Yep. It’s here too. No more than 3 unrelated people in a house. That’s the city code. We had an issue when someone bought the house next door and rented it to college kids. First year, they had 6 semi-official and I heard up to 26 at one point. It was essentially the football team club house complete with parties spilling over into our yard each weekend. Next year it was a frat house. We had lots of calls to the police, planning/zoning, and even the college. Fortunately, the guy sold it after that, and it’s back to 1 family renting to own the place.
1 Like
@TVBingeWatcher2 We always say how lucky we are that our kids are both going to schools in places we love. Oh darn - we are “forced” to take vacations to New Orleans and Colorado!
@AlwaysMoving That could be it, I haven’t looked dup the laws there. There were 5 people living there the past two years but one was his daughter so he probably just didn’t have to have her name on the lease. I’ll check it out. Right now it sounds like everything is good - looks like they should not be able to be kicked out even if it is sold plus we got the lease recorded with the city.
Just a heads up for all of you looking for rental cars this summer - not sure why but my rental in Denver just went down a few hundred dollars! I check almost every day and from my first booking it has slowly gone down, I don’t know how many times I have cancelled and rebooked. When I first started a mini van or large SUV was going to be over $2000 for 4 days, today I got a van for $814!
Also wanted to update on the three big duffel bags I ordered - they all had the same dimensions.
Samsonite Tote A Ton - $35 (around $25 if you can get it during a sale) - It s as nice as everyone said but it only has the short carrying handles.
Amazon Basics- $20 - Material seems almost the same if not the same as the Samsonite. Has three small zip pockets on the outside. Comes with a detachable long strap.
No Name Brand -$20 - OK material, a bit lighter. Has a long strap but it is not detachable so I don’t think it would work as checked baggage.
I am going with the Amazon bag because it will be easier for me to carry with the long strap.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GGNW2WI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
5 Likes
My daughter just graduated from college in San Diego and found a job there (having a boyfriend there influenced that decision). Her boyfriend is leaving for six weeks of training at the end of the summer so I suggested maybe she would like me to come for an extended visit in September. 
I decided that I needed a solo “vacation” after having 5/6 of my family home for most of the last 18 months! D will be at work all day, so I’ll get plenty of the alone time I crave. Sad that she is so far away, but at least it’s a great place to visit!
3 Likes
So, our kids are not in San Diego (which would have been awesome!) but I still agree that having a nice place to visit is a perk! We’ve come to really like Maine (mostly in the fall!) and we are looking forward to getting to know central NY (also mostly in the fall LOL!). I have a friend who has a winery near Ithaca and I know there are lovely places to visit all around Colgate.
Now that we are empty nesters, we can hopefully be flexible about when we can visit the kids and grab cheap tickets when they come up. It’s always nice to learn about a new area of the country. 
2 Likes
@homerdog, when dh and I were dating, he was stationed in Bath, very close to Brunswick (we went there a few times for dinner when I visited). That area is very quaint New England! We’ve actually gone back a few times to Maine on vacation, albeit different areas along the coast. So beautiful there.
S19 goes to school in NY. We have especially enjoyed visiting in the fall when the leaves are changing. When he was in middle school, one summer he went to a lax camp at Syracuse, so D17 and I went with him and spent a few days vacationing in the Finger Lakes which is another beautiful part of NY. I told dh after we got home, that I wanted to go back with our whole family but we never did. Such a pretty part of NYS.
3 Likes
@4kids4us What a great idea - I’d love to have a long term vacation in San Diego! 
@homerdog You know I love Maine and spent time every summer for about 20 years in the town next to Brunswick. Have you been to the Dolphin yet? We haven’t been up there in 3 years and we all still crave their blueberry muffins, lobster rolls, fried shrimp- its all so good. I also love upstate NY - I went to school way sort of Colgate but love the whole area.
2 Likes
Just got Covid-19 updates for fall/William & Mary. The great majority of students, faculty and staff have been/will be fully vaccinated (students were asked to send proof of vaccination). Though masks will be welcomed everywhere, for vaccinated as well as unvaccinated people, there will be no rules about masking, testing or visiting other dorms for vaccinated students…life pretty much as in normal times! Unvaccinated students/faculty/staff will have to mask indoors and test before coming to campus and weekly during the semester. No residential facilities will be provided for unvaccinated students who must quarantine or who test positive…responsibility will be placed on the student to have an off-campus plan In place for that…pretty strong incentive to vaccinate. I’m just hoping the delta variant doesn’t complicate this very optimistic plan mid-semester, but I can’t help but smile.
Just a few days ago the W&M rules for fall per the School website still called for students to be masked within their dorms except in their own rooms, and masks would have to go on with any visitors to the room (including just those from the same hall). I’ve been super-cautious and restrictive though this whole pandemic, but now that vaccines are plentiful and available, I say enough is enough unless Delta breakthroughs become dangerous. So glad now there’s a chance for some normalcy for these kids after all they’ve gone through! I do feel badly for those with medical conditions that make the vaccine ineffective or dangerous, though.
6 Likes
UCs is requiring everyone to be vaccinated to be in-person. CSU’s haven’t put out a statement.
My wish is for all of kids to have a safe return to school, whether k-12 or college. I am hoping S21 will still wear a mask but it looks like Brown is open up for biz. The IG account showed pix of people back at their dining hall. No mask (summer group is 90% vaccinated, gratefully). If anything masks will help reduce cold and flu incidents.
2 Likes
So, I heard AP scores were sent to colleges starting yesterday and may show up on student’s portals on Monday, otherwise scores released to students beginning Wednesday.
Have any of you been looking at the distributions? Interesting when compared to 2019. (2020 not being used from what I understand since tests aren’t comparable). We are waiting for 4 results and of course none of those are distributions they’re releasing early. Also, my son decided to skip messing up his schedule and not sign up for anything related to his AP classes, so hopefully that doesn’t bite him in the butt if he doesn’t get the required scores on at least Chem because otherwise he should be taking Chem (or Organic Chem which he placed into) this Fall. Physics which he thinks he didn’t get the 5’s on anyway he didn’t need in the fall regardless so he didn’t sign up to then have to drop and add something else. No fun!
This is why I don’t understand why class registration for some schools is done before AP scores come out. What do kids do if their AP score changes what they need for classes?
1 Like
OK, I decided to go ahead and unwrap D’s Tempur-pedic topper to air out, since I bought x-large ziplock vacuum packing bags from BB&B that hopefully can compress it again for moving. I had taken it out of the box but that didn’t seem enough. I’m glad I did…it has a strong chemical smell! Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s pesticide. I put it on a sunny porch for the day and brought it in last night to a spare bedroom where I opened windows and closed the hall door.
I know I’m more sensitive to outgassing than most people…fumes that most people don’t notice make me feel sick, edgy, extremely irritable and brain-fogged. If it’s bad enough, stumbling and dizzy. I want to encourage anyone with a topper for their child to air it out…It’s a pretty strong smell that I can’t imagine to be pleasant to anyone. And even if your child isn’t sensitive to such things, they may well have a roommate who is, and I can’t think that the soup of chemicals from all these brand-new products (synthetic rugs, new plastic stuff, unwashed comforters straight from the box store) is especially good for anyone. Sometimes I’ve wondered if even a fraction of the moodiness of sad freshmen who report crying jags and acute anxiety during the first weeks of school is exacerbated by the outgassing of all this stuff, especially where there’s A/C and closed windows. Anything that can cut down on that is a good thing!
3 Likes
Is anyone else unmotivated to purchase dorm gear? Maybe I’m unexcited because this is my third go-round, and being a boy, doesn’t have the same interest as a girl.
Last week I ordered comforters from Kohls for both of my boys (same one, different sizes). S19 is uber picky about fabric and as soon as I opened the package, I knew I was returning them. I misread and they were not soft cotton as I thought.
So yesterday I was on my way out to return them and roped S21 into coming. I wanted to go to BBB to see if they had the same comforter S19 selected freshman year - he wanted the same one b/c he loved it. I figured S21 and I could look around for other stuff for him (he already decided taking an extra IKEA comforter from home was fine for him, I just need to pick up a new duvet from IKEA next week). This was my first time to BBB in at least two years. They had really downsized their inventory! Even with my 20% off coupons, there really wasnt anything there we needed/wanted. However, lucky for S19, they still had the same brand comforter so I was able to get him a new one in full/queen.
I think most of what S21 needs are the little things - I already bought things like sheets and towels a little at a time. Some thing he is taking what he already has (back rest pillow, pop up hamper) and S19 cast-offs (twin XL mattress topper, underbed storage, etc). It’s stuff like command hooks, surge protector/power strip, etc that we need.
We leave three weeks from Tues - need to get motivated!
7 Likes
Anyone here uses Scholarshare for 529 plan? I submitted a withdraw to be deposited to my bank account. It shows the deduction (RIP 1/2 of the savings the last 17 years in the 529 plan!) in scholarshare and I got an email yesterday to confirm it’s been processed. However, nothing in my personal bank account (which is used to automatic deposit into 529 monthly for the kids). I have time since I scheduled the payment to the university 7/31. Thanks!!
The AP score release after registration is not much of an issue at Duke: they can change later if they need—always allowed all the way through drop-add, and they have added many other variables for the incoming students to read to help them best-guess where they fit, plus summer advising is helpful for those that still are worried. Ours has usable chem/Ushis/calc etc scores from 2019&20 but the foreign language score is the big one waiting on that actually applies to her fall schedule(not a Stem kid) —the newly added description of background puts her in the same placement as the 5 will, so that is the class she enrolled in. There is a way (varies by dept) to petition for the level that suits your background even if you didnt quite get the score. Anyway—we have been very pleased with how they have adapted to handle the late scores.
Colleges should have adapted accordingly. AP scores traditionally come out around July 4th.
Not an issue for many colleges; it would not have mattered for mine. It seems more of an issue with some large flagships where there is often little ability to add a popular required course later. Sad for those kids.
2 Likes
Even for those schools, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue because these courses are mostly for freshmen and they’re designed (and scaled) to accommodate all incoming freshmen. If a particular course is really popular with students other than freshmen (say, CS 1 or something similar), the student can just register for the course and change it later to a less popular course if s/he get AP credit for the course. Depending on the school, freshmen may already be among the last to register, in which it matters even less.
1 Like
But changing one class can affect another class and on and on. What if the class you want to change to conflicts with a class you’re currently enrolled in? I just don’t think it’s as easy as “choose a different class during drop/add”. For engineers or pre-meds or any STEM student, I would think they need their AP calc scores and AP science scores from senior year to know which class to take unless they’ve just decided to repeat and start from scratch. Not allowed at Bowdoin anyway. You have to start where they tell you to after they see your AP scores and you take a quant test. In their case, freshmen don’t register until they get to school so it’s not an issue though.
I was helping a relative, who’ll be attending this fall a school with this issue, with course planning for his first two years. In his case, at least, it wasn’t difficult to have plans for both scenarios, taking into account schedules for all the courses. I agree that it does take a bit more care with sequenced STEM courses.
Many schools do placement tests instead of APs for math and science (Harvard) so it is not an issue at those places; Duke and others primarily use AP but they have added extra information (math SAT for example) as well actual course background and other details you can use, and very helpful department advisors students can call upon. So the students (who want to take calc or chem) have registered for what will likely end up being the right one, and if not it is very fixable . There are just dozens of options if for some reason a student decides to change. Yes maybe you would have to swap out your “top” choice small seminar writing course or take the less-desirable section/lab of a course((8am), but in the grand scheme it just is not a big deal. It would have been more tricky if they were strictly using AP so I am glad they have added so much flexibility for the incoming freshman. (Mine placed outof chem based on 2019 score but has no intention of ever using that credit, and may not use her ABCalc credit either, but if she wanted to use the pending BC score the details provided by the school are exactly what she should pick based on her prior scores and background, so it wouldnt be an issue)
1 Like
we opened my daughters too - left it in our finished basement for weeks - don’t notice a smell but I am really panicking about how we will move it up there - that tempurpedic topper is quite large!
1 Like