<p>Go9ersjrh: You are right that Vanderbilt does not admit many typical teenagers! It is definitely not a typical university; it is truly an amazing place and every bit as wonderful as we had anticipated. All the superlatives describing the school that seemed too good to be true really are accurate. And Southern hospitality is definitely not a myth! We were beyond impressed with the entire orientation program and everyone we encountered, and Vanderbilt does everything within its power to make the transition as painless as possible for both the students and the parents. I thought I should be honest, though, and mention that the first few weeks after we dropped our son off were like nothing I have ever experienced. I didnt think the ache in my heart could ever possibly go away, and I was ready to drive back to Nashville and bring him home. My husband and I were certain we would be the first parents who withered away and died when their child left home. It wasnt until we visited for Parents’ Weekend in October and saw how truly happy he was there that we were finally okay. Our son said he could not imagine being anywhere else, and that this was the college experience he had always imagined. He also told us not to take it wrong, but that he hadn’t been homesick once. That hurt for just a second, and then we knew that was exactly what he was supposed to say and that he was exactly where he belonged! By the way, one of the best pieces of advice he received to help with the adjustment to college life was not to overextend himself freshman year in terms of extracurricular activities. Another recommendation that we found comforting as parents was to set up a basis for communication with your child before you leave campus. Also, see if you can secure your own copy of the VUpoint publication that is given to each student describing the ins and outs of Vanderbilt. It went a long way in helping us feel connected.</p>
<p>@momthreeboys</p>
<p>I don’t know about club baseball, but on their web page it looks like they play in fall and spring. My son plays a different club sport at Vanderbilt, where the fall season is friendly scrimmages and most games at Vanderbilt, and Spring more serious with travel to other SEC schools by bus. He LOVES it!! Here’s the link to the club baseball page
[Vanderbilt</a> Club Baseball - Home](<a href=“http://vanderbiltclubbaseball.■■■■■■■■■■/]Vanderbilt”>http://vanderbiltclubbaseball.■■■■■■■■■■/) It looks like they do have tryouts.</p>
<p>Thanks LBowie. I gave the link to my son.</p>
<p>S received a letter with information yesterday. Not a whole lot of information, but it told us when more information would be sent. It also included a Vanderbilt window cling.</p>
<p>I was hoping they would have included the dates for the Vanderbilt and You admitted students receptions in April. We’d like to go, but it will mean a weekend in LA. Fortunately we have family in the area.</p>
<p>Mysonsmom - Your post has given me encouragement. I know it will be harder on me than our son. I know that before we take him back we’ll talk about expecations for staying in contact. I’m hoping for a once a week skyping session. : ) Plus I’ll probably catch him on facebook. I liked you bit of advice on not overextending. He’ll do marching band because he loves it. We’ve told him the same thing about classes. He may repeat the calculus sequence even though he could get AP credit. He doesn’t need 3 hard classes his first semester. He’ll also be taking Chemistry and he really didn’t have much chemistry in high school. AP Chemistry was not available.</p>
<p>Moonpie - Is the family weekend information available? I’ll I’ve seen is the date. I’d like to get the tickets purchased and the weekend planned. I have the hotel room reserved so that’s covered.</p>
<p>9th, I feel like we got the flier in the mail pretty early after she went to school, but I kept forgetting to register. I know I registered for sure the first weekend in October, because I was in Chicago for the marathon and the internet kept going out, and I had to call my husband to do it! I know that the siblings breakfast and Q/A was already booked up and my middle was kind of ticked. The Athenian sing had also already sold out. Everything else was still open. Also, there is a Vanderbilt parents email that comes automatically, and it has links directly to events. Also information about important dates and such. I’ll try and find a link and post it. I just got it yesterday but think I read and deleted it!</p>
<p>The link comes from <a href=“mailto:Parents@Vanderbilt.edu”>Parents@Vanderbilt.edu</a></p>
<p>Just a heads up from a current freshman here (I know this is a parents forum, but it’s still good advice), but MAKE SURE you fill out all your forms in the summer. You DO NOT want to have outstanding forms in the fall, as Vanderbilt likes to place holds on your account right before important deadlines, like spring class sign ups. </p>
<p>Sadly, I did not have the parent academic release form on hand, and the lady who does the class scheduling here did not remove the hold on my class registry until 9:00 A.M. Class sign-ups began at 8:00 A.M. </p>
<p>Needless to say, I didn’t get into 2 of the 4 classes I was hoping on, which is unfortunate, and I’m suffering now because of it.</p>
<p>So many forms at the beginning! The university will send you a packet (or online ones)</p>
<p>Due to FERPA, if your student is 18 or older, you are not able to get their grades unless they sign a release. We told our son that since we were paying he needed to share! </p>
<p>Another important form (must be done annually) is the insurance waiver(Gallagher Koster) for those whose student is already covered under a family policy. If you forget (I did this year for my son who is a junior) and it is added to your Vandy bill don’t worry…it was easy to get reversed.<br>
<a href=“https://www.gallagherkoster.com/students/student-home.php?idField=1015[/url]”>https://www.gallagherkoster.com/students/student-home.php?idField=1015</a></p>
<p>Another resource is the Parents Helpline…they really helped me last year…calling the Dean’s office after directing me there …and the Dean’s staff knew to expect my call…made the university easy to negotiate! Websites can only do so much.</p>
<p>Parents Helpline 1-877-887-2736</p>
<p>Also…last year’s Parent Guide (2012-13) is helpful until you get the new one.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.universityparent.com/sites/default/files/2012-vanderbilt-university-final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityparent.com/sites/default/files/2012-vanderbilt-university-final.pdf</a></p>
<p>Go9ersjrh, we are still waiting to hear our RD news, but Vanderbilt is my son’s first choice - and probably his parents’ as well as as long as acceptance, FA, etc. all work out! Interestingly, like your son, he will be a Mechanical Engineering student and also wishes to be in Marching Band (a big requirement for where he applied). So, hopefully we’ll soon have something good to discuss!</p>
<p>grp2013 - Sending good thoughts your way.</p>
<p>Another step towards Fall. Son received an email to set up his Vanderbilt email address. Now if they would just upload the Vanderbilt and You dates. We have a lot of things up in the air waiting for the date in Los Angeles. I’m resigning myself to the fact that we may not go.</p>
<p>Bumping this thread …for parents of current or future students.</p>
<p>I appreciate the thread. Oldest son headed to Vandy as a freshman this August. Question, it looks like the health insurance is pretty good at a reasonable price, do a lot of students/parents opt to take that and drop their existing insurance? Seems that if it were needed, you’re already at one of the best medical centers in the country. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Sons were at Duke and Vandy and it was less expensive to keep them on the family policy for us and for most of their peers, for those parents who are lucky enough to have a family policy in play that is. And if you are in flux in the job market, I can see how the campus plan could be a blessing.</p>
<p>They get used to setting up their insurance cards at CVS on 21st for meds. Our son goes to an allergist on West End for shots but you can get them at the Student Health Clinic. CVS and others now have a national register so your child can get meds over holidays at home town pharmacies and leave the prescriptions there for school seasons. Nice improvement. Duke son also had a private allergist near Duke and got shots at school clinic. Any specialist you might need is steps away at Vandy. Lots of immunizations are offered at Vandy including flu shots. Would recommend that boys look into the Gardisal shots at home if your pediatrician is not communicating with you about this…good to have that done. Few of our generation of boys got these shots.
after the crash of 2008, Duke son did find a job with health care benefits but we had him drop them so his paycheck was further enriched. Obamacare allowed him to be on family policy until he was 26? (too lazy to look up) which is a huge change…and he was no extra cost to our family policy. However when he got a more permanent job, we dropped him off our policy.</p>
<p>We kept our D on our policy. Students are able to use the health center at Vandy for “free” (I assume it’s rolled into the tuition charge) - that works for all the basic stuff - but if they need more, it’s up to their own insurance to cover. Our insurance didn’t come into play at all when D went in for basic illnesses, including when she needed blood work during a period of lingering illness. When she had to have a CT scan, though, she had to use our insurance - although Vandy was great about helping her find a facility that would work with our HMO. She had several bouts of colds needing antibiotics, and she wasn’t charged for the visits. She had to get her prescriptions through our insurance (CVS for her, too). I don’t know what Vandy’s student insurance is like, or how it compares to yours. However, I coordinate student services for the college where I work, and the school insurance is not nearly as good as ours … $500 deductible per incident, then 20% copay; higher Rx costs; etc. If it costs a lot to carry him on your insurance, or if your coverage isn’t all that great, you may want to consider Vandy’s insurance. Just look at the policy and coverage very carefully first.</p>
<p>Student health use is no problem even if you don’t buy the school insurance, and yes, it would seem you can see some specialists. If they stay on your policy, just make sure your student brings their insurance card for things like ER visits. They may also need to call their doctor’s office back home for approval to go to the ER. Our son got a high fever after student health was closed. His roommates took him to the ER. Either the VUMC ER or our insurance coded it as a non-emergency use of the ER so we got $300 tacked on to the bill. We finally got them to reverse it after several months of arguing.</p>
<p>We took some more steps towards fall this morning. S completed his housing application. Boy was that a short questionaire. Looks to me that room mate assignments are the luck of the draw basedon the 4 questions.</p>
<p>The Road to Vanderbilt arrived this week. I’d seen previous years, so really no new information except that they have to do an alcohol awareness online course. I don’t remember seeing that in previous versions.</p>
<p>Today since S is home I’ve asked him to look through the catalog to identify potential electives. He needs one 3 unit class. Everything else is a given in the engineering program. We are leaving on vacation out of the country a few days after freshman registration opens up and won’t be back before it closes. He needs to be ready to register for classes.</p>
<p>The focus right now is AP tests and end of the year activities. It is going to be a busy May.</p>
<p>Our 09 freshman did take the alcohol course. Re roommates it really is the luck of the draw. In our experience, Davidson is unusual. They do a personality inventory test and there is a huge second year percentage of roommates who stay together. The incoming class is so studious, and so carefully reviewed, I am optimistic that all freshmen are great first year roommates. Our son had a courteous and hard working engineering student from SoCal whose only problem appeared to be no formal clothing or cold weather clothing. His mother went through our southern son’s closet and ordered a few things online like windstop jackets and rain gear–and a blazer. He was very sports oriented and our son is not very much of a follower of sports. They didn’t see a lot of each other in the following years, but mutual respect and courtesy was always present. happy summer and May to your future Commodore.</p>
<p>I have rain gear and rain shoes on the list of things to buy this summer. I also think he will need a blazer eventually. We’ll send him with suit and a tux, but I think he’s going to need something a little less formal.</p>
<p>He’s a socal kid too that lives in shorts and tee shirts. If he’s not wearing the suit or tux, then dressing up is a polo shirt untucked with khakis and slip on shoes. When we were there this past April, I looked at what the students were wearing. It seemed like everything was acceptable, but there were a lot more polo shirts and button downs than I’m used to seeing.</p>
<p>It’s going to be a great experience for him.</p>
<p>definitely consider waterproof low hiker type shoes for days it rains, and a couple of options…gortex that zips into a pocket shape for the backpack for rain days, a nice windblock functional polartec type jacket for fall and winter normal days. They are light and can be crumpled up and sat on. It rains a LOT in Nashville which can be a place a tornado shows up in now and then as well. And students with backpacks can’t easily also manage umbrellas. remember that stone stairs, while lovely to see, are slippery when wet as well, so always good to have shoes with decent walking soles for rain or shine. Springs are lovely and long so layering is good even for guys. Our sons wore thin layer winter vests a great deal from hiking stores in black or gray three seasons a year…under a coat or with no coat. Snow will come as well, so find some off season bargains on gloves and hats. gortex type high ankle shoes are usually enough for those snow slush days if you really want to play in it, and not keep to the sidewalks. Blazer would be nice as there are occasions one will get interviewed for school positions and a suit feels too Banker/lawyer like.</p>