<p>So I found lots of great advice on her about packing for college and move in day. Now I need help with the move home. Is it best to make a trip a week or two before and pick some stuff up? How long did it take your kids to pack up? </p>
<p>any insight is helpful</p>
<p>It really depends on the distance…for 2 of 3 we used local storage facilities for linens, hangars, laundry supplies and desk supplies; only brought the clothing home.</p>
<p>College kids who had neat, packed-up boxes, all ready to load into their parents cars that pulled up… were not my kids.</p>
<p>I think alot of kids store some stuff at school.
Either in storage facilities, provided by the school, or at local rentals with friends.
You shouldnt have to bring it ALL home again only to bring it back a couple months later.</p>
<p>D stored everything except summer clothing with UPS, which had a package deal that included re-delivering the boxes to her new dorm at the end of the summer. She packed one suitcase with enough clothing to last a week, shipped home a box with the rest, hopped on the train and came home. It was very nice not to have to pack up a car and do all the driving both ways. But now she’s graduating, and we’re faced with getting it all home. Still plan to ship a bunch so we don’t look like the Beverly Hillbillies heading to California (a few of you are old enough to remember that image…). Inevitably, she’s leaving with a lot more than she arrived with.</p>
<p>Unless you want your college student’s stuff decorating your living room, I would suggest storing the college stuff in the college town. DD had no choice (college was 3000 miles away) and it was HEAVEN not having to move the stuff or stare at it in the living room ALL summer long. She shared a storage unit with friends (with climate control…and secure indoors), and the price was less than $100 for the whole summer.</p>
<p>DS, OTOH, went to college only 2 hours away. We (stupidly) felt compelled to get his stuff and bring it back here every summer. We unloaded the van, put the boxes and other stuff in the living room…and there it sat for the summer. If I had it to do again, I would have stored HIS stuff all summer too. He never touched his college stuff while home. We simply loaded all of the stuff back into the van and moved it back to college at the end of the summer. $100 to NOT do that seems priceless.</p>
<p>Your kids come home?</p>
<p>Mine stays put and moves her own stuff from her dorm to her summer sublet and back again. If she does come home it’s for 3 weeks or so when she is between housing and she leaves everything with friends.</p>
<p>I’m not expecting her to come home when she graduates but so far she has delt with her own stuff very well and I have no doubt she’ll figure that out as well.</p>
<p>My son is doing a junior year abroad. So except for two suitcases his stuff is in the basement. So far we do the same as dropping off except it always seem to involve too much cleaning. A couple of times I’ve sent dh without me. I’m sure he’s much less anal about leaving the room in decent shape! Both kids say they started packing before I got there, but I never saw much sign of it.</p>
<p>The first year for first child (D) was traumatic for us. D was in a choral group that was singing for commencement so stayed on after finals for that. When we showed up she had rehearsals and left us in her room to pack up – which she was supposed to have finished before our arrival. My strongest memory is of my H picking up spilled personal hygiene products from the floor of her closet. Wish I had taken a picture.</p>
<p>After that, we swore never again. Really let her have it; told her my blood pressure could not handle another such experience. </p>
<p>The next year we stayed in an inn near campus and told her well in advance that getting her stuff out of the dorm was her responsibility entirely. We gave her the keys to the car and told her she could get the car and pack it up whenever she was ready, and then let us know when she was set to go. Of course she was welcome to enlist friends to help. Worked great – we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while she did this. She let us know when she was set, drove over to our inn, and we hopped in the car and took off.</p>
<p>She also, after the first year, did take advantage of college storage options which helped.</p>
<p>S was SO much easier – made sure in advance all his stuff was in bags (many just convenience store plastic bags – I joked about his “matched luggage”) – and we just loaded the bags into the car. His egg crate and other bedding went right into the basement wrapped in plastic. He had less stuff/clothing than D so there was no need for extra storage.</p>
<p>Too soon old, too late smart. ;)</p>
<p>What Thumper said. And as PhotoOp said, some of our kids came home for the summer, but not all and not every summer. I wouldn’t count on kids coming home except perhaps after first year.</p>
<p>D1 was very organized. Whenever H went to pick her up, she always had her stuff packed up and ready to go. She lived off campus for 2 years and their lease ran Jun to Jun, so she was able to move her stuff to the new place before she came home. She just brought her summer clothes home. This is going to be the first year we move D2 home, not sure what it’s going to be like.</p>
<p>We have no idea what S did but know it didn’t involve us or paying any money. Somehow he stored his things near college every summer with no help of any sort from us. He’d bring home one carry on suitcase and backpack and was good for the summer. On the other hand D is much more complicated. She has lots of “stuff” which she acquires and doesn’t get rid of as quickly and efficiently as S. she told me this summer how hard moving is ( first time bro didn’t help her as he is working 2500 miles away). Her current lease ends at the end of July, so she had best have some idea of what she wants before then.</p>
<p>Be aware that some colleges require students to move out within 24 hours after their last final exam.</p>
<p>Students who have their last exam on the last day of finals may not even have 24 hours before the dorms close.</p>
<p>So you’re not going to see a lot of advance packing or advance planning unless you push it. They’re too focused on their exams to think about move-out. </p>
<p>If you want to investigate summer storage options, it might be a good idea to do this well in advance of finals week, so that the student will know exactly what to do and when. As for the stuff that’s coming home with you in the car, expect to pack it quickly on move-out day. Bring cleaning supplies. That room hasn’t been cleaned since August, and it’s going to be inspected.</p>
<p>The worst move bad in the day was move out day in the dorms…think lots of large trash bags, no place to park for more than 15 minutes and being bale to use their wheeled bins for a short amount of time ( not enough for more than one trip up and down the elevators ) That’s what you get for going to school on Boylston St in Boston :D</p>
<p>I think this really depends on the individual school and the situation. I have had situations where each of d’s rented a storage room with friends and we drove up to pick up majority of stuff that was coming home-stuff that would be needed during summer at home or needed to be laundered and put away. Stuff that was stored= full-length mirror, printer, sets of plastic drawers filled with school supplies and random stuff, notebooks and books that might be sold next semester or would need to kept for classes for next semester, desk lamps and so on. Once younger d was performing the last weekend before end of classes and that was convenient as we were heading up there to see her anyway. Other times both d’s were heading off to semester abroad and so while more stuff came home, other stuff was stored at off-campus apartments friends were moving into. Younger d spent one summer at school, older d stayed in area after graduating for post-bac year and moved into apartment with friends in mid-August but came right after finals/graduation for summer internship in France…it really depends.</p>
<p>Last year my DS and I arrived to find that DD hadn’t finished writing the paper that was due in four hours. Needless to say, the room was a wreck. It took the two of us over 6 hours to get it packed, loaded and cleaned out while DD wrote her paper and figured out how to get the required hard copy to the professor since the department was locked. This year I’m picking her up two days after her last final, and I don’t think there is an incentive on this green earth that will persuade her little brother to come and help this year.</p>
<p>My dad told me that he would help move me in for freshman year, and every subsequent move in and move out was something that I had to figure out. </p>
<p>(I got help sophomore year because I had surgery and couldn’t lifet anything heavy, and I borrowed the family minivan, but that was it.) </p>
<p>From a parental perspective, that is the way to go. 
Bonus was that my parents were not showing up during finals.</p>
<p>We usually head up in April and rent the storage unit. We’ll put in there, stuff we know he absolutely won’t need for the final four weeks of school. He has a key to the unit, so in case of emergency, he can get to it and get something if necessary. There’s usually at least one tote under his bed with a comforter and blanket and extra set of sheets, that usually is untouched the whole year, but God forbid, the year we don’t bring it will be the year he’ll need it. </p>
<p>Son always has finals on the last day, and quite often, it is the last final, too.</p>
<p>Worst thing about living in a dorm is that they expect you out the next morning, though they are supposed to give you 24 hours from your last final. Son will sign up for the latest possible move out time.</p>
<p>What’s really fun is having to stay over an hour from campus because dorm move out always coincides with graduation, so there is not a hotel room to be found in the area.</p>
<p>We book a hotel room, meet son at his dorm after his exam, and do as much as we can that last night until we’re ready to drop. Then drive an hour to the hotel to sleep. If we can get some stuff to storage before they close, we do. If not, it goes to the hotel room to sleep with us until the next morning.</p>
<p>Then we drop stuff off at the storage unit, meet son back at his room to finish packing, cleaning.</p>
<p>Next year is son’s last year, and he is going to be in a much smaller room with no storage space for the room. We try to downsize every year, but next year, we’ll have to do it, out of necessity.</p>