Freshman orientation/ travel plans

<p>If the move-in date for freshmen (not international) is August 26th, should we plan on arriving a few days prior to that date and parents departing on the 26th, or do we all arrive in the area on the 26th with parents departing several days later? We are coming with our S from CA and will need to do some local shopping for supplies when we arrive.</p>

<p>Either way is fine, but likely best if they leave when orientation begins -- parents are kind of requested to leave at that point. They don't absolutely have to. The thing is you don't get into your room until the 26th (or whatever day they are saying for this year) so if you need stuff that you didn't think of, and there are about a million other things to do that day -- register for this and that, plus tons of informational meetings for the parents, president talks and such -- it IS hard to get it all done that day. We live locally -- we just do it all in one day and leave when we are supposed to. We usually don't get to many/any of the parent meetings.
But you can get anything you still need online -- or your parents can ship.
Did your parents join the parent listserve? Go to the Wes page, click on parent and find it from there. Parents will be discussing all the variations of this issue all summer</p>

<p>if you go to the orientation website it says that parents are asked to leave during the afternoon of the 26th after the welcome speech. You can go early but the rooms won't be open like WesMom said.
The website did say that you can get a hotel room (I can't remember the name of it) and if you tell them it's for the Wesleyan Orientation group then you get a discounted price. That only holds for the night before the 26th, though.
I would just show up the 25th, do your shopping, spend the night at that hotel and then do the orientation activities the 26th and plan on leaving that day.</p>

<p>you can join the parent list, too and you can hear parents discuss all variations of "what day to come" "what day to leave" "what things to bring" etc. students are invited to the listserve</p>

<p>Thanks all for the replies. Appears best to arrive around 8/24 in the area, shop on 8/25, move him in 8/26 and depart at 5PM that day. Now trying to decide if I will go as well as my husband, or just let the guys do the setup and wait til Parents' Weekend in October to visit (different thread).
And I did join the list serve for parents, but am just lurking there.</p>