Or similarly, the day your parents drove away, leaving you in the dorm. Feels like such a stark contrast!
My mom drove me to school. Orientation counselors descended on the car to unload us, I said goodbye when the car was empty, and she drove home six hours. She told me after the fact that she cried the whole way back.
I had my first orientation group meeting two hours after arriving and was at my first house party that night. I didn’t talk to my parents again until the following Sunday six days later because it was a long distance call and it was cheaper.
H and I dropped our D at school together. Also orientation counselors to help unload everything into huge bins but we were able to stay until her room was set up. We left when she had the last bag unpacked and she sent the empty bins back home with us. She was so excited that it was hard for us to feel sad.
IMO, the biggest difference is being able to text. We got messages every day during her orientations, and pictures too! (They just came up in my memories as being 6 years ago today!).
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I think the biggest difference was the time we spent putting together drawers and shelves for D23 vs my parents who helped me loft my bed and then left. But overall, not much difference.
D23’s school had an agenda for parents during welcome weekend but we just stayed for the Presidents talk and then left, I don’t think lingering is great for kids or parents.
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I should add too that my parents helped loft my bed with cinder blocks. Lucky I survived I guess 
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I started in January (no orientation) to fill a space left by my BF’s roommate when roommate dropped out first semester. I went up with my BF the day after New Year’s, no parents involved as I only intended to stay that one semester as a lark to help her out. But then I met future DH…
My mom drove up with me the next year, but I stayed in Ann Arbor every summer thereafter and never went home again, so no parental involvement required.
We dropped our son off at West Point on R-day, no move-in, got that 60-second goodbye, nothing after that.
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The biggest difference between me & our kids, was how much better organized schools are now with the process! I went to VT, and it was a zoo. There was no designated time/day. Everyone showed up at once and attempted to part anywhere and everywhere they could. Any piece of grass - up over a curb - was fair game. No organization. Forget elevators - you’d wait forever. Fortunately, I was floor 2. My sister was 4. And they didn’t provide lofts or desks. We bought one for my sister from someone selling it on their own outside. Then it got passed to me, then to my brother.
JMU OTOH was amazing. Special day to show up. We had to have everything boxed and labeled, but once we rolled up to the dorm, a team of student volunteers unloaded everything for us. By the time we parked in the garage and walked back, everything was in his room! My word! W&L wasn’t near that organized, but with so few students, it was pretty easy.
After unpacking, my parents just drove home. We didn’t do much more with the kids. Took younger S to Walmart and to lunch.
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Definitely. William and Mary in the 80s. Mom stopped the car when we got to the William and Mary interstate exit to take my picture. I have a picture of me next to my pile of dorm items waiting to be hauled upstairs. Avocado green mini fridge, matching yellow comforters for our beds, typewriter. We had to pay our dorm fees by check. Got in the line for that and met someone who became a long time friend. She didn’t know how to write a check, so we figured that out together.
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Hmm. Unfortunately we had just about no money for college, so I commuted from home daily (got a scholarship to cover tuition). My university was actually only two stops down on the same bus route that I had used for high school so it was all pretty anticlimactic! (I did go away for postgrad but that was well beyond the “leaving home” stage.) I’m very happy my kids have gotten/will get the full college experience.
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My spouse commuted heavily to get to university using bus/subways - one way!
My memory is terrible, but I believe both parents dropped me off.
The one and only thing that I remember about the first day of college is that when we were driving to my new school in Philadelphia, right as we drove into the city, the radio started playing Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia - and it totally felt like we were in a movie with the perfect music cue. Granted, this was in 1995 and the song was still a big hit so they probably played in on the radio in Philadelphia every 12 seconds, but it seemed pretty cool at the time.
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I absolutely remember leaving for college that first day! My uncle drove my mom and me in his country squire station wagon. Everything I needed was in the back of that car. I never visited my college before that first day, so it was very special. Mom and my uncle helped me move into my dorm, and we walked around the small campus, then had lunch. They then left.
And there I was in a very rural area with NO public transportation, in a town that was smaller than very small. I came from a huge suburban area. My high school graduation class had 200 more students than the total enrollment of this college.
It sure was different, and I had a great first year there.
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My parents drove me to the airport, put me on a plane, and sent me off. When I got to my new city, I took a taxi to the campus. I had never seen it before. I think some upperclassmen took my suitcases up to my room, where I met my roommate. I’m amazed I was able to handle that; I was only 17.
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My husband’s parents put him on a plane to Boston…from Tokyo. He was met in Boston by an uncle who drove him to his college. Yes, he had seen the place before…but it was quite the adjustment.
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I took the bus from home for $0.25.
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I actually better remember our big college tour trip, and then various other rides back and forth from college with all sorts of characters. I do remember some of the stuff I did when first arriving at college, but honestly only have the vaguest memory of being dropped off at my first year dorm by my parents.
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I went across the country, 3000 miles away: two airplanes, a subway, a train, and a car with my Dad. We both saw the college for the first time as we drove up. The first time! I remember in the car that my Dad let me pick the radio station and the Talking Head’s song “Once in a Lifetime” came on and I started bopping in my seat and my Dad was a little quiet listening to the lyrics.
I had very little stuff with me, everything I brought - the bedding, clothes, all of it fit into my two duffle bags, plus my Dad had given me 2/3 of his check-in suitcase. There wasn’t anything organized, we just showed up and they gave me my dorm assignment and my roommate (who I didn’t know until that moment) was already there and she told me that she’d arranged the furniture and “that” was my bed. It was shoved in a dark corner and she’d put her bed in a large bump out with a bay window. I didn’t occur to me to say anything, or attempt to work anything out equitably; I just accepted that this was the way it was as she got their first so I had to accept it. We didn’t have an RA, or orientation, we just…lived there. My Dad left after unpacking (there was nothing for families) and I was pretty homesick (and in culture shock to be honest), but of course couldn’t call home because none of us even had phones except for one down the hall, and it was VERY expensive to call so far long distance. I think I talked to my parents for the first time three weeks later (because it was my birthday) and cried a little.
In contrast, full communication from kiddo’s school for months leading up to first-year move in day, where my kiddo was checked in by smiling volunteers in the student center, we then pulled up to the closest lot with the help of smiling traffic directors, and these enormously tall, friendly, and kind basketball players warmly greeted us, swooped over the car, asked my son what his dorm room was and how he was doing and what he was interested in studying, and said to come ask for help if he ever needed it… and they carried everything up the stairs for us and gave us a wonderful welcome. There was 1.5 days of family orientation, with regional meet-up for parents, coffee breaks with deans, and a farewell reception with professors, students, and the president on the lawn.
And then I drove away crying 
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My mom dropped me off at college. We unloaded my stuff (maybe the college provided a rolling cart? can’t remember), and once it was all in the room, we hugged, she left, and I cried a little in my room (can’t recall if it was immediately or a bit later). I’m sure my mom was crying in her car. We would talk weekly, usually on Sundays, because of the phone bill. But I was introduced to email there, and we started emailing each other during the work week a few times a day (as she had email at work but not at home). We’d email usually around breakfast, lunch, and dinner because that’s when I’d use the computers in the dorm lobby. My uncle who had a freshman son (and already had 2 sons who’d gone through college) couldn’t fathom what we had to talk to each other about.
I will say that was the easiest move-in I ever had (there was a relatively flat area for car drop-off and a breezeway cutting across the hill). The other dorms I lived…the first there was no elevator, so it was just me hauling my stuff up to the third floor, and then the other years there was one elevator per wing, but it was pointless to wait for that, so I just had to haul my stuff up to the 4th floor via stairs. There were no teams of basketball players or other college students to help. We were all hauling our own stuff.
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I went to college about 20 minutes away from where I was raised but I lived on campus. I drove myself and don’t remember my parents helping me at all. I was allowed to take some towels, old sheets and a blanket not being used by anyone at home. It was certainly not a tearful goodbye as I could easily go home anytime I wanted to and definitely remember bringing my laundry home regularly. My S24 will be starting his experience soon. Also only about 30 minutes from home but will live in a dorm. For him my wife has already bought two sheet sets, a new comforter and a bunch of dorm “necessities.” I don’t think the back to college goods industry was as prevalent back in my college days and now there are all kinds of cool dorm items that every kid thinks they need. It’s all good though. Different times. I am sure that we will be driving him over and moving him into the dorm. I know it will be emotional for us as he is our youngest but again he will live relatively close so I am sure we will still see him pretty regularly.
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I remember both parents driving me, unloading everything in my room and then saying “bye”……no help setting things up, no walk around campus or lunch together. My mother was a teacher and had to get ready for the new year. I quickly met people and walked to orientation which also had a meeting for parents. Seemed like most parents attended this including those of one of my dear friends. I think her parents were surprised my parents had just dropped me so they invited me to dinner after orientation. The next day my mother called me- to check in but mostly to complain about the long ride home and how tired she was.
I did things a little differently with my own kids:)
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OMG I could have written this word for word except for the numbers. My HS class was about the same size as my college one.
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