<p>Could some of you with experience in regards to Family Weekend at Pitt share your thoughts on the weekend? I see that it mainly revolves around the homecoming festivities. Do many go to the pre-game festivities and game or do they just visit their kids and do their own thing. My D isn't into the football thing, so I can't see putting out money for tickets if she won't enjoy herself. Are there other things happening besides the game? Thanks in advance for the info.</p>
<p>Good questions. I'm also wondering if the kids might like it better if we visited on a weekend and maybe there wasn't so much going on.</p>
<p>We went for one day of the Family Weekend last year. My daughter did not want to go to any of the scheduled activities. We walked around campus, and took her out to lunch.</p>
<p>Here's a schedule: <a href="http://www.familyweekend.pitt.edu/schedule/%5B/url%5D">http://www.familyweekend.pitt.edu/schedule/</a></p>
<p>The football game is the major highlight, but there is a lot of other stuff, too.</p>
<p>My parents usually make the cross-country trip to Pitt about two or three times a year, and they always make it to Family Weekend. But I like that kind of stuff. Some kids might not be into it, so it might be better to go on a less crazy weekend.</p>
<p>We're planning our own Family Weekend on a less hectic weekend than that one! We're not big fans of planned activities so this works for us. Our weekend will include a football game, though, and I'm looking forward to it. But, tt will be a LONG three months from drop-off till our weekend, that's for sure.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your comments. It sounds like Family Weekend is hectic. I guess I'll check with D and see what she would like to do.</p>
<p>It might be fun to go just once to experience Family Weekend - but that's a matter of opinion....</p>
<p>I wouldn't call it hectic. It's not like move-in week. There are a lot of people there, but most of them are parents of OOS kids, so my parents and I enjoy meeting and talking to them because we share that in common. It's well-run and it doesn't get super-crowded.</p>
<p>We went to PW last year and really enjoyed it. We had gotten tickets for the football game, but D had just gotten over a serious illness, so when we went to pick up the tickets we told the lady at the window in the Union we weren't actually going (and why) and she had us fill out a form and Pitt refunded our money! I thought that was pretty nice.</p>
<p>Anyway, there were various programs for you to meet the faculty in your child's dept, and the counselors and such. Each school puts on its own form of "the show" and we went to engrg and that was very nice and informative also. We got to talk some more to D's advisor, who impressed us that she had a good personal relationship with D, so seemed to be doing her job well. </p>
<p>Instead of going to the football game we went out to dinner with D and her friends and their parents (I guess her friends are not "football people"). While she had thought in August that the whole PW thing was hokey, apparently her friends parents all decided to come for it, so the girls made a group outing for us that couldn't have happened if each family had come on separate weekends.</p>
<p>Well, anyway, I thought it was a nice experience, and I think we parents all enjoyed getting to meet each other and the girls as well, so I just thought I'd throw that side of it out there. This year we will visit on a different weekend when nothing is going on, but for the freshman year, PW is a nice thing to do. jmho. </p>
<p>ps - they had a fireworks show that we thought was neat. seeing the fireworks shooting off the top of the Cathedral of Learning was an interesting experience that you couldn't duplicate any other time, i would think. they also did a laser show and had the street in front of the union blocked off for traffic. well, anyway, we enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Thanks mercymom for your input. We still haven't decided what to do yet. Just trying to get the last minute packing done to be ready for move-in day on Wednesday. I think D just wants to get acclimated to Pitt first then make up her mind about PW.</p>
<p>Family weekend was great!! There are many activities scheduled for families. We love football so we really enjoyed going to the game. There was a brunch on Sunday am which gave us a chance to meet friends, etc. We did not find the wknd hectic. We found it to be great- and we are looking forward to family wknd again.</p>