<p>My son will be attending school 1200 miles from home. He will be moving in early because he is an athlete. There is student and parent orientation 10 days after he moves in. </p>
<p>We were not planning to stay for parent orientation. Our other kids have band camp and football practice back home. Plus-we really don't see any need to stay in town for 10 days and eat meals out, pay for hotels/rental cars, etc. </p>
<p>Are we really missing any vital information by not attending parent orientation? My husband and I went to college in the stone age and there was no parent orientation.</p>
<p>If you can read the website, you probably will get everything you need from there. The only thing I got out of orientation that I can remember three years later, is about safety at a city school. Your son will have plenty of oversight with his sport.</p>
<p>Will you miss vital information? No. I put Parent Orientation in the “rite of passage” category … mostly boring, but something you’ll recall fondly.</p>
<p>If you are helping him move in early, then do that only, perhaps take him and his roommate out to dinner that nite, then say your goodbyes. If “parents weekend”? is in the Fall thats when you can catch up on anything you missed. Orientation is important for the students, and nice, but not necessary for the parents.</p>
<p>I think the major purpose of parent orientation is to keep the parents busy and out of the students’ hair, and to provide some kind of structure for the separation.</p>
<p>If you’ve flown or driven home by then, then I think that counts as “out of their hair”</p>
<p>There may be a team-specific parent orientation. My son was requested to move in on a specific day and meet for dinner – families, coaches, and freshmen team members. There was a barbeque at the head coaches house – we had breakfast the next day with team parents and we were off!</p>
<p>Do I understand correctly you’re moving him in 10 days early?
Perhaps, if you wanted to attend the orientation, you could simply send him ahead alone with a suitcase, and you could come along at the usual move-in time with whatever other belongings you were planning to schlep out there 10 days early?</p>
<p>Stradmom: That is exactly why we don’t want to stay for 10 extra days. Hotels, meals for 4 people (the oldest will be fed by the school), and rental car fees will be more than the trip up to visit him during the season. We will not be able to attend every game but we would like to come to at least one. We don’t expect he will get much playing time as a freshman, but we would still like to attend at least one game.</p>
<p>Cnp55: There may be a team specific orientation. If so we will attend. The coach does have a parents only email list so I assume he will let us know if there is something he needs for us to attend.</p>
<p>07Dad: I am baffled by the frequent CC comments that college students are embarrassed by being seen with their parents or don’t want their parents around. That sounds more like behavior expected from a middle school kid, than the behavior of a young man. He doesn’t care if we attend parent orientation or not. I am trying to figure out whether we need to attend it for us. At any rate we will not be frequent visitors on campus as visiting requires plane tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars.</p>
<p>The problem with that is that we were planning on buying what he needs when we get there (except his clothes). He will not have a car at school so we want to go with him so that we can buy what he needs and transport it to school. He has spent time away from us in the past so we don’t anticipate that he will have any problems separating.</p>
<p>Its not that they are embarrassed, they are so excited and want to get at it!!!</p>
<p>No need to attend. as stated it’s mostly keep parents busy and feeling like they are doing something important. And have a get out lf here time. </p>
<p>I had one daunter move in early, we got in got out…</p>
<p>No. We attended because my husband hadn’t seen the school in either case. He enjoyed getting a sense of what the school was like and at least at Carnegie Mellon, the Dean of the School of Computer Science made a super good impression on him. I think that’s when he really truly knew ds had made the right decision.</p>
<p>We were grateful that orientations were short and both schools gave very clear instructions for when to say goodbye to the kid. I wouldn’t make an extra trip to attend.</p>
<p>I don’t think we embarrassed our kids, but they are eager to get on with the next stage and meet new friends. Parents aren’t really helpful with that process.</p>
<p>Absolutely not. Usually there’s a welcome speech by the president, who then may or may not introduce the deans. That’s it. Maybe there’s some kind of parent-to-parent panel, where nervous new parents ask questions about how much homework college kids do (and how other parents are expected to know the answer to that one is a whole 'nother story). And maybe there’s a “reception” where you get tea and stale cookies. There is no reason in the world for your family to stay 10 days for that.</p>
<p>Is there much beside clothes that he would need during those first 10 days before move-in? I guess that’s my question. I would think that a duffel like kids take to camp–clothes, a flat sheet, a sleeping bag, and a shaving kit–could hold him over until you got there to shop for whatever else you were planning to purchase. </p>
<p>I haven’t sent a kid off to college yet, so I’m sure there is a vast list of purchase-on-site items that I’m not aware of, but I did send a kid off to a 9-month gap year abroad with a suitcase and a duffel. (I also had two college roommates who arrived on their own–one by train with a suitcase and a cello and one by air with a suitcase and a mandolin.)</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages we all got along just dandy without our parents being offered orientation; your son will as well. I see the growth of these rather tedious affairs as colleges looking to shmooze the parents so they won’t squawk too loudly about ever increasing costs. You can always attend parents weekend if you feel the need to be shmoozed.</p>
<p>It seems like more trouble to send him ahead and then go 10 days later, for no purpose. Sure, he could get by for 10 days w/o any of the stuff you plan to buy, but what’s the point? </p>
<p>If you are there to go shopping right away, you can save space in his stuff by NOT packing toiletry items and such, because you can just go buy all that if you’re already going shopping. And surely your child could move in totally w/o you, but if you’re going to go, it seems more sensible to be there to help haul stuff in, etc., than to be there several days later. If his move-in time is more convenient than orientation in terms of your other kids’ activities at home, that’s all the more reason.</p>
<p>Not sure if it’s a place with a large student population where tons of students/parents will be shopping, but if so it will probably be less crowded in the stores before all the students are there. I say this as someone who buys my kids’ school supplies in July because Wal-Mart the first week of school makes me insane. OK, Wal-Mart always makes me slightly insane, but…</p>
<p>Our son goes to school on the other side of the country, and I had never seen it (DH took him for visit) so we all went to settle him in. Parent orientation was a sideline activity since we also had to do shopping, etc. Agree that much of it to give parents specific things to do away from the kids. What I did appreciate was panel of senior administrators; solid overview and a good q & a but not much more than I got from the website. Because we flew out for opening day/orientation we did not attend Parents Weekend.</p>
The only thing I got out of orientation that I can remember three years later, is about safety at a city school. Your son will have plenty of oversight with his sport.</p>