<p>My daughter was out on Main St with her friends on Monday night celebrating her 21st birthday. She was not involved in the riot. She told me Tues am about what happened. Sounded like it was a social media created event. Not a good thing, but from what I’ve read today, some of the reports are overblown (as social media tends to do). It sounded to me like it was taken seriously as there were three different police depts there. As always, your kids have to have a good head on their shoulder to make the right decision about where to be and where not to be (as lefty1 said). I was not freaked out by this, but it looks like I am in the minority.</p>
<p>LINYMOM,I was not freaked out either. This is my third son going to college( the other 2 went to different schools)so I am all too familiar with the things that go on . EVERY school has its problems so if anyone thinks they can send their kid to a school that doesn’t then you might as well just keep them home! Teach your children right from wrong and pray a lot. But in the end the good always out weighs the bad. This too shall pass and hopefully the kids and parents that are unhappy at UD right now will come to see what a great school it is and take advantage of all it has to offer.</p>
<p>I am only freaked out in the sense that the event was dangerous, inappropriate and did damage to the University’s reputation. My D lives down toward Russell, so she was away from it, but she is annoyed that other people keep commenting about what happened as if it represents the whole university.</p>
<p>I’ll add my voice as a parent of a student who is applying this year. I’m obviously keeping on top of news at schools he’s interested in. I cringed a bit when I read this, but not for the reasons you might think. I am also the parent of a third year mech’e at another university that gets its share of publicity for the party school label, frankly some deserved but a lot overhyped. I’m well aware that the actions of a few do not define a community of 15k+. Most people looking at this rationally will understand that this can, and does, happen in one form or another at various universities across the nation every year. As previously said, you pray that the 18yrs of formative training have led your students to make smart, safe, healthy decisions, and then you pray some more (or if you’re like me you text friendly reminders about 11pm Thurs-Sat, lol). </p>
<p>My son who is applying is my third, the caboose, and we found UDel to be a wonderful hidden gem, never mentioned by his GC. The grounds were lovely and he loved Main Street with all the shops and restaurants. Everyone we met was very friendly. I was really impressed, and UDel quickly knocked out several schools in our own state. These feelings are no different after the unfortunate event this week. Sadly, in all communities a few are going to show poor judgement at times, however given what we know it doesn’t seem to be anything more. </p>
<p>I hope I haven’t offended anyone by sticking my nose in this. I just thought I’d offer a different perspective. I respect the opinions shared here and am in no way trying to diminish any, just offer my own.</p>
<p>Edit to add:
Zoos, my dear friend! I crossed posts with you. I completely appreciate everything you said. It seems at least once a month S2s school is in the news, even if there is no ‘event’ just as an example or dredging up old stuff. It’s madding that kids do stupid things and you do worry about the reflection on the university reputation. My post was intended simply to say as one parent with a prospective student it didn’t change our perception at all. I hope that’s what came through. Hugs!</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with the four prior posts. Hopefully this “stupid” event will not have a lasting negative impact on how future applicants and their parents view the university. In our D’s four years at UD she took appropriate safety precautions (as you would take anywhere-especially as a female) and she never felt unsafe at UD (and she lived her last two years in an apartment in the middle of Main Street). We also would occasionally text our D on weekend nights (not often) and advise her to “behave yourself” and “take care” -often followed by “LOL”. While this might seem a little “corny” I believe it got the message across along with conveying our concerns about her staying safe (which I believe reinforced the values we raised her to be aware of). She did make her share of small “mistakes” but I believe she learned from these and her level of maturity was dramatically improved by the time she graduated. Academically UD is an excellent university and IMHO a student can achieve a quality of education equal to that of any university in the country if a student applies themselves to the best of their abilitites and takes advantage of all the opportunities that UD offers. My final “two cents” on this thread. Lets learn from what happened and move on in a more positive direction.</p>
<p>@socaldad42 - The emails were from my son. Now that he is ‘on site’, he has been more successful, and has discovered that making a visit in person to follow up on an unanswered email is a very effective way to get an answer :-). My feeling is, if you have a customer who is paying over $40,000 a year for your services, their email deserves an answer.</p>