<p>Any parents. Advice.
My d's first day for orientation is a Sunday three days before school starts. </p>
<p>What gives. Do we "dump her" out of the car? Can we help set up her room? We obviously don't want to "interfere" with her meeting new friends, etc, but would like to help her get her room together (computer set up, bed fixed, etc).</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm not a parent, sorry. But my sib has gone to BS for three years, and I've seen the first days and stuff.</p>
<p>When my sib started BS, my parents wet to the parent orietation, put up her room, and stayed for a pretty long time. Until, like, eight Unless your D says otherwise, I think it's fine to stay. Actually, pretty much all parent set up the kids rooms with them, I think, because printers and closets and stuff can be kind of daunting, plus confusing.</p>
<p>Im not a parent either but most BS have a strict schedule and they have a time on which parents must be off campus. For me my parents have to leave by 4 PM.</p>
<p>Do you have the orientation schedule? You should have time to move things into her room, but probably not enough time to completely set it up. Most likely she and her roommate will finish the job. It is probable that the parents and students will be separated at some point during the orientation with a possible parent reception with the Headmaster and current parents. After that it is time to leave. Ask to see the schedule.</p>
<p>Oh jeezum...your question really brings me back, and I've got to say that it put a lump in my throat and butterflies in my stomach. And I think our drop-off days actually went very well!</p>
<p>We've now been through orientation drop-offs at 2 different boarding schools. In both cases we basically had the afternoon to get the Pups through registration, meet with their advisors, dorm heads and roommates, deal with IT nightmares (in both cases, unfortunately!), moving into (and setting up) their rooms, and then splitting up to go to our respective first orientation meetings, followed by the big and tearful (on my end) goodbyes.</p>
<p>In one case, the afternoon ended with the head of school telling us parents "now it's time for you to go! Say goodbye. They'll be fine." and I've got to tell you that it really helped A LOT to hear her say that. It kind of put closure on an event that in many ways you didn't want to end, and made it okay to leave.</p>
<p>However your D's school handles move-in day, know that they've been through this process a million times before and will guide everyone through the day well. You may not get specific directions until you arrive on campus, but rest assured that you will be given time for everything you need to do.</p>
<p>As regards leaving your D time to make new friends, remember that everyone is moving in when your D is and therefore doesn't have that much time either. Of course, there will be flexibility built into whatever system your D's school employs since they almost certainly won't be able to accomodate ALL new students signing in, buying books, setting up computers, schlepping stuff from car to room, etc. all at exactly the same time, so she may wish to spend some time making new friends; it will be up to her but you won't find it hard to make time in what you have to accomplish to let her do that. And it seems to me that most of the preliminary connections happen after the parents leave anyway. Just being sensitive to your D's timetable (as you clearly are) means that you will let her take off when she wants or needs to, and help her out when she wants or needs it, I'm sure.</p>
<p>And setting up a dorm room doesn't take nearly as long as one might think (or at least not for the Pups who, as I said in a different thread, both went in for the monastic cell look; obviously it doesn't take very long to strike just the right note if what you're going for is...bare walls and floor!).</p>
<p>Set up the dorm and leave!</p>
<p>Your daughter is going to Mercersburg, correct?</p>
<p>Registration is from 12:30 - 1:30 and inbound starts at 3:00. It looks like you will have a couple of hours to get her setup in her room.</p>
<p>The schedule is located in your first class account under the information section.</p>
<p>At NMH parents have to leave by 3...haha.</p>
<p>For the children who are going a couple days early and are NOT setting up their room till 3 days later when school starts, should parents just leave?</p>
<p>Sportincourty: it depends on circumstances and, most importantly, what the student is able to handle on their own. There are things during the actual drop-off day that parents can help with (if nothing else, another warm body to stand in line at the bookstore or an extra pair of hands to carry something to the room), but kids do manage everything on their own. It has more to do with the temperament and personality of the student than any requirement of the school that parents leave the premises asap.</p>
<p>If it were me (as a parent), my preference would certainly be to stay until the actual drop-off day so I could help out at least for that first time, and also to hear whatever it was the school wanted new parents to know. But if the Pup in question started barking for me to stop hovering, well, I guess I would (reluctantly) leave.</p>