And remember she needs half of what she thinks she needs. Maybe less than half. My daughter will be taking 1/4 of what she took last year.
She admits she doesn’t need as much clothing, but other categories of ‘too much’ were blankets/comforters, stuffed animals, t-shirts (which you’d think is clothing but really is a category of its own as they multiply quickly in the closet of a college kid), coats and jackets, and shoes… She will not be bringing her coffee maker back, her 40 pairs of shoes, all the extra books she thought she needed, 12 coats. She does go to a school in a cold climate, so just wasn’t sure what she needed.
She was assigned a roommate very late, just 2 weeks before she moved in. Roommate announced that she had the microwave and DD should provide the fridge. Sure, we’re going 2000 miles and roommate 130 miles with a car, but we should get the fridge. The school had a yard sale the second weekend of school where they sold all the stuff donated or abandoned by last year’s students and DD found one for $25, then found some boys to haul it to her dorm room. At the end of the year, DD’s boyfriend took the fridge to give to friends or she would have donated it back to the yard sale group.
Kohl’s now offers the order online and pick up in a store of your selection. They will only hold the items for 5 days. Just another option for those parents and kids looking to do this.
If you want to get an idea of the room layout, YouTube the school and dorm name. See if anything comes up. We found quite a bit last year. Also, most colleges have room layout drawings to get an idea of what is included in the room.
I’d buy and ship or pick up at the store for essentials. The sheets are the most important thing needed. If you find that your child needs something and it is out of stock you can order and ship once she is moved in, too.
What @twoinanddone said. My daughter ended up bringing home a lot of stuff she found she didn’t need when she came home for break. Every year, the packing is lighter and lighter. This year, she is doing a research fellowship in England, then flying from there to her academic program in France, and she had to cram everything she needed for the entire year into one suitcase, which had to weight less than 50 lbs, and one carry-on. It was close, but she made it.
Incidentally, she and her first year roommate had a fridge they never used, so she didn’t have one her sophomore year. I know many think these are essential, but really, they aren’t.
We’ll be driving our son to school in Ohio next month, and he will bring a couple of packed storage bins and a suitcase or two. He’ll fly home for his breaks, bringing only one suitcase, then will store the rest over the summer when the school year ends.
We have bought and washed all the bedding, so that will be in one of the storage bins. (I can’t imagine using unwashed sheets, but I know a lot of people put them on their beds right out of the package.) If you want to be sure you get the sheets your daughter wants (they really vary in material and quality) and wash them before she uses them, I highly recommend buying them at home and then shipping or driving them to school.
The BB&B Pack and Hold is different from ordering online with store delivery (limited hold time). Go into the store and scan the items. You pick them up and pay at the school location on a date you specify. You can even put stuff back before checking out if you’ve changed your mind. It works very well. Don’t forget the coupons!
I did buy the sheets and towels at home and take them in suitcases so I could wash them before they were used, but we did see moms and students in the laundry room washing bedding during move in. If you wish to ship stuff and the school does not accept packages before move-in, UPS stores will accept and hold packages for a few dollars/day. If you inquire now, they can help you plan the timing it so the package does not arrive too early.
If your D’s school has a somewhat active forum, ask there about what other students did. If you don’t get a response, try posting again in the parent forum with the school name in the subject. As you’ve seen even in this thread, there’s huge variation from school to school.
We also purchased and washed towels and bedding to take with us. We checked a few big boxes with the airline -
you don’t only have to check suitcases - check with your airline to see the max box size allowed. Our boxes were quite large and we used big packing compression bags to fit more into the boxes. It was very efficient and worked well.
We did the BBB and hold thing…and it was great. We ordered things here to be picked up 3000 miles away. The nice thing…they had it all waiting for us, but we actually changed our mind on a few things. No problem. They just took them out of our pile. We also added some things when we got to the store. It was easy easy.
Another vote for the BBB pack and hold. We also live in TX and son’s college is in NY. We flew out with suitcases that were mostly clothes, shoes and personal items. We went in person to the BBB here and put together the order. At the other end, the pick up was a well-oiled machine and you could take out anything you had changed your mind about (or found cheaper) before you paid. We also had the 20% off whole purchase ticket which wasn’t bad either. We also ordered some things via the internet to pick up at the local Walmart and combined picking those up with stocking him up on things like shampoo and snacks. I lived in NJ and went to school in MI. These kids today don’t know how good they have it.
Re: the 20% off at BBB…make sure you take a pile of those coupons. You will need one for each item (unless you hit the jackpot and get one for 20% off the entire purchase).
I had a dream last week about our S16 getting ready to leave for college. It centered around how little he really needed to take. For instance, kids from my generation took albums/cassettes/CDs and something to play them on. That’s not really something that’s done anymore. I can see him getting everything into a couple of bags, plus his guitar.
@mstomper LOL - I used all of my summer’s earnings before Freshman year to buy a receiver, large (like 12" woofer) speakers and this incredible new technology, a CD Player for music!! I lugged that stereo back and forth over 500 miles each way to college for 4 years, and it took up 1/2 my room!!
Now, back to the regularly scheduled thread…Students get free Amazon Prime for 6 mos - your child can have almost anything shipped to them in 2 days once they are there. Obviously, need sheets and basics, but can fill in other needs this way down the road.
Don’t do it online. Go into your local store and head to the bridal registry department. They’ll give you a scanner, you go through the store and scan everything you want. You give them the college store where you want to pick up, and the date you’ll be there. When you get there, you go in and hand them your printout, and they bring it all to you. You pay and leave with the goods.
Another thing that I was worried about was school/desk supplies, paper, notebooks, pens, stapler, that kind of stuff. I was afraid that might be really picked over at the college town during orientation. So we bought it all here at home in July, and then shipped it to the college a few days before we left. This stuff tends to be heavy for its size, so we used the USPS Flat Rate boxes to ship.
Our son goes to college 1,766 miles away. As other posters have noted, flying on Southwest your first two checked bags are free. My wife and I and son each checked two bags, plus we each had a carry-on, including an Xbox console and laptops. We utilized oredering bedding and some other itesm at our local BB&B and picked them up at a designated one in Denver. My son, with our help, decided he didn’t want some of what was ordered so we just told the sales assistant and they were taken away. After moving into his dorm we subsequently went shopping for more stuff and had no problems finding anything. It was a lot easier moving in that freshmen year than we all anticipated. He’s now entering his junior year.
Amazon Prime can be a worthwhile investment if you have kids in college. They provide free shipping, usually in two days, along with used textbooks and rentals. Many colleges will run vans to Target or BB&B during Orientation. Students often enjoy prowling at Goodwill or Salvation Army, furthermore. If your kid is responsible, provide him or her a credit card to use. Otherwise, pre-paid gift cards to Target, Wal-Mart, BB & B, etc. are a good idea. Many credit card companies offer gift cards as user rewards. I have e-mailed e-cards for CVS, Wal-Mart, et al to my sons.
