college parent

College visit tips for admitted students

 in College Parent Tips  tagged college applications / college parent / tips by
college visit tips admitted students

accepted student college tour /wearing: hoop earrings / knit top / classic jeans / pink nail polish / cross body bag / sneakers /

‘Tis the season for college decisions! Some students know right away which college to say “yes!” to, while others have a hard decision ahead of them. Nevertheless, there are ways to navigate this decision and help your student make the right one so they can enjoy their college career.

If your student knew right away, after receiving their acceptances, which college to choose, congrats! You have the easy road. On the other hand, many students receive their acceptances and start seeing all the marketing from each university and realize their decision is harder than they originally thought. The kicker? They only have until May 1 to make this hard decision! Yikes!

Sometimes you cannot figure out which college to say “Yes!” to without visiting the school. In fact, I recommend visiting the school before accepting anyway. This is the only way to truly feel the vibe of a campus and student body. Each university has its own personality, layout, traditions, and more. Your student does not want to end up someplace where they feel like a fish out of water.

After going through the admissions process with three children, I have visited a lot of campuses and talked through several decisions. With this experience, here are my college visit tips for accepted students!

  1. Narrow your list of acceptances down to your top three. Use criteria such as location, major offerings, cost, campus size.
  2. Once you pick your top three colleges, plan a trip! Many universities have accepted student tours and/or admitted student days. I recommend attending those tours or days. They are great ways to get the vibe of a university and see their program for your major up close. You may even get a chance to speak with a professor!
  3. Walk around the campus before your tour or admitted student day. A leisurely walk around campus where you find iconic spots, major-specific buildings, dorms, and food is a great way to get your own feeling of the school without a tour guide giving you the “ra-ra” speech.
  4. Make a pro-con list during and after the tour. Have your student make a thorough list covering everything important to them from social activities, traditions, research opportunities and academics.
  5. Check out the dorm situation. Are there enough dorms for freshmen or is there a lottery or are they already full? Housing is a consideration if getting a dorm isn’t a slam dunk. Is your child ready for an apartment as a freshman? Can they cook and clean? This is an important factor on your pro con list.
  6. Eat in the cafeteria and people watch. Are the kids wearing merch? Are they happy and socializing? Feel the vibe.
  7. As a parent, note travel to the school. Does the flight require a layover? How comfortable are you and/or your student with that? Is the school drivable? What are prices of the airplane tickets? Will airfare and hotel costs fit into your annual budget? There are hidden costs to schools you need to fly to, so be sure to consider the financial impact as well as time, stress and your students ability to fly alone; possibly across the country.
  8. What is there to do off campus? It is a college town where the school is the town or is it located in an urban environment? Find out what type of location is important to your student.
  9. Wear comfortable shoes for the tour. Nothing makes touring a school more miserable than aching feet.
  10. Take a lot of photos. It helps your remember parts of the tour as well as locations. Be sure to take pictures of important slides if you see any slideshows.
  11. Talk to other students. In addition to in person conversations while you are on campus, you can look through reddit posts from that university, check out TikTok’s and Instagram posts. This will give your student insight into what actual students are saying about the school.

What I wore for college tours:

Well, that’s it! Enjoy touring the colleges your student has been admitted to, and don’t worry, they will eventually make that crucial decision! Once they decide, then it’s the fun part! You can buy merch to wear on decision day at school on May 1 and start planning for the fall semester or quarter. Good luck and feel free to ask me questions! I’ve done this three times now!

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Cathy

College dorm move out in state

 in College Parent Tips  tagged college parent by

pictured: belted tote bag /

If you have a college student in state, the move out process as a parent is different than what I posted last week about moving your out-of-state student out of their dorm room. In this case, we don’t need storage, but we do need some planning for the move!

When a student is in-state, we don’t need plane tickets, storage or shipping. What we do need are these magic blue bags! You will hear parents talk about the blue bags non-stop when you have a student in college. They are super easy to store during the school year since they fold flat, and they are strong enough for moving heavy objects out of a dorm, apartment, etc. Plus, unlike boxes, they have handles and are easier to reuse over and over again. Love that!

We have six blue bags, and it seems like the perfect amount for a dorm room. The bags are used for clothing, shoes, bedding and everything else. For my in-state student, I drove down to her university the day before packing. It is a six-hour drive so my goal was to bring a kitchen table from home to pop into her new apartment for next year, and hand off the blue bags for packing her dorm room. Here in California, housing is at a minimum. Most students end up dorming for their first year and getting an apartment for the rest of their college career. So, that’s where we are!

In packing her dorm room, we divided the bags into two groups, what comes home and what goes into the apartment. On moving day, we made a trip over to the apartment to drop off the items she didn’t need at home. Everything else was packed and moved into the back of our SUV. The next day, we drove home!

So, my in-state moving plan was drive down and drop off bags on day one. Stay overnight in a hotel. Day two was packing day. Day three was drive home! If your student attends school a little closer, you might be able to shorten the excursion. Socal is a six-hour drive from the Bay Area, so I needed a hotel stay, and coffee; as you can see in the photo above. haha

Having an in-state student is definitely simpler than an out-of-state student. Unless you consider housing. Out-of-state schools have housing, which makes living arrangements simple. In-state, here in California, means dorms the first year, and an apartment for the rest of the years. That being said, blue bags make in-state moving a breeze!

Also, always treat your student to a yummy meal during move-out. This is a reward for finishing the year strong, and a welcome break from dorm food! We went to a sushi place near my daughter’s campus. Yum!

The take-away? Get the blue bags!

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Cathy

College dorm move out across the country

 in College Parent Tips / Travel  tagged central pa / college parent / travel tips by

pictured: flying across the country-no clue what we are looking at here, it is somewhere between SFO and ORD / lunch at Sheetz after arriving via red eye / handbag /

My oldest daughter attends college across the country. Now that she has been there a few years, we have move out down to a science. I fly in on a red eye, we pack during breaks between her finals, she sleeps in the hotel room, we put everything in boxes for storage, and what doesn’t fit in suitcases and is being brought home, gets shipped via UPS.

So, if you have a child attending college out of state, check with the university to see if they partner with a storage company. Many large universities do! This makes summer storage really easy, especially when you have to fly in and out of the area. The storage company will pick up the boxes from the dorm room and then deliver to the new dorm room in the fall. It makes move in and move out really easy!

This year she had a fabulous corner dorm room, with two windows! This is the view out of one window.

While she is sad to give up a corner room, she will be in a much nicer building next year, so that will be a huge plus. She usually runs out of her meal plan before the end of the semester, so it was the perfect excuse to visit her favorite restaurants in town. We enjoyed brunch and sushi. Loved it!

Of course, anytime you attend a school with a tiny airport, you have no choice but to fly through a hub; meaning you are forced to take a layover. With east coast weather being unpredictable and small airports forcing you to fly on regional jets-which tend to be small, you are prone to delays from weather.

Pro tip: Always book a long layover of two to three hours. This has worked for us up until this semester. The weather beat us this time and our flight out was delayed three hours, which meant missing our flight out of Chicago, which happened to be the last flight out, meaning a complete mess. Instead of sticking to the original itinerary, I rebooked for the next day, and we enjoyed a happy hour at the airport hotel.

Pro tip number two: Know the neighboring airports and how to get there. Our rebooked flight was out of another airport, so we already had the plan ready on how to get there and quickly book the airport hotel. The backup plan went smoothly, and we arrived home without incidence.

Of course, my daughter was prepared with her Pokemon cards, allowing us to entertain ourselves in the airport hotel. Loved that!

So, if you have a child going out of state for college, be sure to look into storage options provided by the school. Then, make sure you plan ahead for travel delays and know your options before you ask the ticket counter for help. They will try to keep your flight out of the same airport, which would have meant either collecting our bags during our delayed layover in Chicago (I was mortified by this option) or flying out three days later since all the flights were booked. I asked her to book us through a neighboring airport the next morning at 6am, she was stunned but got us on the first flight out the next day.

Also, book your flights and hotels direct, don’t use third party apps. This will help you rebook exactly what you want, directly at the airport ticket counter, instead of being at the mercy of the third party.

It might be scary to send your student across the country for college, but if you are organized, it will go smoothly, and they will have a fabulous college experience.

What I packed and wore for packing and cleaning out my daughter’s dorm room:

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO
Cathy