<p>I was wondering if there was any interest on a thread to help parents with children attending UCD in the fall. As a parent of an in coming Freshman, I know I have many questions and an sure other parents do too. And I hope we find some wise, experienced parents to guide us…</p>
<p>To start off…</p>
<p>How easy is it to find housing off campus in the Sophomore year?
Have your students had difficulty getting the courses they need?
How has the larger class sizes influences your student in their study habits?</p>
<p>I am sure there are parents with more questions…</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but it’s extremely easy to find housing off-campus–the apartments advertise on craigslist and on their Facebook page (if they have one) like there’s no tomorrow, haha. Students can also click on the housing category on the UC Davis Uloop page and see who’s looking for a roommate or subletter.</p>
<p>Not a parent (thank God!) but I can still help answer your questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Super easy, but the early bird gets the worm. Don’t wait until the last minute. Also, be choosy and ask lots of questions. </p></li>
<li><p>Popular classes (e.g. CHE 2A and EME 50), especially ones that have lab sections will fill up the fastest by pass 1 and there’s usually nothing left by pass 2. Your student can/should/will base his or her schedule on these. Lecture only classes usually “stretch” to fill the leftover students if it’s a handful. </p></li>
<li><p>It hasn’t at all. Well, I will say that more people in the class usually leaves a more favorable grading curve… :D</p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Depends on what Kaiser coverage you have. The Kaiser facility in Davis is not a full hospital - so no ER and urgent care has limited hours. Nearest Kaiser hospital is Sacramento or Vacaville. Haven’t made my final choice for DD yet either, but I have a high deductible for out of network ER visits, so I might move DD to UCD plan.</li>
</ol>
<p>To use Student Health you could have any insurance. If you child had an emergency your Kaiser coverage would cover a Sutter Davis admission but they might move the child to a Kaiser facility(Vacaville or Sacramento) when the patients condition permitted it. Though neither of my sons attended UCD I felt more comfortable having insurance which covered local hospitalization at the out-of-town colleges they attended. It was much easier when I was a student at UCD. Cowell Student Health was a full-time hospital facility and the student fees covered everything.</p>
<p>I am a parent of a UCLA student who will be graduating this June, but I am also a “mature” transfer student transferring to Davis this fall! For our daughter at UCLA we didi decide to go with the UCLA insurance (in addition to keeping her on our family plan) as we knew it would just make things easier for her while there. She used the on- campus Medical Center more times than we would have hoped for. She had multiple issues with strep throat and eventually used her spring break to have her tonsils out. She used the center for many other ailments as well. I believe she was covered over the summer as well whether or not she was taking classes.</p>
<p>There are five different Options and hence the confusion as to which plan to choose from my D. So she is basically a very poor eater, but yet as a parent I am almost tempted to get the Unlimited Plan. However there is a $1,200 difference between the Unlimited and the Budget. </p>
<p>Any current student willing to shed some light on how the Meal program works?</p>
<p>If I got her the Prime Line 180 can she roll over any left over to the next semester and then sign up for Prime Line 150 (120 or 90) for the next quarter?</p>
<p>What about Aggie Cash? What have you go in your wallet, $100, $200, or $250? I am assuming that can be rolled over. Is that right or is that a “Use it or Loose it”?</p>
<p>The Aggie Cash being a mandatory part of a meal plan is something they’ve started for the 2012-2013 year–since I came in Fall 2011, I didn’t have to purchase Aggie Cash with my meal plan, and neither did several others who either entered UC Davis the same year as me or the years before me, cuz we don’t think it’s practical at all (if you take a look at the 2011-2012 fee schedule, you’ll see a vast difference between current freshmen/transfers’ meal plan choices, and incoming freshmen/transfers’ meal plan choices). I think they do roll over, though.</p>
<p>For the meal plans, if your daughter gets the 180, she can downgrade to the Frequent Diner 150, Aggie Advantage 120, or Budget Saver 90 for the next quarter–however, there’s a deadline that she will have to downgrade by, or else she’d have to stick with her current meal plan. </p>
<p>Don’t get the Unlimited–it’s not worth it at all. If your daughter eats 3 meals a day, the 180 is more than enough. If she’s only going to eat 2 meals a day, the 150 is enough. Any leftover meals is rolled over to the next quarter. By the end of spring quarter, any leftover meal is converted to Aggie Cash. </p>
<p>Thanks sopranokitty. That is an excellent suggestion and makes sense not to do the unlimited since there is the opportunity to roll over, at least until Spring quarter. BTW I checked on the conversion of leftover meal to Aggie Cash. They convert it at the rate of $2.25 per meal. It is better than “Use it or Loose it”.</p>
<p>Does anybody have experience with the parents’ orientation sessions? There isn’t much detail online, but what there is makes them sound like a combination of stuff I could pick up from the UCD web pages plus a couple of sessions on how not to be a helicopter parent. Not something worth a few hundred bucks and some days of vacation time. Had anybody have, or know somebody who’s had, a different experience of it?</p>
<p>@ LostCoast: my sister and mom went to the family orientation session when I had my orientation session last summer, and my sister pretty much told me afterward when I asked them about it that it was just a ton of info that could easily be found on the internet (though since my mom doesn’t use the internet much, there was a lot of stuff covered that she didn’t know about, but that my sister and I already knew from UCD’s site).</p>
<p>@ LostCoast: As sopranokitty said, there is a lot of stuff on the Internet that my wife and I have been combing through and are probably not going to get a whole lot of new information. The reason we are going for the orientation is so that we make connections in the school and also meet other parents in addition to making sure we have enough information to guide our D in the initial stages.</p>
<p>If that sounds like a helicopter parent, guilty as charged! :)</p>
<p>As I have previously said, I will be transferring to Davis this fall as a “mature” student and I am also a parent of a UCLA student who is about to graduate. My husband and I didi attend the parent/family orientation during the summer before my daughter’s fall quarter. We really enjoyed the tours, informative presentations, and the opportunity to meet other parents. It also helped us feel connected to the campus and the process our daughter was going through. I would definitely recommend that parents attend the orientation for families. It certainly is not necessary as far as getting crucial information but it was helpful and rewarding for us.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread, I registered just so I could participate in this discussion. We will not be attending the orientation due to previous plans. I am mostly concerned about D getting the classes she wants. So do all incoming freshman get to choose classes in Pass2 or is pass 1 a possibility too?</p>
<p>All incoming freshmen have a pass 1 assignment order randomly picked out from their orientation group. Your D, like many students, will likely not get the classes they want but will almost definitely get the classes they need.</p>
<p>By this, I mean your D will have to take GEs anyways to graduate. Even if they get into none of their major’s lower division prereqs during pass 1, they will be finishing GEs they have to do anyways. It’s not ideal certainly, but it’s not the end of the world as many new freshmen/their parents seem to think. </p>
<p>Now engineering majors on the other hand… refresh sisweb every 5 mins during open reg and pass 2. Fight to get off the waitlist and into the class. In case you didn’t catch it, im exaggerating, sorta.</p>
<p>Would any of the parents (or current students) be able to tell me the difference between the Math courses offered for Biological Sciences department vs the ones offered for students in the College of Letters and Science?</p>