<p>HI, This might not be the "norm" for most students, but what if after a couple of attempts, emails, etc., your child's roommate doesn't answer him/her? Do you just bring the fridge, TV, etc. and hope you don't have to lug it back? We had 1 email and then nothing after a couple of attempts. I don't mind, but I don't understand (as an adult) why someone would want to start school "cold" that way. Any advice?</p>
<p>There could be many reasons for the lack of communication-ie: broken computer if communication was by email, vacation, illness of family member, cold feet about going, etc.</p>
<p>I would not bring the fridge, tv, etc. by myself. It would not fit in our car! In fact my son is supposed to bring a tv and we will buy it after he moves in (Costco is a block away) or we will order it online and ship it. This would never all fit in our car. We already took one trunk full stuff with us when S went to an orientation day in early July. The rest is going along with him when he leaves home. </p>
<p>The roommate may show up with some of this and you would not want to take these items (or buy them) unnecessarily. If not, they can go shopping together (on line, or in a store) and have it all sent to them, and split the cost. If you already have these items anyway, you can always send them to the school.</p>
<p>ooo a word of caution- DON'T split the cost of anything with a roommate. Things work out much better if one person buys the fridge and microwave, and the other buys the TV and DVD player. If things don't work out in the room, you do NOT want to be in the situation of co owning anything. Bad place to be.</p>
<p>True, I was thinking about it from the standpoint of the fridge-I really would not want it back. We live too far away to make 2 trips. I don't know if I would bother paying for storage, unless we kept a bunch of things there, and split between the 2 items I figure it will run $200 for the year. It isn't worth a war for that. You are right that one is better off buying one of the items.</p>
<p>You are also right, that I would not want to buy again for this year, if things with roommate do not work out. I am thinking postitively right now.</p>
<p>I could have written the same question Gaby, until yesterday when my son's roommate finally got back to him. I was pretty darn frustrated. The time had passed to pre-order the school's micro-fridge and like you, we didn't want to haul and buy expensive, heavy stuff. I ended up buying a microwave and son had decided that he would buy whatever else (tv, microfridge) down at his school if the roommate didn't bring it. Turns out the roommate will bring the tv and they decided they would wait on the mini-fridge until they get down there. I understand those things are darn heavy so that's okay with me. I think we will suggest that son buy that since roommates tv probably cost more then our microwave and the mini-fridge combined. Good advice Lauren. I agree with NEmom too, there's no reason they can't get any of the items by shopping when you get there or ordering on-line. Nothing that we're talking about - tv's, microwaves, mini-fridges,- are things that the kids need. </p>
<p>My daughter was very exasperated when we spent time talking about these things for her younger brother. She's never had any of that in her dorm rooms and never wanted them.</p>
<p>Our son will have a car with him and there are plenty of stores within a 1/2 hour radius so I think that might be more of an adventure then a burden. The one thing he did get was a game cube. My son and his brother had been sharing theirs for the last couple of years so he got one and a couple of games to take with him. Another item that I would not have put on the must have list.</p>
<p>So, I'm not a parent, but I've had the same problem. I emailed my roommate, and didn't hear baack for three weeks. Then, I was informed that she had gotten into another school via waitlist. I was assigned someone new, wrote a new email, but didn't hear back, either (maybe I just write horrible emails?), but it turned out that my roommate could not access her school email. I called her, and everything was fine. Did your son try to call the roommate yet?</p>
<p>The trick to buying things for a dorm room is this: each person buys two semi-unnecessary items, so if something ends up happening and one person leaves, the remaining person has the things they want. My roommate moved out, but she only owned the TV, so when she left, I still had the fridge (a big conveniece for me as I love fresh foods and fruit.) I lived without a TV for the rest of the semester and then bought myself one for my single this year.</p>
<p>try shopping at different places for the fridge and things- target had a stainless steel 4.7 ft3 fridge for $89 last week, and I bought mine at home depot last year for not much more. It can be a pain to haul but the savings could be worth it.</p>
<p>Nothing's needed but they're nice to have and make the room a nice place to hang out. So if your son goes with nothing, and has to just not have it until semester #2, well, life goes on.</p>
<p>HI, good advice by many....we have a wagon, but the fridge would take up a lot of room. The school email seemed fine, since they exchanged one, but I'm sure we are thinking about it more than the other way around. We did buy the fridge (good deal) but we can use it if they can't. I don't like the co-buy idea only because my niece did that and the following year, it caused problems. That said, these really aren't "necessities" and I'm sure it will work out okay, just would of been nice to have it all settled.</p>
<p>We are going through something similar, but I told my son, do what you can to contact and then just take what you want and we'll deal with it later. This will be a small thing in just a few weeks. For a lot of students, this is the first time you'll be dealing with another person you don't know in such an intimate way and it can be unnerving, but a good life experience. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though that my son has a good experience and gets off on a good foot.</p>
<p>fridge? microwave? DVD player? TV? do students really need all of this? My son has one of these--it's called a computer and it also plays DVDs--and my D has one (fridge)--supplied by her college--and one (DVD player) that is also a computer.</p>
<p>I question the assumptions of those CCers who assume their kids need all the comforts of home. They really don't, and it makes life a lot easier if they don't bring so much stuff to school. They're going to be there for four years--they don't need to have everything the day they arrive, they can take a few days/weeks to figure out what they really want/need.</p>
<p>I watch DVDs on my computer but there's something nice about parking it on the couch with six of your friends and a pizza to watch grays anatomy on TV. The fridge is nice if you eat a lot of fruit, like to eat leftovers, or like cold drinks.</p>
<p>Microwave is totally critical as even microwaved food starts being better than the dining halls. The DVD player is a nice addition to the room if you want to watch movies with a friend, as a 14" laptop is not ideal for crowding a few friends around.</p>
<p>Needed? no. Nice to have? certainly.</p>
<p>My school provides a fridge & microwave in every room, so no one has to worry about it. I offered to bring my TV, so my roommate is bringing a DVD player. We both have small tvs, so if she ends up bringing her's as well, I have a cable splitter, so we can each have our own if need be.</p>
<p>My roommate answered my emails, but didn't seem to have much to say, particularly about dorm room things. It turned out that she's very close to some of her friends at home and was trying to spend as much time with them as possible before leaving for school, so she hadn't given much thought to college yet.</p>
<p>I had to get heavy things when I got there or not get them at all, since both my roommate and I were flying distance away and didn't have a way to get a minifridge to the dorm from a store. Trying to get it back on a bus didn't seem like an appealing option.</p>
<p>sorry, just a student question here: I've never heard of this fact before...seriously, the students cant each have their own tv/mic/fridge? thats insane!!!</p>
<p>-I mean...yeah, only one tv is going to get the cable connection (if there is one) but still? I have to risk my roomate drinking all of my pop, hogging the tv, and not cleaning the mic? </p>
<p>wow...never knew this.</p>
<p>Someone mind clearing it up?</p>
<p>and as far as bringing it all being rational...its going to cost me a whopping $1000 to get to my school (from detroit, MI to Las Cruces NM) and I have a conversion van, so I could fit probably 10 of my loads in there.</p>
<p>There is no way there is space for each student to have their own TV, fridge, and microwave. Plus, two fridges and two microwaves is a huge waste of power and space- learn to share, and if you want a clean microwave, clean it yourself. Problem solved.</p>
<p>How exactly would having your own fridge keep your roommate from drinking all of your "pop?" </p>
<p>and as far as hogging the TV, I don't have time to watch TV, but you could like...both agree on what to watch, which is what everyone else with a TV does.</p>
<p>
[quote]
sorry, just a student question here: I've never heard of this fact before...seriously, the students cant each have their own tv/mic/fridge? thats insane!!!</p>
<p>-I mean...yeah, only one tv is going to get the cable connection (if there is one) but still? I have to risk my roomate drinking all of my pop, hogging the tv, and not cleaning the mic?</p>
<p>wow...never knew this.</p>
<p>Someone mind clearing it up?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most dorms are too small to accommodate double of everything.</p>
<p>Welcome to college, kid.</p>
<p>It varies from school to school and even from dorm to dorm. Some schools let you bring anything. There are a fair number of schools that don't allow any cooking devices other than the ones in the floor kitchen. Some provide one fridge per room. One school we looked at (wish I could remember which one) provided both a fridge and microwave. It really varies, call up Housing and ask them about their policy.</p>
<p>Don't worry too much about your roomie grabbing your stuff, you'll likely buy groceries together anyhow. It always seems to work out pretty much even in the end.</p>
<p>$1000 to drive to NM from MI? what is it ; about 1,400 miles? Man that is poor mileage! One thing to think about is to try to find out if anyone else from your area is heading out to NM and then share the ride, since you'll have some extra space. It would cut down on cost and you could share driving and drive it right through which would save the cost of a room for the night in Kansas.
The drive through Kansas is 8 hours of nothing...so get prepared for boredom.</p>