@CaucAsianDad has been assimilated into the Gator Nation, resistance is futile… :)>-
Just got back from orientation and class registration. S wanted to do the 3-day since he is OOS but his work needed him back so we did the one-day. It was very rushed and we didn’t quite get everything accomplished. He likes his schedule but it is going to be hard. They didn’t like that he has 16 hrs. One hour is just a meet with the honors college one evening a week and discuss things, not a real class at all and they give you an A if you show up. Another one hour class is just an intro class that again has no real work and basically if you show up you get an A so that is 14 hours of real classes. Got a bank, met his roommate. Didn’t get to see the dorm because they were doing construction.
A girl in my office took her son to UT for his orientation a week ago and it definitely is more of a cult. Most of the kids from around here go there or A&M. S is an anomaly. Everyone asked him why he wasn’t going to A&M. He just wanted to get away and his OOS school offered a better deal!
Good luck to your D @CaucAsianDad !! Already off, wow.
Thanks to you all for nice things you said about my son 
Those big football schools can seem like a cult from far away, but once you’re there it’s more of a “unity” thing. I enjoyed my time at a big football/sports school. I probably would’ve been a better student at a smaller school with hands on attention, but in the end it didn’t seem to have any negative consequences on my life, other than losing a few more brain cells- ha. I got all of my partying done in a relative few short years of my life, now I hardly ever even have a drink, like maybe one beer per year. I’m sure you all with kids going to big state schools will find a way to balance their lives and be productive and successful while they are there. They are smart kids.
@CaucAsianDad From what my son has said, the biggest benefit was not from the freshman program activities, but just adjusting to campus during a quieter time. It gets crazy at the start of fall, so she’ll be well prepared for that.
I don’t remember if I posted this—I know I started to write it up, then got interrupted in the middle, and I don’t recall finishing it up, so apologies if this is old news—but D17 went to June orientation at Muhlenberg, and her schedule first semester is:
[ul][]Chem for kids who have had high school chem I
[]Bio for science majors I
[]Intro to international studies
[]First-year writing seminar (theme: Orwell’s views on politics and language)[/ul]
First-years are capped at four classes per semester there, so that’s everything; she’s also planning on trying out for the Muhlenberg College Choir.
So it’ll keep her busy, but not overwhelmingly so—her only worry is chem, which is the one branch of the sciences that doesn’t instantly make sense to her.
The most interesting (to me) thing to come out of orientation: I didn’t get to go with her, but my wife did, and D17 came back thanking/praising her repeatedly for not helicoptering and making/letting her do stuff on her own. (As one example, she said that the number of parents who filled out their kids’ various forms while their children checked Instagram was…surprising.) One thing in relation to that that Muhlenberg does that I heartily approve of: Parents are completely and utterly barred from the part of the day when students actually sign up for classes, discuss potential plans of study with their first-year advisors, and such. But yeah, Muhlenberg—just looking at the demographics—attracts a high-social-class and high-parental-involvement student body, so I suppose you need to develop institutionalized mechanisms for prying students away into their own lives.
I’m guessing that the faculty there—just like I was when I taught at a university that attracts a moderately-high-social-class and very-high-parental-involvement student body—are really, really big fans of FERPA, and the ability to say to parents, “No, it would be a violation of federal law for me to discuss that with you.”
I changed my photo to the cult one -
Texas proud 'till Gabriel blows his horn!
I do not go to church albeit having attended religious schools with mandatory classes, masses, etc.
S17 joked that at the orientation they tried to introduce students to the notion of atheists and being inclusive to all kinds of people. 
D and I flew down to Chapman for a day to attend their Preliminary Advising Session (required to remove the registration hold). She could have done the online version, but wanted the chance to go back and see the campus again. Also, gave us a chance to see how easy it is to grab an uber from the airport ($17, 15-20 minutes away). Was a fairly informative session, for both parents and students. They explained their Gen Ed requirements, graduation requirements, and language placement testing info. CU requires three semesters of a language (101, 102, & 201), but some of that can be bypassed via the placement test. They won’t find out about room assignments and roommates until mid July. The second half of the session, they sent the students with current students who demonstrated the class registration system, how to add classes to their cart, etc. After we got home, D took their language placement test for Spanish. D took Latin in high school, and hadn’t had any Spanish since 8th grade, but still managed to test out of 101 & 102. Now to wait on AP results, to find out just how many classes she will get credit for. She should at least be a sophomore credit wise when she goes to register for Spring. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer.
@dfbdfb every parent IRL with a kid who has completed orientation and registration so far says the parents were banned from all activities related to registration…except billing of course. So far this has included a large religious based private school, two major state schools and numerous OOS schools. I have talked to no one so far who was allowed into registration.
Yup, at UT, we were at a separate family orientation and did not see DS for most part of 3 days. They have a good routine separating helicopters. That is a good thing.
A parent at UTexas posted packing list
I’m going to follow this:
… Having minimal clothes at school required that he do laundry weekly, but it was finished in a few hours. He liked that.
8 T-shirts
2 long sleeve T-shirts
2 long sleeve Henley shirts
2 short sleeve polos
2 dress shirts
2 pr khaki shorts
2 pr jeans
4 pr gym shorts
Sleeping shorts
10 pr underwear
10 pr socks
2 pr dress socks
2 undershirts
Dress pants
Dress shoes 1 pr – black
3 ties
2 belts
2 pr tennis shoes
Flip flops
Swim trunks
Rain jacket/umbrella
Winter jacket/hat/gloves
Bed linens (foam mattress toppers make dorm beds comfier)
Towels
Toiletries
Laundry supplies incl pop-up hamper & large laundry bag
Cleaning supplies: Febreze, paper towels, Clorox wipes
First-aid box
Snacks, especially grab & go breakfast bars
Computer/phone supplies incl extra chargers & headphones
School supplies incl planner
Combo lock
Personal items - pictures etc – for desk
Refillable water bottle
A few weeks into the semester he added an area rug, a desk lamp, & a clip-on bed lamp.
Sometimes with dorm rooms its tough to know what will work in terms of lights or storage because you do not know how much space is there and what will fit where until you get there. Your kid will also need to figure some things out in terms of how they want to live, study, etc. Amazon is a great help for that.
One tip about laundry, my D had time on Wednesday afternoons. She did her laundry then, no waiting. Most kids did their laundry on weekends.
@dfbdfb if you take two science classes with labs, that is not a light course load. Labs/recitation added 7 hrs a week in class time to my D’s schedule (in addition to the lectures), and that did not include homework, studying, and lab reports. And your D is taking two more classes, kudos to her.
My D can’t register for classes until she on campus in September right before they start - so no parents within 40 miles 
She does plan to take the Integrated Science Curriculum which is 2 classes in the Fall and 2 in the Spring that count for Chem I and II, Physics I and II, Bio I and CS I. I already printed her out a schedule to illustrate the class time it takes. M-F for 1 hour lecture, 2 afternoon labs either M or T and W or R. And for good measure a W evening required Problem Set 2 hour meeting. Via Real Talk Princeton is sounds like there is 15-20 hours of Problem Sets to work on weekly. They say half the kids that sign up for it drop down to the normal classes after the first 2 weeks. Apparently the ICS is very Math based. I guess it’s like that thing I learned in college that Physics is really just Math and that Chemistry is just Physics and that Biology is just Chemistry and that Psych is just Biology so by the transitive property - it’s all just Math.
S got his schedule. He has Chem I, Biology, English Comp - Honors, Animal Science (1 hour introduction and first 3 hour first class), plus an intro to the Honors College (which is just a get together one evening a week, As if you go). It is a tough first semester for sure. Chem will be the hardest but the Biology class is known to be bad (but he loves the subject).
My kid’s schedule is:
Sem 1 9 am M-F + tutorial once a week, plus practical once a week MT1001 Introductory Mathematics
11:05 M-F plus lab 2-5 once a week CH1401: Introductory Inorganic and Physical Chemistry
12:05 M-F CH1301: The Impact of Chemistry
Sem 2 9 am M-F + tutorial once a week, plus practical once a week MT1002 Mathematics
10:05 am M-F plus lab 2-5 once a week CH1402: Inorganic and Physical Chemistry 1
11:05 am M-F plus lab 2-5 once a week CH1601: Organic and Biological Chemistry 1
@Dolemite Yes on the transitive property of sciences: https://xkcd.com/435/ (DS has this one on a t-shirt.)
@carachel2, that’s good to hear. The one private university I worked at, parents were most definitely allowed (even welcomed) into the advising session. Of course, that was 15ish years ago, so things may have changed, but still.
@mommdc, those two lab classes (bio & chem) are par for the course for pretty much every student going into the sciences there. (Well, for those interested in the physical sciences, maybe chem and physics.) It’d be different if it wasn’t normal, but at a place where that just what happens? Not a worry, I don’t think.
https://www.mylifetree.com/soulfeed/6-important-tips-parents-attending-college-orientation-freshmen/
^^ I like it, though my college professor self gets incredibly annoyed by all the advice to wait to buy textbooks until after classes start. I assign work from textbooks starting with that very first class session, because I want my students to begin discussing central concepts with the very second class session—and if half the class doesn’t have the textbook yet, it falls apart. :-L
Parents weren’t permitted to attend registration. I greatly appreciated that the parent/ student orientations were separate as it allowed the students to mingle and the parents to have more open discussion about fears, concerns, suggestions.
In an effort to check off as many things from the to do list as possible, I already ordered the text books. The bookstore will box them and have them ready for us to pick up on move-in day. Nice and easy and checked off the list. In the link above, there is a reference to the books being used as bed risers. The manager of the bookstore told me that if the books remained in the same condition they were purchased (for new books this requires the cellophane wrap) and the student has the receipt, their policy is to fully refund any book that the professor decides not to use during the class. We were encouraged to get all of the books in advance because they intend for the students to jump in and be ready to go from the first day of class. It’s not uncommon that students don’t have the books and their survey revealed 70% of students don’t have their books on the first day of school and the kids all survive even if @dfbdfb has to live through the professional heartbreak. I’m just aiming for convenience and getting everything squared away before I have to get on my return flight.
Summer is going by a little quicker than usual this year.