Thank you, cobrat. You’re 100% correct. That’s precisely what also happened to her.
“between 730 AM and 6PM.”
She was required to leave for school at 6 a.m., did not have a cell phone for use on the way, began school at 7 am. Was never released from school until 6 pm Eastern or later, and could not access the GC’s office during any 3-minute break between classes which also involved a building away and 5 flights of stairs.
Have a nice day. Glad to know no judgmentalism is involved. 
You started it, Epiphany, with that " (Whoops, guess you forgot about that little aspect of being judgmental.)"
FERPA is not really a barrier. I met one of the attorneys for the UNC system a couple weeks ago (friend of a friend type thing). I made a side comment about not being able to get to records for S1 and he quickly corrected me. You can get access to records by demonstrating you are still financially supporting the student (i.e. claim on tax return)
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/hottopics/ht-parents-postsecstudents.html
He acknowledged the schools don’t really advertise this, but it is the law. I was surprised by this.
This is true, DSH. I did know that, but for me that wasn’t the issue so much as needing clarification on parental financial factors the student had no access to, including technical info about the future in that regard. However, the exception you note could have been the reason I was sent the grades without being asked. Don’t know, because according to some parents here, there were not routine mailings of grades home.
I will have to say that I’ve not had to have any contact with one of my daughter’s schools. She emailed a few questions before attending, and we did have the mix up with vaccination records at orientation, but other than that there has been no need for contact. I emailed financial aid one question, they sent the form I needed, done.
Second daughter’s school, nothing but questions.
When it comes to anything to do with admissions (except for finances), the parent’s main role is to provide what I call “nag support.” Everything else is up to the applicant.
I have never had the cold shoulder from admissions with reasonable questions. I always preface with “I’m so sorry to bother and I don’t want to be the overbearing mother, but . . .” In another thread I referenced a rec letter mix up in the interface between naviance and the common app. It took some sorting out and I went ahead and called the admissions office at DH’s favorite school that really needed the correct letter and the admissions woman was wonderful, she remembered us from out September visit, she found the person who could check his file and that second woman went through his things and confirmed that the unfortunate had happened and the common app / naviance black hole had sucked up his academic rec. She said to have the teacher just email it to her and she would be thrilled to get it. BAM! Done . . . problem solved, teacher emailed, letter emailed, admissions chatty and happy, application complete before the weekend all while the kid sat in class (this is the one with the school day that starts at 6:30am with zero period so cannot sit around and make calls to catch people when the offices open on the other coast).
Thank you, saintfan.
I think any college that has a problem with parents making such inquiries as you describe, as some others here and I myself have referred to, is the one with the Attitude Deficit about what is “inappropriate.” It’s inappropriate for them to challenge a parent on the nerve of us to assist in getting things sorted out, should other avenues not exist or should those be exhausted. For most things, students can and should take the lead; for some administrative aspects, parents might need to get involved to a limited degree for efficiency and accuracy reasons, even IF there were time in the school day for the student to drop everything, which as you note, is often impossible. And parents or other adults on CC who have appointed themselves authorities on some unwritten universal rule, go have your own kids and do whatever the heck you want with your own offspring, and stop it with the informal legislation of what others are allowed to do. If the college is OK with it, I could not care less what strangers think.