Hello my 19 year old daughter just got accepted to University of Maryland for spring 2019. We live in Southern California. As you can imagine this is going to be a huge move for her and major lifestyle change. We do not know a soul in Maryland and we have never been to Maryland before ?. I will be navigating financial aid, student housing, off-campus housing, transportation, and a million other things I don’t even know that are going to come at me. Add to that, I’m dealing with a 19 year old who already knows everything ?. Luckily, she has already lived on her own a little bit and has found her way around public transportation before. I’m just opening a thread here to see if there are any resources, parent groups, any other help someone can point us to. We are going to need to develop a support network pretty quick! ?
You may do better posting on the UMD board. Go to Colleges &Universities, and pick yours.
There is a University of Maryland Parents FB group. You can find a lot of helpful and useful information there. PM me if you have other questions. My girl is a freshman in engineering. We are in state.
There are several parents here on this forum. What specifically would you like to know? Maryland is a GREAT school, easy to navigate, and the people are generally friendly. Welcome to Terp Nation!
For financial aid, you can find a lot of info here https://financialaid.umd.edu. If you are on Facebook, you can “like” the “University of Maryland Office of Student Financial Aid” page and keep updated on current info. There are a lot of Facebook pages for Maryland departments and services like the “University of Maryland Career Center” as an example. All good stuff. If not, if you need help finding the webpages, let me know.
For on campus transportation, she can always check nextbus http://www.nextbus.com/googleMap/?a=umd&r=104&r=105&r=108&r=109&r=110&r=111&r=113&r=114&r=115&r=116&r=117&r=118&r=122&r=123&r=126&r=127&r=128&r=131&r=132&r=133&r=141&r=142&r=143
and find parking info here https://transportation.umd.edu
For housing info, here is the site http://reslife.umd.edu and in the our housing drop down menu, there is info about off-campus housing (OCH), including a database of all OCH. My son lived on campus as a freshman, and “off” campus that was technically located “on” campus at South Campus Commons, and then actually off campus at Terrapin Row for grad school.
@mida68 Hope below is helpful:
Orientation dates (may be advising college specific): http://www.orientation.umd.edu/dates.html (click on transfer students);
Orientation schedule: http://www.orientation.umd.edu/Schedules/winter_1901_schedule%20.pdf;
For parent and family: http://www.orientation.umd.edu/parentoverview.html.
I am a current UMD student from SoCal! Feel free to DM me if you (or your daughter) want to talk!
Another current parent here, my younger S just transferred this past fall. Feel free to ask me anything specific also. There was no housing available on campus this fall for transfers, so I imagine this will be the same for spring. There is a good fb group for finding sublets from other students, search umd housing, sublets and roommates, or check the umd off-campus housing website-a few sublets are listed there as well.
Thank you everyone!! I just joined the Facebook group. And will private message those who invited me soon.