<p>We are going to the Parents Orientation this coming 9/20.</p>
<p>Dispite the comprehensive information provided on the UOC web site, we are still not certain what we are going to see and hear from this one day "orientation" and question the value of this extra day we have to spare.</p>
<p>I would like to hear your personal experiences in that session. Thanks.</p>
<p>Things are a little different this year – spreading the parent stuff over two days is new, as far as I know. They may be doing it because of Yom Kippur – i.e., a bunch of students/families won’t be arriving until late Sunday or Monday morning. Or they may be doing it because in the past they have had so much trouble keeping parents away from the kids after the Convocation that they decided to delay the Convocation to give themselves a better shot.</p>
<p>I have to say that I am glad my kids entered under the old schedule – move in Saturday morning, Convocation Saturday afternoon, goodbye. I didn’t need or want more orientation for me. </p>
<p>So I am sympathetic to your question about value. But.</p>
<p>The Convocation was really great. Really, really great. Twice, for us. Great, substantive speeches; you feel really good about the quality of the institution that will be educating your child. Rockefeller Chapel looks great when it’s full. Great academic pageantry. And the bagpipe march, with parents and children separating at Hull Gate, the children passing through the gate to the wild cheers of upperclassmen, and the parents sniffling, daubing their eyes, and moping their way through a lovely reception at the Reynolds Club . . . Wow! That was really great.</p>
<p>If I were delivering a kid this year, I would say so long Sunday night and miss it. But if I happened to stay for it, I would be happy I did. And whatever they are doing Monday morning? I’m sure it will be a quality program, and valuable, and maybe it will even be worth going to. But I wouldn’t stay for that and leave before the Convocation.</p>
<p>I like the move-in in the am, leave 'em in the afternoon after Convocation approach. That was all I needed.</p>
<p>Tufts also does the one-day move-in/Convocation/parents are excused by 4 pm thing, too – only why they do it on a <em>Wednesday</em> is beyond me.</p>
<p>25 years ago, I had to act like a parent and move my freshman cousins into Yale and Princeton, all I had to do is to drive them to the dorm and move all the stuff. I don’t think they got less educated and one of them is a successful doctor.</p>
<p>Perhaps the “Oriantaion” is another execuse to get more “support” from the parents?</p>
<p>My family was waiting for an opportunity like this for 130 years (literally). After economic depressions, civil wars, world wars, Communist revolutions, persecution. and political exile: finally, after 40 years in a place that afforded an opportunity for S to attend a world class educational institution and I wouldn’t take him there personally? Fat chance.</p>
<p>haha. It runs in my family. In my generation, 80% of us went to top 30 universities and we have around 50. I am the worst of all my generation, went to a no-ranking LAC. The next generation looks so far so good.</p>
<p>I wavered on going, I went, I had a great time. Good food for free. Everything was interesting and I wished I brought someone along. The Hull Gate experience, priceless.</p>
<p>We also had a wonderful time although the Speech in Rockerfeller Chapel was BORING and put me to sleep (it was also excessively hot that day 2 years ago). I think I would prefer a one day affair but you really shouldn’t miss the opportunity to have your wife watch you cry at Hull Gate!!! (or vice versa)</p>
<p>I blamed the bagpipes. They always make me cry (or so I said).</p>
<p>It was those mothers hanging on to their daughters that got to me. Sapling wouldn’t stand still and watch the parade with me for long.</p>
<p>I will never forget Hull Gate. It was the end of an era but a great new chapter in his life.</p>