The annual what-to-bring thread

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Rochester
61

<p>Clothing for the start of classes in August-September. Weather is warm and can be muggy. Have kiddo bring summer clothes from home. Add a UR hoodie, and he’ll be good probably until mid-to-late Sept.</p>

<p>For winter, I recommend not sending anything other than what the student might already have. Each warm climate kid will need to make his own choices w/r/t clothing depending on how much he feels the cold and what his peers/friends wear. (Also you’ll get better prices if you buy when it’s colder rather than trying to hunt down winter clothes in July.)</p>

<p>Internet shopping works. UPS (and USPS and FedEx) delivers. Also students can take the campus shuttle to Marketplace Mall and buy whatever they need there. (Dick’s Sporting Goods [winter jackets!], Target, WalMart and a number of other national retailers are located there.)</p>

<p>Travel Rochester airport is about 15 minutes from campus. Taxis to campus cost $10 (plus tip) with a student ID. Campus shuttles run to the airport during breaks. The issue with ROC’s airport is that it’s fairly small and not all the low cost air carriers (<cough>Southwest<cough>) land there. </cough></cough></p>

<p>HINT 1: book flights home for breaks as early as possible since the smaller planes that land in ROC tend to fill up fast.</p>

<p>HINT 2: sign up for frequent flyer programs of all national carriers that serve the airport near your hometown.</p>

<p>HINT 3: buy flight insurance, esp for Thanskgiving, winter and spring break flights</p>

<p>Buffalo airport can be another alternative. It’s about an hour away and Southwest serves it. Buffalo can be significantly less expensive to fly into. But a student must find his own way to Rochester.</p>

<p>(Taxi to Buffalo bus station, then bus line to Rochester works. RT bus ticket btw ROC - BUF is $45. One way is ~$25. Discovered this the hard way when ATL got frozen in the week spring semester classes started a couple of years ago and D2’s flights got cancelled. In order to get back without missing the entire first week of classes, D had to change airlines [see Hint 3 above], fly thru a different transfer city and fly into Buffalo [see above-- re: small airport, Hint 1] )</p>

<p>Also there is a ride board–sometimes D2 can get a ride from a kid going home to Buffalo who will drop her at the airport on their way.</p>

<p>Storage is catch as catch can. Students cannot store stuff in the dorms over the summer. Students will need to make their own storage arrangements. Getting together with a group of people and renting a storage locker or POD is pretty common solution. Or sending your stuff home with people who live closeby. (But then your stuff usually ends up with several different people and getting it back can mean running all over campus to track it down in the fall.) </p>

<p>D2’s friends literally packed her stuff (including rug, mattress topper, pillows, linens, printer, fridge) in a couple of hours after D2’s last final and took all her stuff to their homes so all she had was a big duffle with her clothes to take home. All her stuff found its way back to her in the fall withou anything going missing. I was impressed!</p>

62

<p>Wow thanks for all the great info. I just copied and pasted, excluding however the great A/C debate!!!</p>

63

<p>Re: booking travel early, How early in the term do students know their finals schedule? Do most students stay or go home for Thanksgiving?</p>

64

<p>Thanksgiving-- almost everyone goes someplace. If not home then to the homes of friends. Even the international students have host families who invite them for the holidays. I think the dorms, or some of the dorms, stay open, but there’s no food service over Thanksgiving break. </p>

<p>T-day break offically begins the Wednesday before T-day at noon. Definitely book early for Thanksgiving. Everyone is leaving at the same time.</p>

<p>Final exam schedules come out about 4-5 weeks before the end of term. </p>

<p>You’ll find them of the registrar’s page-- under Calendars & Exams</p>

<p>[Office</a> of the University Registrar : About Us](<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/registrar/]Office”>Office of the University Registrar : University of Rochester)</p>

<p>Sometimes profs will opt to give an in-class or take-home final and that info will be included in the class syllabus handed out the first week of class.</p>

65

<p>There are options for getting home if you live near NY or Boston - or in W. Mass. Cheap buses run to NYC from ROC and there’s a private service we’ve used called mybushome.com which arranges coach buses for kids from UR to NYC and Boston (with a stop in Ludlow). The price is pretty good. Not as cheap as Megabus to NYC.</p>

66

<p>Lergnom, do you know if my mybushome runs Columbus Day. For that matter, do kids even go home Columbus Day or do most just stay on campus? Thanks.</p>

67

<p>I have no idea about the bus. My guess is no because these are full size buses. For Thanksgiving, Winter & Spring breaks, UR has been filling 2 buses to Boston. You can go to the website and contact Betsy. </p>

<p>I doubt many kids go home for a long weekend, but some must.</p>

68

<p>kmh456, I emailed with Betsy to ask about the Oct break. Many of my son’s friends who are now in college came home then. She said that they need at least 20 students to run a bus. She said to sign up at her site, mybushome after June to then receive any emails about when they are ready for sign ups for any break trip they run.</p>

69

<p>Lergnom and Lakemom, thanks for the information.</p>

70

<p>Do kids wear boots of some kind? Can we wait until the semester starts to book the flights home for thanksgiving and Christmas? We don’t know the schedule and what time classes will be on a Wed before Thanksgiving.</p>

<p>Also - the october break and meliora weekend are side by side. Do kids go home for that October break?</p>

71

<p>You need boots but you also should have something smaller and more comfortable for sitting. UR cleans the paths well. You walk to the tunnel/corridor system and may spend much of the day inside so you don’t want to be lugging around boots and a giant coat. </p>

<p>But if you want to go play in the snow, you need boots. </p>

<p>Some kids go home during short breaks. Some don’t. Some go to visit friends. It depends on how far, what you want to do, etc. These breaks aren’t a big deal. Meliora has stuff for them to do. You can work at it if you want and get into stuff while making some money.</p>

72

<p>Kids wear boots: rain boots, winter boots. Lots of girls wear Uggs or leather boots.</p>

<p>You can wait until after the semester starts to book flights home, but for Thanksgiving I’d advise booking a flight at least 4, probably 6 weeks in advance. Don’t even think about booking Winter Break until you have a final exam schedule which usually comes about 4 weeks before finals.</p>

<p>Thanksgiving is tougher to make travel arrangements for. (Not just leaving–getting back too.) Winter break departures are more spread out since not everyone has the same exam schedule and not everyone tries to come back on the same 4 flights Sunday afternoon at the end of break.</p>

<p>Not that many kids go home for Fall Break unless they can get home fairly quickly & easily. D2 never came home for Fall Break–the trip home is too insanely long for a 4 day weekend. (Basically two entire days traveling to spend 2 days at home. Also plane fare runs ~$650+ RT.) The Outing Club always sponsors a trip over Fall Break, but most kids seem to just chill out on campus.</p>

<p>Meliora is a BIG deal weekend. Lots of stuff going on. Most kids hang around for that.</p>

73

<p>Do parents go for Meliora weekend or is it primarily for students and alumni?</p>

74

<p>It’s mostly alumni. You can go but it’s really set up for alumni.</p>

<p>As for flights, given change fees airlines charge, it’s up to you to decide what to spend and what to risk. Southwest doesn’t fly to ROC. Airlines that do are USAir, JetBlue, Delta, United, American & AirTran. I think they all charge change fees. As WOWM has noted, the closest Southwest gets is Buffalo. (I’ve long thought they should have located a regional airport between the two cities to spur more regional development. ROC and BFL are 60 miles apart, too close and yet too far.)</p>

75

<p>Thanks for the head up about Meliora weekend Lergnom. My son will probably come home that weekend before to visit with his friends here and I wondered about whether it was worth then coming up for that following weekend. Sounds like not if it is more about student and alumni. </p>

<p>In terms of flights, we have a similar frustration. Only Continental flies out of Newark, and on turboprops. They only have RT flights which are very pricey. In order to get better prices and a one way leg to mix and match, one has to leave out of LaGuardia or JFK which takes way longer due to traffic to get to. So in the end, driving to Rochester takes 1-2 hrs longer than flying but has less headaches or delays.</p>

76

<p>There’s Megabus. They run from the Roc to NYC. I think the stop in Roc is at RIT, which is a few minutes south of UR. The stop in NYC is lower west side, if I remember right.</p>

77

<p>Another option for travel is Amtrak. The station in Rochester is about 10 minutes from campus.</p>

<p>DS and friends have been using it for travel to and from Chicago. It runs overnight to and from Chicago, so the kids can sleep and not lose a day to airport hassles. They have reclining seats, tray tables, electrical outlets for each seat and a 24 hour snack car. It’s clean, comfortable and a lot cheaper than flying. Students and seniors seem to make up the bulk of passengers. There is also a student advantage discount card available. We get a 15% discount on every ticket.</p>

<p>So if you are in an area with Amtrak service I suggest looking into the option.</p>

78

<p>I had to go back and read about a/c. How funny is a discussion on a/c in Rochester? You’d think there would have been more talk about snow, gray skies and cold. Though those of us more in the south are used to constant temperature control. While I’m sure it probably does get warm, I don’t know if it can compare to summer in DC. </p>

<p>I thought it was “parents” weekend, so if I have my son come home that weekend before maybe we will just skip that weekend. Maybe he’d be okay not coming home, but I’m thinking I may want to see him. We have two airports with direct flights to rochester and it’s only an hour flight. </p>

<p>Would it be okay to switch clothes over that October break from summer to winter? </p>

<p>What did you think you did right and wrong when it came to packing for the first semester?</p>

79

<p>Average August highs are typically in the upper 70’s - low 80’s, but actual highs have been known to reach 99°.</p>

<p>Switching clothes in October will usually work fine. He might need a heavier jacket by mid-October, though. </p>

<p>Right-- Didn’t overpack. Shipped most of D2’s stuff in advance of move in day. Let D2 buy part of her college wardrobe herself after she got to college. Bought room decor & supplies after arrival at local stores. Only arranged for large items (rug w/pad) after the triple had been re-arranged and the lifestyles had settled in.</p>

<p>Wrong–sent too many bed linens. I don’t think D2 ever put the second set of sheets on her bed. (She preferred to take the sheets off, wash them and put the same set back on.) Also 2 heavy blankets and a comforter was way too much. She sent the second set of sheets and the blankets home. Dorms are kept quite warm in the winter.</p>

80

<p>“What did you think you did right and wrong when it came to packing for the first semester?”</p>

<p>Excellent question eyemamom! My kid will be coming from the Pacific Northwest. My husband and I attended UR in prehistoric times, but I’m having trouble deciding whether a coat that works for snowboarding and boots good for damp hikes will work for three feet of lake effect snow. At the very least, I’m thinking he needs more sweaters and wool socks. The kid lives in jeans/t-s/hoodies now, the cold will be a shock!</p>