I’m that way too, but, having visited 4 Targets in 24 hours during the last week of August, in the Boston metro area, please choose a Target as far away from any college as possible, perhaps in a nice suburb. I swear, the first one we stopped at after leaving the airport had an armageddon/mad-max feel to it, and even at 10 pm the parking lot was full.
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My kid will do her own shopping over the summer, with a bit of guidance and a budget. I’m a planner so it’s difficult to not just do it all right now, but it will be good for her to make the lists and figure out how and where to buy everything. Besides a bike, I don’t think we will have many issues getting everything in our car. With 2-3 in a small dorm room, there is only so much one person needs. I did already get sheets when I found them on sale, and I’ll take care of finding a deal on a decent topper.
We already have plans to visit a month after school starts so we will probably have a ‘maybe’ pile that we can bring up if she decides it’s necessary but we will start with the minimum and fill in with deliveries as needed.
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Lol. If I left it up to my S (1) he wouldn’t go shopping; and (2) he wouldn’t want to spend a dime of the budget. He is in charge of his wall decor at his request.
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For the Apple products, is this more the Intel chip products and not the M1 chip products? (but I did see something about other component shortages as well - glass, for example). My husband is wanting us to hold off on the M1 Macbook purchase until the summer deal (potentially free airpods) goes live, but that probably isn’t until mid June.
It is a shortage of basically most chip-related stuff that comes from Asia, not just the CPUs. DH’s company has big delays on getting the smaller parts for building boards for their microscopes. I doubt there will be much in the way of summer deals with supply so low.
http://innovationxtreme.in/2021/05/10/chip-shortage-is-slowing-production-of-some-apple-devices
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Aside from the stress of not finding what you need, I can’t afford to shop last minute. I need to find sales/deals to afford all this stuff.
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I listed to parts of the Appa analysts call and they were vague about which family of products might be affected. But I decided not to take any chances and ordered an M1 MacBook Pro for my daughter. I have been using an M1 MacBook Air since January and it has far exceeded my expectations. I am aware of the educational discount but its really only about $100 so its not really a big deal worth waiting for.
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Sadly I did too!
The Supreme urn topped it off, lol!
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Yup. The surge protectors will protect your electronics so it’s important. Not every electronic cable will have built-in surge protectors so you definitely want to protect your electronic valuables.
It’s my understanding the chip shortage won’t impact the M1 chip, but instead the smaller chips throughout the macbook. I went ahead and bought her a Macbook Air as a graduation gift just to be safe.
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If you’re getting computers, etc, use your kid’s edu email for the discounts.
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@Mwfan1921 One additional point to make when you are speaking with a senior admin is that the international undergrad proportion of students was around 12% this year (down from previous years due to covid). The majority of students in that 12% are from China and India. I don’t know what will happen with covid, but US embassies are still closed in many countries and getting a student visa by august is not going to happen for 100% of those international incoming freshmen. Meaning…there will be space in the fall, unless Purdue is significantly overenrolled for incoming frosh.
Copying this from another thread because it’s an interesting observation. I wonder whether this issue has been accounted for already, for those schools who have closed waitlists and/or told waitlisted students they are unlikely to go to the waitlist. In other words, is it possible, for a waitlist that is not having activity but is technically still open, there could possibly be sudden activity come August when internationals find they can’t start? Just thinking out loud.
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Ok. So, a surge protector is just a power strip according to S19. He’s got one of those. Lol.
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Be mindful that not all power strips are surge protected. Check to make sure.
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He seems to think it’s a surge protector. Two years and no problems.
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Parents w/ kids that have Surface Pros. What capacity do your kids have? There’s 8GB/128GB, 16GB/256GB, etc. My son would use this as a backup and eBooks (assume many textbooks are eBooks) and portable for notes in class, etc. Is a 128GB sufficient?
*He’s not a Mac kid. We have everything Apple at home, from iPads to MacBook Pros to Air. He builds his own desktop and hs his sep laptop he bought with work money.
Don’t count on that! As someone who lives in a college town you avoid Target and Walmart at all costs during college move in! Nightmare crowds and low inventory. Better to pre purchase!!
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Wonder if it will affect the new MacBook. Waiting to purchase til it is released.
We did Pack and Hold with BBB for our oldest and didn’t experience any crowds when picking up her items. There are two large public universities and one private university using this particular BBB, but we had a plan. We arrived a day early and our flight got in just before BBB opened. We went directly there - it was a well oiled machine! They had tables already assembled outside, we checked in, they brought out a rolling bin full of her stuff, we went through it, took out what we no longer wanted, then went inside to pay. The craziest part of the trip was discovering that the BBB actually sold beer and wine!
Of course, this depends on college location. We were in San Diego, so plenty of places to shop (every big box store plus IKEA) unlike in a rural or less developed college town. And the universities’ move in days were not all the same weekend so that helped. We also stopped at Target to get some toiletries, and some other things we still needed and while we saw other college kids in there, it wasn’t crowded. But for popular dorm items, I definitely would not want to wait and shop as it is slim pickings for those kinds of things!
My daughter’s school also had a BBB pop up store on campus with quite a selection of items for last minute things people forgot.
My sons’ campuses are driving distance so we can purchase what we need at home.
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Well if you’re REALLY serious (tongue-in-cheek) about your surge protection, then by all means, buy a Richard Gray Surge Protector. I think they’re around $2,000 retail. 
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