Interesting. When I first learned of it I imagined every parent standing over their kid’s application form making sure that they pick that option.
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For D21’s school, “conventional wisdom” 
is that picking the substance-free option as one of your priorities in terms of LLC’s will get the student placed in the complex of newer dorm buildings. Though the college could throw a “curveball.”
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S21’s last day of school was today!!! That’s a wrap on high school!!! Tomorrow is the official last day of school for everyone else but for Seniors it’s graduation practice. Graduation ceremony is May 30th, and we’re hosting a grad party at our house that same evening. It’s going to be a whirlwind week and I think it’s finally starting to sink in that he really is done with high school and actually starting college!! 
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Sooo… what fun/creative/thoughtful graduation gifts has your kid received? I love getting ideas for future grad gift shopping.
My D has received the typical $$$, gift cards and college logo items, but I’d say the fun (and practical) items are a monogrammed Ikea zip bag and gift certificate for MixTiles.
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Hm. You got lucky with those flights. Flights from Chicago to Syracuse or Albany are not $300 round trip and we just paid something like $649 round trip for a Thanksgiving ticket and that’s flying on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I know another Colgate mom who checked that Thanksgiving flight for her son and, from where they live, it’s a $1300 round trip flight.
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That was 3 years ago this coming August. And not Thanksgiving. But generally, now we pay between $400-$500 direct RT for SFO to/from DTW (Detroit). D was just back here in CA a week ago.
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Thanksgiving flights, one has off starting Wed, the smaller more expensive airport of course. Might be nice to leave Tues night, but impossible to guess whether kid could have a Tues night class. (Actually I take that back - there are no nonstops on Tues night. We have been so spoiled living the last 15 + 15 yrs in two different hub cities.)
Other kid flies from hub to hub and has the whole week off, so finding decent flights shouldn’t be a problem.
Older sib just didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, two yrs in a row now, in part because the flight is long and expensive. Initially there was a little disappointment, but it has worked out ok.
Looks like Southwest’s calendar doesn’t go to Nov yet.
I decided to look at sons schedule and we are probably not flying him back until Dec after finals.
TG break is 24-28, not worth the hassle and expense.
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SW flights for Nov available June 10. I would consider having S19 stay with friends for Thanksgiving but Colgate’s break is nine days long and I can’t imagine D staying there for any of her years in Hamilton. That’s too long to be one of very few kids in the dorm and likely without the cafeteria. I don’t even know if the dorms are open as the verbiage I see says “dorms close at x time on Saturday Nov 20”.
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How can the dorms and cafeteria close? There are always a number of students that cannot go home during these breaks.
I called Hamilton this morning to ask whether D21 could stay during the week-long (plus 2 weekends) Thanksgiving break. I was told that she can ask permission, and that there are always students who stay on campus. Person didn’t know whether the cafeteria would be open. Dorms have kitchens and it’s a mile and a half walk each way to the nearest supermarket. Winter weather, though, is a concern. Also. @havenoidea, no family east of the Rockies.
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@rbc2018 and @homerdog , yes, it is the calendar for this year. His school is starting really early, at least compared to my older two’s colleges. I guess they figured it didn’t make sense to bring kids back for just one week since they knew most would be going home for Thanksgiving. There are in person classes the week of Thanksgiving for those with practicums, etc, but everyone else has remote classes that week, then finals the week after Thanskgiving. His semester ends 12/3. TBH, I think I kind of like that.
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I got an engraved bookmark for my son and his girlfriend, it has a quote, and has their name and 2021.
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It’s become pretty common. I just found this article from 2005 in the NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/us/education/does-it-work-substancefree-dorms-clean-living-on-campus.html
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Respectfully, @sushiritto in my recent experience, there are far fewer flights these days and they are notably more expensive than pre-COVID, especially if you don’t book far in advance and/or aren’t willing to travel off peak. It may be that by August service will have expanded to permit more flights, better itineraries, and better pricing. Or that pricing is more attractive if you are served by a major airport. But that’s a number of ifs.
Additionally, car rentals are really expensive and tend not to get cheaper the longer you wait.
I don’t blame OOS parents for being frustrated about not knowing. College is expensive enough without having to incur extra costs because arrangements are last minute.
Rant over! 
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We are paying almost 1k to rent a car for move in, plus our tickets were about $250 more than usual. I hope prices come down.
It really was way more than we wanted to spend, so we had to cancel our 20th anniversary mini getaway.
If only we weren’t helicopter parents and sent S alone, we could have saved all that money
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Rant on. No worries. 
For the record, I was referring to ONE college, Michigan. Prices for flights between SFO to DTW have remained flat and pre-Covid service levels have been restored. I just sent my D18 back and forth.
If I may rant for a moment too. I just get tired of all the complaining. And thankfully I’m not on the social media (FB) for D21’s college. I don’t want to hear it. It’s been a long year+.
Hah, I’m a planner generally, but not so motivated these days to do any dorm stuff. I was cleaning some files out yesterday and came across my “dorm lists” from two years ago so that was probably a good thing for when we’re ready sometime in June to start taking a look. Fortunately I also know how much easier it will be for my son than packing girls who think it’s ok to take the entire kitchen sink and then some.
Funny. Michigan has that option and my son wanted to pick it and I told him not to. Problem there is you don’t know what dorm it is so by doing so you’re potentially setting yourself up to be put in any dorm they choose and undesirable so he just put non smoking etc.
Flights to/from Ohare and Syracuse are not usually that much even at Thanksgiving but currently they are not flying the bigger planes or many flights. I just flew there last weekend and pickings are slim. You also have a lot of kids from Ithaca College and Cornell flying from there as flights from Ithaca have also been reduced. Hopefully more will be added or go down in price. Although I do remember freshman year the air from Ithaca was like $900 round trip over Thanksgiving. The best thing we did was have her fly back on Saturday night though as it then gave her all day Sunday to regroup and the fact that there wound up being a snow storm then and no school for the first time in years made it worth it because kids were stuck for days. Most kids also wind up coming home on Friday before Thanksgiving from a lot of schools which is the other trick I learned in terms of not buying tickets too early. Both of mine changed their flights. At least now there are no change fees.