<p>All – thanks for the attire input…very happy to hear that shorts and t-shirts are the way to go! Figured as much, but would not want to be on the receiving end of D’s wrath if I assumed wrong!</p>
<p>I work at a university and our first new student orientation was yesterday. We have several scheduled throughout the summer. I was stationed in the room where students could go to register after receiving their advising - I’m in the IT area and was there in case there were any technical problems.</p>
<p>Ours is just one day long - it was fun to see all the parents and students there. It was very hot yesterday (90’s) and most were in shorts and t-shirts.</p>
<p>We had student helpers, staff and faculty in the room - it was really nice to hear them interact with the students and give them suggestions and make them feel welcome. I was really impressed with everyone and hope they had a great experience at the orientation. </p>
<p>Schools in our area were out in the middle of May; but we do have orientations scheduled throughout June and July to accommodate various schedules.</p>
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<p>Most of my son’s friends who are going to relatively small schools (<5,000 students) are doing 2-3 days orientations. There’s a lot of group activities so the kids can form friendships before starting in the fall. I thought that was pretty cool. The bigger schools around here don’t do that. It’s more of an information session.</p>
<p>D has a 2 day orientation that was held over 2 weeks ago, but the school is a large state public & they have 15+ dates to choose from over the summer. She went to one of the honors orientations & had a great time. Registered for 17 credits (but one credit is for an optional program that happens before classes start and 4 credits are for a foreign language so still only 5 classes; as she reminds me she’s been taking 6 classes since forever.) </p>
<p>Clothes were varied; some girls were in sundresses, others in tees & shorts. I wore capris & a nice shirt. She stayed in the dorm, ate in the dining halls. All was well & no tremendous surprises, especially since it was her 6th time on campus.</p>
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<p>Taking 12 credits in the first semester is unlikely to pose problems in terms of graduating on schedule unless the student has absolutely no AP credits. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I would recommend registering for one more course than you intend to take, with the intention of dropping one before the drop deadline if the workload proves to be too heavy or if there simply is one course that you do not like.</p>
<p>Interesting, I just looked at S2 orientation and it doesn’t really say anything about parents. There is a sheet with parent/student activities in August when you drop them off but nothing about the orientation. It’s OK, I would probably not have gone anyway. Our seniors were out the day right before memorial day and graduated last week. The 9-11 just finished up. It’s a good system, they get the seniors out of the school for the last two weeks. They are so not into school they are a distraction for the younger kids.</p>
<p>My D has a one day registration/advising day in the summer which parents also attend. Then there is a 4 day orientation just prior to classes starting at the end of summer. The one day event seems like it could be problematic for folks from a distance but we are within a reasonable distance.</p>
<p>D’s school is a very large public flagship. They arrive on Tuesday and finish on Friday. Thier advising/registration is on Friday. They have many madatory meetings throughout the week that the kids are required to attend or they can’t register on Friday (or so they say). There are many social events as well. We have found that many schools in the South have some sort of a “camp” which is either incorpoated with registration, like my D’s school, or it is at a seperate time. D is taking 12 hours, which was recommended by the school for the first semester. She is also transferring in 12 hours so I feel that we can afford to ease into the process this first semester.</p>
<p>My daughter LOVED her 2 day orientation at Holy Cross, they did a great job, great food, great sessions for the students and parents and although some sessions were a bit long, the students and parents seemed to all have a nice time.
She was able to pre-register for some classes (not official until Aug)get advising, and get her ID, set up workstudy paperwork, banking, etc. They have 3 sessions so they weren’t so large that they felt overwhelmed. She also enjoyed, since we were early, they chance to talk to professors about her interests that were at academic tables and get some of her questions answered in person almost one on one. : )</p>
<p>S2 is now a rising jr. He spent two nights at his big state u. orientation, ate in the dining hall, went to various planned activities both informational and for entertainment, got the “free” t-shirt (yeah, right) and registered for classes on the last day. Parents tagging along was optional. We opted out. He and a friend went together. </p>
<p>He registered for 15 hours and ended up dropping a 2 hr. (music) class a few weeks into the sem. leaving him with 13. I noticed later in reading the schools website that students are only allowed to drop three classes (after enrolling and attending the class) over the course of four years. S has dropped one more class since then so he is down to one more drop allowed over the next four semesters.</p>
<p>Just wanted to caution that adding classes thinking it will be easy to drop one early on may cause a prob. later if the college limits the number of dropped classes allowed.</p>
<p>Just got back from our 1 day orientation at the state flagship. They did explain that they limit the orientation to one day because people complained about feeling overwhelmed when they did 2 or more day orientations but they do team building and other orientation type stuff within their dorms in the 4 days between the time they move in and the first day of classes.</p>
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<p>Yikes - never heard of that. Will have to read the fine print more carefully.</p>