<p>I am from the west coast and plan on shipping the bulk of my belongings, for those of you who have experienced the shipping process, what is the easiest and cheapest way?</p>
<p>You can ship it directly to your residence hall address a week or so before and it should arrive the day before you arrive. You can also talk to big red shipping. </p>
<p>[Big</a> Red Shipping & Storage](<a href=“http://www.bigredboxes.com/]Big”>http://www.bigredboxes.com/)</p>
<p>the shipping/storage business at cornell is a rather unfair market. big red storage is overpriced, and yet you will rarely see other advertisements for other shipping/storage companies. while BRSS is the most convenient, it is only because it is the most well-known, and it is only the most well-known because cornell makes sure that it is. </p>
<p>i would like to help by giving you names of other companies, but as i’m from long island, i don’t really use shipping or storage, and so i can only rant against the monopoly that BRSS has (thanks to cornell taking such drastic measures that they’d even TAKE the advertisements of other companies OUT of the mail and NOT put it in their students’ mailboxes…). i’d suggest googling something though. </p>
<p>as for storing in your later years - you’ll undoubtedly find friends who are either a) in frat/sorority houses b) have their own house/apartment in collegetown c) live really close to cornell and if you’re close enough to them, you can always ask them to keep something big/a couple of boxes that you won’t need over summer break.</p>
<p>If you are planning on coming up to Cornell with a parent for orientation and plan on renting a car for move in day, you can ship things via FedEx to the FedEx center in Ithaca, and drive it up to your dorm room (it’s what I did and it worked out fine).</p>
<p>Just make sure to mark it “hold for pickup” or something like that.</p>
<p>Big Red Shipping is overpriced…but they are the only company that can drop things off in your dorm room prior to your arrival!</p>
<p>I’m from Texas, so I had to ship things too. I actually didn’t take too much up with me (just a suitcase full of clothes, I bought everything else at Bed Bath and Beyond when I got up there). I didn’t need much except some winter clothes that I had back home and a few other comfort items (blankets and stuff), so I just flew up to Ithaca with my parents and had them ship my stuff US mail after they got back home. I didn’t mind spending the week or so without my stuff at all, and they delivered it right to Appel, which was right outside my dorm room. I don’t think it was too expensive, so the cost savings were worth having to carry the box(es) to the elevator.</p>
<p>wow I will definitely look into all of those ideas. Thanks for all the help everyone!</p>