<p>Hi All -
Do any of you parents of rising college freshman have any advice for parental expectations of your child? We have read differing opinions about whether to set minimum expectations regarding grades, behavior, etc. Also, I'm opposed to my daughter having a car at her small, private liberal arts college, at least for the first semester. I think forging good relationships, acclimating to the school and academics should be her primary focus. Her college advises NOT to bring one, yet she's steadfast in wanting to bring hers . Any experiences that you can share? thank you.</p>
<p>If the car is yours (title and insurance), it is your decision.
Our kids’ schools did not allow freshmen to bring cars, so it was not an issue. Two of our kids lived on campus all for years, and did not have cars. The third one will have a car when she moves off campus junior year.
We had an unspoken expectation that academics are their top priority in college.</p>
<p>well… wearily climbing back up on soapbox…and delivering the short version of the sermon… “No car. Waste of money” ;)</p>
<p>thank you. hearing other parent’s experiences do help!</p>
<p>We have grade expectations, or at least effort expectations. We are paying all of S’s tuition, no loans, no aid so we refer to it as the family scholarship. It is renewable based on decent grades. We said no car at school and he will not be bringing his television set either. He will be busy with crew and school work, even he knows he doesn’t need the distractions.</p>
<p>We expect good grades. Our S knows this is his full-time job, and our paying most of his tuition is his payment. We did ask him to take out a student loan so he’ll have skin in the game.</p>
<p>well, anxious and crazy, I thought I was the only one. great idea about the expectations and financial consequences - I concur! Several other links and forums (different websites) said the primary focus of freshmen should be on navigating that first year ON campus, not off. Academics, relationships, learning how to manage stress, finances, etc. would be diminished with the distraction of a car. thank you!
Any other parents with experience wish to weigh in?</p>
<p>My daughter went to a city school that makes it challenging to have a car. She didn’t have any interest in taking one anyway and will not take it this year either.</p>
<p>I think that most colleges must run some kind of regular shuttle to the area shopping center, so kids can get what they need. That isn’t as convenient as having your own car, but I think they make it a field trip with friends.</p>
<p>My daughter drives herself as far as grades an expectations, so I don’t have to say anything that way. I sit at home and say, a B is okay.</p>
<p>My son is 18 and free to do as he wishes so long as he pays for it. If he wants a car at college, he can buy one, pay for the insurance, parking fees and so on. We offered to buy him a metro card. Wisely, he went for the metro card.</p>
<p>We do expect a certain gpa, there are behaviors that will result in us declining to continue to pay our share of expenses and so on. </p>
<p>We’ve spent 18 years trying to prepare our son to be self-sufficient, I can see no reason why we’d stop that during his college years.</p>
<p>You don’t want your kid becoming the taxi for all the other non-car kids, especially if she will get pressured into driving to parties clubs or anything involving alcohol.</p>
<p>If you do let her take it, I would recommend that, for liability reasons, you title the car in her name and get her off the family insurance policy with her own insurance.</p>
<p>As for grades - the average GPA in college is now well above 3.0 (<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/[/url]”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/</a>). I wouldn’t set the bar any lower than 3.0.</p>
<p>Great point, notrichenough. One of my colleagues has twins at two different schools. Both got cars after their freshman year of college. One gets roped into picking people up from the airport, taking them shopping and in general, being the shuttle driver. The other one? No one knows he has a car.</p>
<p>My neighbor girl took her car with her–thank goodness because otherwise it is always in front of my house. Anyway, her dorm mates thought she should be their driver too. She charged for gas to take them anywhere.</p>
<p>D1 didn’t have a car the first semester. Once she figured it out where she could park the car we let her take it with her. Even though she lived on campus, she was teaching and taking dance lessons off campus. The car was sitting at home not be driven anyway. When she didn’t have a car, it was a pain for her to go back and forth to school. Our deal with her was she couldn’t take road trips with her car. It was strictly to be used at her school and coming home.</p>
<p>notrichenough, great points. I considered doing the same. huge liability,especially when we know those kids operate on too little sleep and too little gray matter!</p>
<p>I would check out a 18 year old’s individual auto insurance before taking the kid off family’s insurance.</p>
<p>thanks, oldfort! more things to consider…</p>
<p>“As for grades - the average GPA in college is now well above 3.0 ([National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/)). I wouldn’t set the bar any lower than 3.0.”</p>
<p>This varies too much with different colleges though. For instance, apparently at Purdue Engineering, a 3.0 is top 20%. And Purdue is a top-15 engineering school.</p>
<p>I would not want to send my son to college in another city without his own transportation. He understands that this is a privilege and can be revoked for many reasons. His best friends will also have cars, so hopefully the leeching will be minimal. I will encourage him to just say ‘sorry, I need to study’ if it gets too annoying.</p>
<p>Thankfully, he’s in a private dorm with an adjoining garage and many others will have cars. I don’t understand the mindset of telling your kid to “find a ride”. I read it all the time on this forum and just shake my head. I think I would feel even stronger with a daughter. Do you really want your daughter ‘finding a ride’ places?</p>
<p>Agree with oldfort on the ‘roadtrips’. I do plan to record the mileage. As Reagan said “trust, but verify”.</p>
<p>“As for grades - the average GPA in college is now well above 3.0 (National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities). I wouldn’t set the bar any lower than 3.0.”</p>
<p>This also encourages grade grubbing, which I think should not be encouraged.</p>
<p>Personally, as a college prof and a college parent, I’ve always thought the standard should be “makes appropriate academic progress to graduate in four years.” That entails a minimum gpa, but also taking the correct classes at the correct time and starting to take major classes early even if you’re undecided, like both of my two were as freshmen. My point is that I really don’t care if my kids graduate in the top half or bottom half of their college class as long as they graduate * on time*.</p>
<p>Re cars: NO WAY would I let a freshman take a car to school. Too expensive, too disrupting, and for my two kids, the campus didn’t allow cars anyway. D finally got a hand-me-down car from us as a junior because my H insisted on giving it to her. [And it was <em>my</em> Saturn, not his that went to her 
]</p>
<p>In town transportation? That’s what bikes and city buses are for.</p>
<p>And transportation home? Well, my kids take cross country greyhound buses. Takes a long time, but they’re both cheap [both the buses and the kids.]</p>
<p>All kids are different. I understand why some would sit down and spell out expectations for their kids in college and so on. I’ll admit we never did that with our two girls who have since graduated college. The reason is we never felt we needed to. I think expectations were unspoken. But the other reason is our kids are very motivated and driven and have expectations that they set for themselves. We never worried about the college grades, finishing in four years, behavior, etc. So, you gotta know your own kids. Our kids pretty much know what we expect but honestly, they expect the same for themselves. I realize this would not work with all kids. </p>
<p>As far as a car goes…we had a “kids’ car” for them in high school. The girls are two years apart. D1 used the car in junior and senior year of high school with the idea being that younger D would use it in her junior and senior year of high school. So, when D1 went off to college for freshman year, younger D was using the car she used to drive. However, younger D decided to graduate HS a year early after her junior year and went off to college in NYC and no car is needed or would even be good to have there. So, we let D1 take the car to her college starting in her soph year since nobody needed it at home at that point. It so happens that she also went to college where you really do not need a car but it came in handy once in a while and particularly for getting home as there is no good public transportation to get home. While we still consider the car as belonging to both girls, it has basically become older D’s car. She had it for three years with her at college and then two years at grad school (also in a city). This year, she is working abroad and so the car is sitting here! D is hugely responsible type and we had no issue with her having the car at college and she rarely used it. But there are instances when it is handy to have and it isn’t like anyone was going to be using it here at home. But again, this would be different depending on the kind of kid you have. </p>
<p>While it helps to hear others’ experiences, we each know our own children best as to what is workable.</p>
<p>S’s LAC did not allow frosh or sophs to have cars on campus. They had a shuttle to a local mall, he used that a few times. </p>
<p>At D’s school, on the other hand, anyone is allowed to have a car and I think about half of the kids have one. She’s not bringing a car but her campus does offer Zip Cars and we plan to sign her up for an account. We’ll pay the sign-up charges, which are about $75, but we’re not sure if we’ll pay the $8/hour fees or if we’ll make her pay them herself. Her campus also has a bus that runs to the grocery store, a shopping center, and a mall, so she shouldn’t need to use the Zip car very often.</p>
<p>Our two kids also “share” a car (my old Camry) but for all intents and purposes it has become S’s car. He’s now a senior, so he took it to college last year and this year, which makes it a lot easier for him to come home for breaks since he’s 5 hours away. While D was in hs, her dad has been working from home, so most of the time she drives his car. At her campus most students move off campus junior year, if that happens we’ll probably have to buy her a (used) car. But the Zip car should be enough till then! We’d prefer she stay on campus anyway!</p>
<p>
Depends on the college and the “city.” We have a college in our home town, there are no city busses here and in the winter the roads are far too narrow from snow piles to bike on safely.</p>