Parents of the HS Class of 2020 (Part 1)

@“Jolynne Smyth”
My D19’s school is a plane ride away. Last year, her move-in day was a Saturday. We flew in Friday morning. We had also ordered from Target, for pickup. We chose a Target a bit further from the school, so it couldn’t be quite as crowded. We had plenty of time Friday to pick up our order and shopped some more while we were there. Once we moved her in on Saturday, we realized what we forgot (pillow, e.g.) and went back to the Target near campus for those things. H and I flew home on Sunday.

I think mine feels the same way.

My daughter is sad about missing prom, senior night and graduation but understands why the sacrifice is needed by the class of 2020.

No, my S20 isn’t that disappointed either. He’s more annoyed that he can’t go back to work yet (a lifeguard at the Y) but he’s getting paid to not work so he’s ok. He’s just bored.

Our S is also going to school a plane flight away. We booked the flight to get there on Tuesday and move in day is Thursday, so we’ll have a day to shop for stuff. Hopefully we’ll actually be able to drop him off.

Mine will also be a plane ride away. I am thinking we will go 3 days beforehand to shop at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, etc. because I really don’t want to lug a lot of stuff on the plane if we don’t have to and I don’t want to feel rushed. I have barely used any vacation time this year (thanks COVID-19) so I don’t mind taking the extra days. Then I will probably fly back 1-2 days after move-in. D will be busy during orientation during this time, but I was planning on sticking around at least a day after move-in in case I need to pick up anything we forget (like extension cord, wall hooks, etc.)

I booked a hotel but haven’t booked a flight yet. Hotel has a cancelation policy of 24 hours prior, and will try to find a flight that will allow changes in case move-in doesn’t happen in the fall.

Our popular schools are UCF, FSU, and UF. We have some here and there going out-of-state and a few going to other schools in FL, but I would say that the majority that are going to college are going to 1 of these 3.

DS20 is pretty chill about missing senior year activities - he never really cared for formal school activities but was looking forward to spending time with friends and grad parties…seems he is still hoping that they will have time to hang out in latter part of the summer (June-August). Most of his friends cancelled their earlier summer travel plans - so they are looking at the positive side of spending time in their usual group activities. Of course this depends on how this virus situation evolves.

Is anyone booking flights for the original move-in day? We reserved a hotel several months ago and looking at current airline deals round trip flights seem reasonable to Raleigh from LAX ($290) but don’t know if we should book with so much uncertainty about on-campus learning or modified move-in dates possibly?

Her college won’t make any announcements for at least a month. It does look like there are no change fees from the airlines and I doubt there is going to be a ton of personal and business travelers in mid-August making changing flights to a new day less problematic. But then again airlines have cancelled many flights recently as demand had waned. Decisions, decisions…

DS’s classmates are all over. Of the 46 that reported where they are going, there are 31 different schools. Most are MN or WI schools. UMN-TC, St. Olaf, Concordia and the UW schools. Two are going to Purdue, two to NYU, one to UCF, 5 to California schools, UC-Davis and San Diego. Seven are staying local at one of the two 4 year schools or the CC in town.

@socaldad2002 - we booked the flights to reach there 2-days before the check-in date. The airline (Soutwest) we booked does not have change fee - though they charge fare diff, we thought its a reasonable bet to book with low fare now.

We plan on doing that too, staying 2 nights before move in day. I love Southwest but no direct flights from LAX to Raleigh which is a bummer. And from what I can tell ALL airlines right now are not charging change fees and most give credits for unused tickets.

Similar to @socaldad2002 we are in southern California so a large percentage of kids are going to UCs and Cal Poly SLO. This year, we seem to have more going to UCLA than Berkeley - usually it is the opposite with more going to Berkeley than UCLA. UCSB is also very popular.

We have several going to Duke and MIT. Usually it is only one a year year but this year there are four going to each school. Duke accepted several others who chose not to attend. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that acceptance rate out of Duke. Maybe they are looking for So Cal kids.

Yale, UPenn and Harvard have a couple of kids attending each while Stanford, Dartmouth and Brown attracted 3-4 each.

It is tough to find out where everyone is going when the kids aren’t in school.

We are having a tough time making a decision about flights, too, because of the uncertainty of what will happen. I keep going back and forth about whether we should just book something now and deal with issues later (campus decisions or airline cancellations) or hold off a while still.

I prefer Southwest but we also have no direct flights (Cleveland to Dallas). We’re close enough to Pittsburgh that we could fly there with an extra hour drive to the airport but they don’t have direct flights either.

As far as disappointment, my D20 didn’t care about prom or graduation, but the scholarship she applied for was canceled since they couldn’t hold a fundraiser, her summer internship at the university she will attend was canceled, and freshman orientation will be virtual (as most or not all will be). That’s been hard on her - especially the scholarship and internship cancellations. She worked hard to apply for both.

We booked hotels and flights. I made sure both have free cancellation policies. I also booked S20’s Thanksgiving flight, because that seemed like the one that would sell out. We don’t have southwest, but everything seems to be having covid cancellation deals. I’m not exactly sure which day is move in day, they told us it could be Friday or Saturday. So we’re flying in Thursday and out Saturday.

May be a good idea to book Thanksgiving flight tickets soon. I checked flight tickets for my son’s Thanksgiving trip…expensive.

Thanks for all that great info on pre-planning for hotels and flights!!

I think I will definitely book the hotel for two days in advance of scheduled move-in to be safe. I just booked the rental car too - when I tried to do that on a prior trip on short notice during a busy season it was over double the regular price!

Good tip about going to a Target that is a little distance from the school. And I think you can order ahead a few days/weeks to lock in your order? (Not 100% sure but it would be great)

My D just advised she wants no part of Target furnishings though so we’ll have to figure that one out another way LOL.

Good luck all!

We did. It’s on Southwest so their standard policy is no change fees, but all the airlines are doing that right now. I booked a rental car already to make sure we could get a full size SUV. My dad lives in the area so we are staying with him, so no need to book a hotel.

No flights will be booked as we are opting to drive rather than fly. It gives us a lot more flexibility given that the school has not announced the revised calendar yet and we can buy most in advance rather than count on picking things up locally. I did book a minivan to make the ride and packing easier.

We booked hotel and flights back in January. Love Southwest and their lack of change fees.