<p>If student is 18 years old apply for a passport before they leave for college. Then if an opportunity for international travel comes up they will be good to go. As mentioned above leave original passport at home but parent can send when needed.</p>
<p>Start collecting Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons now. You will need plenty of them.</p>
<p>Batlo’s #22 is spot on!</p>
<p>Is BB&B really the best place? Sounds it! Although, I was walking thru Target tonight & they have tons of nice stuff…all kind of coordinated looking & their prices are pretty good.</p>
<p>Target is good, too.</p>
<p>One nice thing about BB&B is that you can select everything at the store close to home, and arrange to pick it all up and pay for it at a store near the college. (and you can change your mind once you see the dorm room; you don’t have to buy everything you order.)</p>
<p>Learn everything you can on the college’s website so when your son or daughter calls with the first crisis, you have an answer for them. They will do this on their own hopefully once they get settled but it really helped to say which office they need to go to, what building they need to find or who is in charge of what. </p>
<p>Get the immunizations out of the way if they are not done and see if doctor will send them off with a Z pack or something for pink eye if they need it. D got sick constantly or had pink eye or ringworm. It was always hard to get an appt or find time between classes to get treated. Stock up on cheap flip flops at the end of the summer because they’ll wear them all year for the showers.</p>
<p>BB&B coupon note - Many stores will accept expired coupons so don’t discard your old ones.</p>
<p>Scan all documents and have student email them to themselves. Anything they may need, or may have with them and lose. Drivers license, passport, insurance card, claim forms, contact info. This way if anything is lost, it can be easily found and instantly retreived.</p>
<p>^^^ fabulous idea (scan/email)!!! Also, the pink eye treatment (never would have thought of that). And, the ‘buy at a local BB&B’ sounds like a great service.</p>
<p>Check health coverage in the student’s town. If you had a employee plan like many these days it may be advisable to switch to the plan offered by the college to have an adequate network of health providers for various eventualities.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the TB skin test and that it has to be read after 72 hours by a physician.
Publix pharmacies has around 10 antibiotic prescriptions that it will give you FREE if you have your doctor write or call in a precription for you. I don’t think that azithromycin (Zpacks) are on that list but many good ones are.</p>
<p>D just had the TB test done again (she needs it for her job at the zoo) and I believe the reading has to be done between 48 and 72 hours.</p>
<p>D had a pharmacy not too far away but when you are sick, you don’t want to walk anywhere and she didn’t have a car. This is the time of year to stock up on cold medications etc because they usually mark all that stuff down now as it’s not cold season and they get over stocked. I’m a nurse so she had a huge stockpile of every medication and over the counter stuff and she used every bit of it and needed more. The ringworm is just a fungus infection but the kids got it a LOT. The health center did give her samples of stuff but I found they didn’t work so she needed to bump up to the next stuff (like for pinkeye. I would even transfer a prescription of theirs to the pharmacy they’ll use so the account and insurance is set up. She had a prescription called in and when she got there they couldn’t figure out the insurance card as it was out of state and told her sorry. I spent an hour on the phone between the pharmacy and the insurance company trying to straighten it out for her so they’d fill it. </p>
<p>Our bank wasn’t in that state so we debated at the time about a new account there etc. In the end the pharmacy that was closeby would let them take up to $100 out of their bank card with no charge. So she never needed a bank and the work study check was deposited online to the bank back home. She had a CC for emergencies and a debit card too. She never needed the actual branch. Just our experience.</p>
<p>More items to scan/email so the student has them on hand (I checked my “Send” file from last summer):</p>
<p>1) phone numbers/websites for doctors <em>at home</em> esp. if the doc is continuing to write Rxs for ADHD meds, has the most recent mold for a retainer, etc. Our ped told us that what may have been a very successful medication regimen in HS may need to be adjusted to the new demands of college. It is easier to work this out through a doc who knows your S/D’s history rather than trying to get it done through a new doc in the college town. Once the kid is 18, the doc may not speak to you, anyway.</p>
<p>2) A copy of the invoice for whatever computer your S/D take to college – with specs, details of service agreement, etc. While campus computing may be able to fix it for free even if you didn’t buy the computer from the school, if they can bill back to Dell, HP, etc., they appreciate the warranty info. This happened to S1 during winter quarter finals. The computer folks appreciated having the exact specs so they knew what part to order the FIRST time. </p>
<p>3) Scanned copies of whatever paperwork had to be submitted in advance (insurance waivers, directory info, etc.). Stuff gets lost.</p>
<p>4) Instructions on what to do if your student needs to see a doctor outside of Student Health. (i.e., making the co-pay, having the ins. card and forms, getting receipts, copy of visit forms, etc.).</p>
<p>5) List of phone numbers/emails for grandparents, siblings, etc.</p>
<p>Ditto on copies of SS card, birth certificate, passport info, insurance cards.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I am writing all of this down, it’s very helpful.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that email is not a secure way to send sensitive information! Unless you can encrypt the data, it is accessible to any hacker. I find the old fashioned method of a 3 ring binder more secure!</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip about College Student Insurance. Son is a rising college senior, and this is the first I’ve heard about it. I checked it out: very reasonable and excellent coverage.</p>
<p>SimpleRules, I agree w/you – I should have clarified that S took paper copies of SS card, passport and birth certificate. Other items we scanned/emailed. He has a small safe for those hard copy documents and his medication.</p>
<p>1) If your student is the last kid out of the house, don’t wait -------------do some of the things you promised yourself you would do when they left!!! Have some fun!</p>
<p>CountingDown - I just wanted to make sure people didn’t scan/email the sensitive information. Thank you for your suggestions - they are phenomenal and I have added them to my list.</p>
<p>I thought I ‘knew it all’ after years of organizing information, etc. for boarding school and first year of college for #1, but your ideas and those of other posters are really great. I will apply them to #2 who will start this fall.</p>
<p>I felt bad that I didn’t discover CC until AFTER I got 2 through the college process but this thread and others tells me there is still a lot to gain from other’s wisdom!</p>