<p>Thanks! PSA goes on sale at 1 pm - the site is soooo tied up, I am sure my fumblings fingers won't have a chance! I am off to refresh, refresh, refresh...</p>
<p>I must admit, one of the most stressful event of the day is to buy a USC parking permit. I was not familiar with the format so when I clicked on the purchase button, some kind of network error popped up. Hitting refresh did not help. I was persistent and finally got the second choice for D. But how do I know if I actually got it. I did take a snap shot of the screen to prove to my daughter that it was purchased. But where do I enter the credit card number?</p>
<p>It states " You have purchased a permit for this lot", is that it?</p>
<p>Where do I indicate D's preference for a Gold card?</p>
<p>What is confusing is on the USC map it was PSX and PSD but in the actual menu, it's PSX and Lot 72.</p>
<p>I can't even get in - "server too busy"</p>
<p>I kept hitting the "buy permit" button repeatedly. It finally gave in to my persistence. :D</p>
<p>I can't even get to that point. It won't let me get to the purchase permit page. "Server too busy." !$#!%!</p>
<p>I logged back to transportation and I see PSB is still available. PSB is not too far from PSA. My daughters gave me 3 choices. Did your D gave you more choices?</p>
<p>I can't even log in, so I can't buy anything. Very frustrating! Thanks for the suggestions, I'll go down the list if I ever get in!</p>
<p>I got a permit! PSA. YAY! Columbia_Student, I also didn't pay for it and didn't get to choose "Gold." Maybe they will charge it to the student account? Golly, there MUST be a better way.</p>
<p>I called Transportation and the Customer Service person said to wait for about an hour when the network is not so busy before trying back. I think only PSX is in demand but PSD has 1000 parking slots(I believe others such as PSB and PSA are not in demand). They also confirmed that D purchased the right parking permit to the right lot. The customer service person gave me the order number and parking number. No credit card is needed because USC will charge to the student account. I'ts a Gold card(there is no choice in the selection).</p>
<p>I clicked "submit" about 432 times, so I am sure her student account will be charged about $17,000 for parking permits! Thanks for getting the info, Columbia_Student</p>
<p>^omg lol.
What we parents go through</p>
<p>I'm hoping I managed to buy a permit -- hard to tell. I went on at exactly 12:15 to get the permit of choice, bought it, and then confirmed it. I got an error screen that said I had to confirm it. I went back and confirmed it again. This time I got a new screen that said there was a computer error and if I continued to have a problem I should send email to IT. So I went back and tried to start over again, and this time when I got to the buy it now section, there was a legend that said I'd already bought a permit. I printed this up, even though the print-up has no name or time on it. I then tried -- try 17 times -- to call the transportation office to confirm that I'd successfully purchased a permit, but I got a recording that said they were not available. Of course not. They were out to lunch with IT.</p>
<p>if I had to go through what you all have to, I'd have a nervous breakdown -- hope it all turned out for you Nester!</p>
<p>whew- I'm exhausted just reading all this. Hope you all got want you wanted. I had to do the same for S last year because it was also right in the middle of AP tests. </p>
<p>It would sure be nice if USC would plan the time better so the students could do it!</p>
<p>My daughter will be attending USC from Wisconsin. No car. How is the public transportation? Will she be stuck on campus? More importantly, will she ever move back to the Midwest after living in So Cal?</p>
<p>EmoMama (love the screen name lol): Most freshmen will not have a car. Public transportation isn't that great in LA, but USC has the zipcar system (I think that's what it's called) where a student can "rent" a car for a few hours or day, for a mininal fee.</p>
<p>My son didn't have a car until sophomore year. He never parked on campus on a regular basis, and I never bought a parking pass. He always had off-street parking at his apartments. He used the car primarily for internships and for weekends.</p>
<p>Everyone is different, but I'm not sure that first year students need a car.</p>
<p>We asked on our visits to USC about the car, and everyone agreed with Sequoia - Freshmen don't need cars. A current student mentioned that if you do have a car, some people might want to be "friends" with you just to get rides. We went back and forth about it, but finally decided to send D with her car. We live about 5 hours away, so even with high gas prices, air fare and shuttle costs for a couple of trips home cost as much as the parking pass (her car is paid for and she pays insurance) and she thought it might widen her opportunities for internships/jobs if she had transportation.</p>
<p>As sensible as all that sounds... here comes the real reason... we Californians have a hard time imagining life without a car - we have HEARD you can survive without one...</p>
<p>
[quote]
we Californians have a hard time imagining life without a car - we have HEARD you can survive without one...
[/quote]
^That's funny, alamemom. I heard that too but they tested that on Mythbusters and it is, in fact, an urban myth. </p>
<p>j/k- of course. Freshman don't need a car and parents will sleep better if their kids don't have one.</p>
<p>In our case, it is a SUBurban myth!</p>