@momoftwins pickledginger @sandiegodad2017 What dorms are yours kids moving into? Mine is Rieber Hall. I think they are all ready with school starting so late and watching their friends on the semester system leave a while ago. I told my daughter that she can look into the sororities and we would pay some depending on the cost. I hope it’s not too much.
@momtwin - We just moved our daughter in Rieber Hall…UCLA really has this down pat and for the most part the process went smoothly. We did have to play ‘tetris’ a bit getting all her things to fit in the room but in the end we made it work. My daughter too was interested in rushing until she found out the cost. After some research and my D speaking to a older friend in a sorority, we figured roughly $1,000 a quarter. It’s a bit more complicated than that because there are opportunities to save on food and housing costs but to her it wasn’t worth the ‘investment’.
@momtwin - Hitch Suites. Hope everyone has a smooth transition!
When my D was in HS I looked at her on-line grades all the time to see how she did on an individual test etc. Now I don’t even know if she’s had any tests yet. This just feels so weird. What also felt weird today was going to Target and just wandering around, realizing that I actually didn’t need anything.
@melvin123 - it’s not just the parents who miss the online grades. I spoke to DS and he said he is worried because he has not gotten any grades back. He is keeping up with the work but not sure how they will grade his writing.
The grades are a huge issue. Middle DS is on full tuition + engineering scholarship & GPA is critical. He is a senior this year. The professors don’t report the grades in Blackboard like their suppose to, there are often only a few exams, so if one is low, it is hard to bring that grade up. I’ve asked about his classes and how’s he’s doing and he would say he had no clue grade wise, nothing is posted. I am so glad this is his final year, as we have been sweating out the GPA.
I know on the parent FB page, something I never even considered, is the advice for the kids to drop a class if they don’t think they are doing well enough and then retake it at a later date, especially if they are on scholarship.
This year all his professors are very highly rated for his major, but the lack of grades continues!
Hey, all,
Just a quick update…
S has been at UNM for a bit over a month now, and everything is going swimmingly for him. He’s found his tribe - several of them, actually - he’s doing well in his classes, and he scored the lead role in a play. He busy as heck, but he’s not overwhelmed. He also says he’s super happy, and now he gets it when people kept telling him that college would be wonderful, so much different than HS, etc.
Hubs and I are about to get on a train headed home from a week in San Diego, our first trip as empty-nesters. It was a working vacay, but it was also very honeymoon-y. 
If this is empty-nesting, we’re all for it.
I know some of you have just finished move in, and I know some have had bumpy rides. Hang in there, everyone! We’ll all get through this.
Also, Happy Fall. It’s my favorite season.
@laralei I thought your post was really informative and am wondering whether it would be helpful to some of the parents of the class of 2019. Just food for thought for them. It would be awful to send your kid to a particular college that’s made affordable by a scholarship, only to lose the scholarship (and maybe need to change schools?) due to stringent gpa requirements and late grading. One issue that I think might be relatively common is that some STEM classes give killer grades (like a test average is a 32) and then at the end of the semester the prof curves the class. If you’re worried about a GPA based scholarship, I can see really sweating out getting a 45, when that might actually be an A. Poor kids are in the dark until the end.
Hi everyone, it’s been a while since I posted. Congratulations to everyone are getting their kids moved in and started! My s18 moved in Friday and I came home his afternoon. I am missing him a lot but hoping it gets easier soon. Move in went smoothly, roommate seems nice and Week of Welcome activities start Monday. Really hoping he meets more people at some of these events so that he can make some friends. So sorry to hear some of the group is struggling with homesickness. Hope it passes soon!
Yes, @melvin123, scholarship retainment based on GPA really requires monitoring. On another forum, someone posted their kid got a huge scholarship w/ a 3.5 requirement to keep it…I shuddered when I read that!
Also to update w/ DD and the homesickness. Spoke to her earlier this week and she seems much better. So maybe it was just a severe but brief case. I sent her links to events and activities she would like, so hopefully she will follow through on some of them.
She did tell me she got a job on campus. It is only 5 hours due to her schedule but she is happy as she needs some more spending money. She has been using a lot of her flex money for…of all things…sushi & a smoothie for dinner, yuck!
Had a discussion about that rather expensive meal, & it’s frequency, so now she can indulge again. Also, I am glad it will get her more involved on campus as well. And thank you @SnowflakeDogMom for the suggestion of sending care packages. I had planned on a few, but will probably add some more, even if it’s just a card w/ some sushi money! 
@laralei Comfort food can look different for college kids, but whatever works! Glad to hear she is on the upswing.
“…scholarship retainment based on GPA really requires monitoring. On another forum, someone posted their kid got a huge scholarship w/ a 3.5 requirement to keep it…I shuddered when I read that!”
It also requires an understanding of the grading percentiles for the course of study before deciding whether to be concerned. My D18 has that requirement for her scholarship, but it’s the 25th percentile of GPAs for her major (i.e. 75% of graduates have above 3.5 GPA). So I can safely say it’s low on my list of things to worry about. But it seems many people shy away from applying because they haven’t checked the data first.
@Laralei, have her check if she has the option to "cash in’ some of her meal swipes at some campus food places.
@Laralei Here it is:
“Meal Cash Credit (MCC) is a part of all the plans so that students can get the full value of their meal plans while experiencing all their dining membership has to offer. MCC is a $5.06 value that is used in place of a standard meal and applied toward the purchase cost of items in our retail locations. For example, if a student is visiting our food court and the total comes to $5.50, he or she can use an MCC (thus subtracting one meal from the allotted amount) and pay the remaining $0.44 from Flex Dollars or other payment options. Students can use up to two MCC’s per transaction in our retail dining facilities. Certain products cannot be purchased with MCC (see the location for specifics).”
https://www.wcupa.edu/_services/stu.nsp/parentHandbook/dining.aspx
@Meddy I’m all for comfort food, but $15 a day for one meal adds up real fast!
You are right, @Twoin18, the major would make a difference. I don’t think the parent mentioned what their child would be taking, but I know on our FB page, the engineering parents/kids very closely monitor that GPA.
Another good thing to look at is also the point at which they would lose it. I know of a few schools where if the GPA drops below the scholarship level, they could continue but not on scholarship.
At DS’s school, they go on probation if the overall GPA drops below 3.0, but they are very generous to allow the kids continue on probation as long as their semester GPA is 3.0. Padding easy A classes w/ those engineering ones makes it a little more manageable.
My D18’s GPA requirement to keep her scholarship is 3.7, and that is not easy at McGill. It is still affordable for us she loses the scholarship, but she would really miss the priority registration perk.
S18 reports grades to me but I haven’t seen anything posted. I get to see him in 2 weeks!
I am afraid to lookup the GPA requirements now to retain scholarship and program eligibility. Still no word on the score of that “failed” test yet…
It’s official. D18 is homesick. Tonight we chatted with her and when pressed she said yes. She blamed it on the lack of good Mexican food. No mention of the Mexican mother who cooks it though 