wow, do they). We heard from the IT people about computers and IT support. Everyone really conveyed a genuine interest and enthusiasm for working with young adults. They speak with understanding about what’s “developmentally appropriate” and acknowledge that the students are “works in progress.”</p>
<p>I can confirm that there’s no Verizon service in the basement of the SIS building. None. Signal is weak but functions in the Mary Graydon Center. I also carry an AT&T phone (for work) and it got a signal everywhere.</p>
<p>Today’s schedule was very light for parents–we’re going to head back in at lunch time to see the model dorm room and attend the Honors Program presentation.</p>
<p>DP…glad you are enjoying the program!</p>
<p>As far as the repeat of some of the material from Freshman Day…remember that not everyone attended, so for them it’s new info. </p>
<p>We have found the administration to be user-friendly for the most part.</p>
<p>DeskPptato - I’m glad that you found the summit as useful as I did. If you have any questions about the Honors program, please contact me.</p>
<p>DP, I agree that overall the Summit was very informative and made us feel good about sending our child there. And yes, Chris Moody was very good and very easy to listen to, however I wish that his presentation yesterday didn’t go almost 30 minutes over, which later led to an extremely rushed lunch. Also, I was surprised to find out that my son got very little (if any) information about Eagle Bucks/Dining Dollars/Meal Swipes while we (the parents) got detailed info about that from Mr. Moody. As confusing as those food payment options can be, we shouldn’t be the ones having to explain it to our kids.</p>
<p>The Monday afternoon program was informative but way too long. We were sitting in that crowded room for around 4 hours straight, listening to one heavy topic after another (alcohol, sexual assault, health center, etc.)</p>
<p>The faculty coffee hour (actually an hour & a half) with Professor Steinhorn was very good, but by 8:40pm when the woman from the bookstore started talking about book rentals and e-books, we were definitely at “information overload” and were ready to leave.</p>
<p>Someone we met said that they got Verizon service in certain spots around campus(including at the residence halls), but I have no way of verifying that.</p>
<p>The Orientation Leaders were certainly enthusiastic (major understatement). I definitely give them an A+ for that. </p>
<p>When we asked our son what his favorite part of the Summit was, he seemed to favor the orientation group caucuses since they allowed him to make friends and get to know his group members in an informal setting. </p>
<p>The night in the dorm for our son seemed to go well without any major glitches. We were glad that we got there early enough on the first day that we were all able to go up to our son’s room and drop off his luggage before the first event even started. </p>
<p>The food in the dining hall was good, but at times it was sheer chaos in there due to all of the high school kids that were there for the NSLC program.</p>
<p>Today’s Honors program presentation was not one of my favorite parts of the Summit. There were too many parents to be squeezed into the small room in Hughes that we were in, and it seemed pointless to bring our kids there at the end and then have us all go right back to the building that they were just in anyway.</p>
<p>The slideshow at the end of the day was fun to watch but it went by a bit too quickly. My son thinks that the slideshow might be posted on Facebook, which would be nice so we could watch it again at our own pace.</p>
<p>LR, we should have worn some kind of identifying badges to spot each other in the honors presentation.</p>
<p>I imagine some of the information about the dining plan is also conveyed at floor meetings during Welcome Week and so forth.</p>
<p>Speaking of Welcome Week, from what my daughter heard about it, she had made up her mind not to go. Parties are not her thing at all. (She didn’t care much for Eagle Summit in general–overwhelming, over-stimulating, crowded, loud.) However, the nice young man in the honors presentation assured her it would be o.k. in Hughes, so we agreed she’ll give it a try. It’s no big deal for us to pick her up if she wants to come home.</p>
<p>DP, I’m sorry to hear that you daughter didn’t particularly care for Eagle Summit. My son definitely enjoyed parts of it, but not necessarily everything. Will your daughter be participating in one of the official Welcome Week programs? If so, that will keep her busy from Tuesday evening through Thursday night. What exactly did she hear about partying during Welcome Week (and who did she hear it from)? As far as I knew, there are school-sponsored, on-campus activities almost every night during welcome week to keep the kids from going out & getting in trouble. But maybe I’m just being naive???</p>