FSU just announced their orientation for Fall 2020 is online as well.
Yeah, we got that e-mail today, too. I was expecting it, but Iâm still a little sad. Thankfully my student has been on campus several times already and DH and I are familiar with campus from our time there (if fall semester goes ahead as usual, S20 will be moving into my old dorm, where I was living when we started dating). But itâs disappointing.
Are any of your children going to college with a lot of their highschool classmates? What do you think about them rooming together? Any advice? S20 looks like heâll be going with 2 of his best friends, and one other close friend (who doesnât know the other 2)
I was leaning towards them NOT rooming together, so they can grow and make new friends and still have each other as well. My husband and son think itâs great to room with your friends.
What do you think?
I can see both sides but ultimately agree with you.
IMO online orientation maybe true for most if not all universities. At best we can expect to take an individual/unofficial tour (which may not help much in any case).
I think students may have to rely on other means to decide - very difficult, but that seems to be the case this year.
@NYC2018nyc It doesnât look to me as if my D will have any of her HS friends attending the college she goes to. If she decided on the local directional, sheâd have many friends, and I think she would consider rooming with one of them who is one of her closest girlfriends. They are very social girls, though, and I have no doubt that even if they roomed together, they would both be out and about making new friends. I do see benefits to both situations, though.
I like the schools that donât allow freshmen to pick roommates. D20 is going to Michigan RC and they have to go blind for freshmen and can pick the following year. It helps them meet new people and step out of comfort zone a bit.
Any NC residents on this thread? I see that tuition for the NC University system for 2019-2020 was approved on 3/22/2019. Any idea when that will happen for 2020-2021? I am almost afraid to see the OOS amount given everything going on right now. I know that the IS amounts are set for the 4 years of each class but not for OOS. We have planned for increases each year of 4% but not for anything significantly larger. Letâs hope my DDâs affordable OOS choice stays that way.
I donât think DS will have any high school friends attending with him. He did have one that was going to go and was talking about rooming with him over going into the living learning community which I wasnât thrilled about, but apparently that kid is now going somewhere else. DS seems to have zero interest in finding a roommate through Facebook or any other social media (he hates them all), and seems fine with getting whoever he gets.
@NYC2018nyc - we spent the weekend once with friends of friends; he was the head of the housing department for a large flagship. Nice guy. He was talking about friends dorming together and the problems it caused. His advice was to not have good friends room with each other (especially girls) because . . . . when you get in a fight - where will you go? and If you share friends, who would side with you?
but instead, If you live on the same floor or in the same complex - and you get mad at your roommate - you then can go to your friendâs room. I thought that made sense.
I would not want my kids to room with someone from HS. D20 is hellbent on going somewhere where nobody else from her HS goes, so thatâs not a problem. She has found a room mate in a Facebook group for one of her schools. I wish more schools would do the assigning and not let them try to match up online.
Random assignments can also lead to very difficult situations that can be hard to get extracted from. It is far from a panacea to roommate issues. My kids have friends who have roomed with students who have had no sense of personal boundaries, taken things belonging to them, had mental issues that made them feel unsafe, have parties in the room late at night when they had exams the next day, etc.
When they get to select based on profile questions, you will even see parents influencing student profiles bc they want their student to room with a certain type of person.
TTHings can go great or things can go wrong or any place in between.
FWIW, my kids have always been happy rooming with friends even if they ended up with different friend groups on campus. At least within their room, they were able to work through things without major headaches.
No experience with it yet, but I really like the idea behind the residence hall learning communities where theyâre grouped by college or major. At least you know your roommate is in the same boat as far as classes goes.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Totally agree about random roomie not necessarily being the best either. My D16 was âmeetingâ a few on the facebook page and didnât realize the deadline was looming. Ended up with a random international student from a warm-weather country who was ok but spent very nearly her entire year in their room covered in a quilt to ride out the MN weather and FaceTiming her BF - only spoke when spoken to. Almost like living by yourself but not. Could have been much worse for sure (my hubbyâs college roommate was a nightmare).
That said, a roommate from HS could be amazing or not. The key is to be sure itâs not a crutch to growing and branching out, but just a little way to keep connected. This is going to be a crazy start for my D20 - hoping she can find someone that will not be a completely unknown quantity, because there will likely be plenty of unknowns as we move forward.
My D20 is going to an in-state college 3 1/2 hours from home. She knows some people that already attend the school and a couple people she used to play travel softball with, however, she doesnât know of anyone from her HS going to the college. She is trying to connect with people on facebook an Instagram, but finding it difficult. She is pretty shy at first especially with people she doesnât know. I know it will work out.
My S has made his decision. Enrollment deposit paid, social media announcement posted. Heâll be (fingers crossed!) headed to Tallahassee in the fall to attend FSU. He got the OOS tuition waiver and was accepted to Honors. Itâs a great fit for him in every way.
Orientation for FSU has been moved to online. 
I understand it has to be done, itâs just sad. Iâm encouraging S to join some of the group chats for the incoming students. That seems more important than ever since they wonât be on campus for orientation.
D20 is already pretty upset about losing the latter half of senior year. It seems even more cruel to lose fall orientation and those first exciting weeks of heading to college and experiencing something new.
Do you think it is possible that colleges will delay start of classes to October or to January?
If you were given the option of starting online in September or delaying the start of college to January so you could attend in person, which option would you encourage your child to take?
I didnât watch it, but the notes from todayâs webinar by road2college with college admission officials stated many very selective colleges would not be accepting this yearâs AP credits
Not surprising.
I donât blame them actually.
in our school district, kids are not getting grades for the last quarter. Its a mess trying to figure out dual enrollment classes; those that are taught in HS and are both for HS credit and college credit. If the HS isnât grading, does the college still grade? the teacher grades for some of the kids, but not all?? again - itâs a mess!