Daughter with cold feet. Please help

paying3tuitions
Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:34:12 +0000

I also stayed nearby at a hotel when my D did overnight one stay, only because it was made necessary by the realities of the long roadtrip; we couldn’t drive all that way and back in a single day. Usually, tho, we both stayed in a hotel (fun, see below) and toured by day.

If there’s an approved overnight AND she wants to (not essential), you as the Mom have a built-in reason to stay at the hotel. You can always book the “standard room, 2 double beds” so if she’s not interested in the overnight, or even decides midway through she’s in a “spot” she can’t handle, worse comes to worse she can cell-call you and get picked up at 4 a.m., not much different than an at-home sleepover situation.

The schools we visited either had APPROVED hosts vetted by the Admissions Department, or outright didn’t allow overnights. There are many reasons for a school to disallow overnight stays. One is: it’s a crapshoot how the evening is perceived by a prefreshman!. Another: their first responsibility is to the registered students. I always had the impression that students behave better if there’s a “prospie” (prospective student) on someone’s floor, but maybe the dynamics are different and they show off? Who knows. For all these reasons, it’s legitimate for you and your D to decline an overnight even it’s possible.
ANd surely don’t send her on an overnight if the college disallows it. I’m a stickler that way (insurance, etc.). If she isn’t there with the college’s agreement all signed in for the night, then she doesn’t belong there overnight.
I know some students just “go and stay with someone they know from high school” but I always went by the college’s rules. Our D had a great experience with a hosted overnight at one LAC and ended up going there; it was one of a hundred reasons she liked the place, so it just confirmed her observations made during the daytime.

I’ve heard about a kid who was accepted and then took an overnight in April, and it so upset him he didn’t know what to do. I think he just saw some behaviors, typical to dorms, that he wasn’t ready to handle.

All in all, there’s something to be said for waiting until Freshman Orientation to ever sleep in a dorm! By then, the newness would be shared by many, with Resident Advisor to talk to and so on.

More important than the overnight is simply to go walk around the campus by day and have a GREAT mom/daughter bonding trip. We loved our college visits, getting away from the household pressures. It’s exciting and fun to stay in a hotel together, see the town as well as the college, have breakfast in bed (we always pulled in the coffee from the hotel place into our rooms). Bond and have fun on a college trip. Stop into an antique shop along the way.
Make the college visit just one part of a great 48 hour (or whatever) trip together. Have ice cream! That’ll get her started.

EDIT: when I mentioned overnights staying on floors, I think one rule for the Approved hosts is that there is a spare bed in a same-gender room somewhere near them. I figure the college-approved host is not bizarre in terms of domestic habits. Anyway, she shouldn’t have to sleep on any floors with an approved assigned overnight!