<p>I am so upset and would like to hear from fellow CC participants their reaction. Today, my son drove to an out of state university in 90 plus degree heat to attend a university information session. We could not find any parking lot which says "Visitors". My son drove to the info. desk and the person directed my son to a particular area that he should park near a pond. There was a large open parking lot with no sign that says staff or students only. No parking meters. Sign said "orientation" and it was adjacent to a pond. Not seeing a "visitors" sign, I told my son to park here thinking that "orientation" means visiting students. Apparently, the admissions office asked my son where he parked and they told him to move his car. This meant another long walk and did not know where to move his car, end result would be missing the info. session. After the info. session, there is a $75.00 parking ticket. We walked back to the admissions office and was told to file an on-line appeal and they are aware that other parents are getting ticketed this way. I told my son that I am not interested in this school. I feel this is the wrong way to treat a prospective student, there is clearly a parking problem, visitor signs are not up, and I wonder how this university will handle other issues as they come up. Are other parents or students having parking problems?</p>
<p>$75!!?!? thats insane
first of all, dont pay. secondly, the school is likely to have an online appeal system only. I would appeal and if they dont accept, dont pay. They cant do anything if you dont end up enrolling.</p>
<p>I have no answers but did remark last week (on our campus visit road trip) that some schools were really picky about parking and that it would leave a very bad impression to ticket someone they were trying to recruit.</p>
<p>If you appeal, I guarantee you will win. However, 90 degree heat has nothing to do with it, so I’d leave that out of your appeal.</p>
<p>The school did a bad public relations gig when they gave you that ticket. But getting “so upset” about it is an energy waste (like reactions to all parking tickets). Appeal, win, and move on. This isn’t Iraq or cancer.</p>
<p>And if your son likes the school, don’t cross it off the list because if this dopey incident. If you visit a school and didn’t have some dopey incident, you were just lucky. ;)</p>
<p>What school was it?</p>
<p>This was George Mason University. It bothers me enormously because there was no sign that said “Visitors” parking and we parked at a huge parking lot with so many empty parking spaces the furthest walk from campus. I am not interested in this school because they obviously are more interested in making $75.00 than in making prospective students feeling cared for. And for your info., I found out from our visit to Towson, that there are a significant number of Towson students who are getting parking tickets (some being ticketed $3,000 or so a year) for not parking in the right place. Have universities gotten so desperate for revenue in this economy that they have to ticket innocent students and prospective students? If we had parked in a space designated “handicapped” or “reserved” I can understand a ticket, but in this case I am just very upset and never want to go back to GMU. I also don’t like the school for other reasons learned at the info. session today.</p>
<p>To clarify–the lot and space where we parked was NOT designated “handicapped” or reserved.</p>
<p>mdcissp, to be fair, they have no way of knowing that you were a prospective student, and it sounds like they have a system in place to have the ticket dismissed. I’m more annoyed by the schools that have expensive parking garages. (George Washington’s cost a whopping $16 minimum.) Most of the other colleges were more modest or had systems so that prospective students didn’t have to pay.</p>
<p>To add insult and show being greedy, the ticket says if I don’t pay $75. within 10 days, the price of the ticket goes up to $85.00.</p>
<p>Definitely appeal and see what happens.</p>
<p>My friend just appealed a parking ticket at a college because he put the purchased parking ticket on the wrong side (passenger side instead of driver side) and the ticket person didn’t see it. He wan’t on tour though. He takes a class there.</p>
<p>All the college tours we went on have instructions on where to park either on the web site or by emailing us.</p>
<p>I had a similar thing happen to me during a visit this Spring. The weirdest thing was that the school we visited was rural. Why a <em>rural</em> school would be anal about parking is beyond me. (The admissions office receptionist told me to drive to the other end of campus for a tour and we did but didn’t see any appropriate parking. I parked in a student lot with plenty of available spaces in the late afternoon. I even put a note in my dashboard explaining that we were visitors.) Yes, the whole thing left a bad taste in my mind too.</p>
<p>Mathmom: The admissions office knew that my son is a prospective student and could not erase this bill with a call to the GMU parking authorities. The admissions people also did not guarantee that parking will dismiss this bill. As far as GW charging $16.00–I can tell you that parking at a parking lot in DC is very expensive. If you are very lucky, you can park at a meter, but the problem is constantly walking back to refill the meter with change. I would rather pay $16.00 for a parking lot than get a ticket for $75.00 and have to appeal it, not knowing if for sure this appeal will be erased. After today, we decided to go to GW tomorrow on the metro train and find out about its business and accounting program. I don’t want to go back to GMU because who knows what the next parking trick is going to be?</p>
<p>We received a $50 parking ticket when touring Northwestern 2 years ago. We had a difficult time finding parking and found a lot that we thought was not marked “reserved”. Turns out there was a very small sign which we missed. We paid the ticket.</p>
<p>FWIW, we still liked the school.</p>
<p>My son did receive an e-mail saying where to park but could not find the designated parking lot. He was driving around this massive area with one parking lot after another and just could not figure out where to park. There were so many empty spaces in the lot we went to.</p>
<p>I think that is so outrageous. Besides appealing the ticket - I would contact the head of admissions and voice my disgust.</p>
<p>I know someone who tried to visit Towson last year and could not figure out where to park - she went into Admissions and said right away - I know I am in reserved parking - I could not figure out where visitor parking is - and as she is apologizing and trying to find out where to park the person is yelling at her - she got back in her car and just left.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d let this impact your DSs college choice.</p>
<p>S2 got a parking ticket ($14) when he apparantly parked in the wrong place for Orientation. He went to Orientation on his own. The ticket came in the mail before he got home! I called and got it waived.</p>
<p>I got a ticket at Brown in the time it took for me to walk into their admissions office and get the assitant/secretary’s attention long enough to find out where to park. It was only 10 or 15 as I recall, but I really dislike where their admission’s office is located comparative to parking. But what I really disliked was the secretary. She was beyond a snob and was not a student but an adult. Son ended up not liking the school but I have to admit that I did - a lot. What I did was remind myself that beyond waiting for tours etc, I never went into my own alma mater’s admission’s office ever again after I was admitted. So I didn’t hold their really bad hiring practices in that one office against the school as a whole. Still… ticked me off at the time.</p>
<p>As someone who lives near a large city I guess I would not expect the college or university to provide parking for my visit. But, that said, it sounds like GMU did tell you parking was available you were just unable to find it. Unfortunately, I do believe the obligation is with you/your S to locate the parking. Guess that is just my city mentality. So contest the ticket and see what happens. Is it a ticket issued by GMU or the city? If issued by GMU you will probably have better luck getting it thrown out. Keep in mind that the person issuing the ticket did not know why you had parked there. </p>
<p>Last year while visiting visiting U of W-Madison we were traveling in an RV and unable to find anywhere legal to park our large vehicle. So H parked it behind one of the universities buildings, put a large sign in the window stating we were there for a tour and to call him listing his cell phone if it needed to be moved. Don’t know if the sign helped or if no one cared but we did not get ticketed or towed.</p>
<p>As someone else said don’t eliminate the school based on this one bad/expensive experience. If the school is a good fit, do what you can to get the ticket thrown out and then move on.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your support–</p>
<p>Towson has a very serious parking problem and also is terrible with signs. We took Amtrak to Towson and could not find the shuttle bus to Towson. I ended up paying for a taxi and had to take the Towson shuttle back to Amtrak to get home. The bus driver refused to let us on the shuttle because we are not Towson students. He said I had to get permission from the head of transportation to be allowed to board the shuttle. I got the head of transportation who gave this permission and found out about the massive amount of money (perhaps in the millions of dollars range) on parking tickets from innocent students who can’t find a place to park their car. What is a student supposed to do if s/he has to get to class to hear the lecture and take the exam? In fact, I was surprised to hear one of the questions from a parent at the open house inquiring about the parking problem at Towson. I thought universities are supposed to be dignified places of higher learning and behaving on higher, ethical principals, not to be consumed with making money on parking tickets. Something does not make sense to me.</p>