<p>Who’s looking forward to parent weekend??? </p>
<p>Who has already gone? Tell us about your experience.</p>
<p>We go this weekend and I am REALLY looking forward to it. Dying to see my son. Also, we got a reservation at our favorite Bed & Breakfast (she had a cancellation - for Parent Weekend!) and so, it will be like a mini (OK, very mini) vacation. I was happy to cancel the Hampton Inn on strip-plaza drive.</p>
<p>You’re going about it the right way, weenie. Mini-vacation. They don’t have parent weekends for juniors, so we made our own up this year. Going up in two weeks–frisbee tournament, fall foliage tour, dinner with D and boyfriend. Have fun.</p>
<p>We’re going for D’s last undergraduate parent weekend (boo-hoo!) and combining it with an overnight at a different college for D#2. We’re even taking an empty suitcase to take stuff home for D.</p>
<p>I went to S’s parent weekend his freshman year at UCLA, and H went during S’s junior year (Parents Fund donors, no matter the amount, are invited)–they’re held in October. It’s in conjunction with Homecoming, so the campus was bustling but didn’t seem crowded. Of course the big focus was the football game at the Rose Bowl–just being in the Rose Bowl was a big thrill for both H and me. Attending the various programs and receptions hosted by the parents program office provided the opportunity to meet other parents and learn more about the university.</p>
<p>We’re really looking forward to D’s family weekend at Pomona in February (over the President’s Day weekend) and made our hotel reservation two months ago! We may be joined by my in-laws as well as S who will come out from LA. In addition, we’re planning on spending a more days in SoCal and staying in Palm Springs for a short vacation. We may be meeting up with some friends from Colorado whose S is a first-year at UCLA. It’ll be a nice change from wintry Boston weather!</p>
<p>Went to S1’s last Friday at Norwich U and after the day’s events brought him home with us for the weekend since most other events were freshmen oriented. We leave on Thursday for S2’s Family Weekend, complete with Grandma and Grandpa in tow. They came with us S1’s freshman year and I think they started packing their swimsuits as soon as S2 decided on U of Miami!</p>
<p>Hmm, did the same subject line a week or so on the parent folder, so should have done it here instead. Here’s a brief overview of my day at Mary Washington.</p>
<p>It was lovely. Since DH was out of town S1 decided to tag along. There were acitivities planned thoughout the day, including soccer games. We did a van tour of historic Fredericksburg, a nice way to see some parts of the town that I didn’t know was there. They had a picnic lunch on campus with entertainment. S2 noticed one of his profs there so took me over to introduce me. This is a macro econ class that has 100 students in it. He had already told me they had discussion in there, despite the size and sure enough, the prof recognized S2. S2 is enjoying himself and keeping busy. His First Year Experience program doesn’t seem to have the substance to it that I thought it might, but they do have a few extra programs for them and he likes the small residence hall he’s in. Of course, for him the best part of the day was going out shopping and eating out in the evening. Even S1, who is a product of big state universities (25,000 plus) admitted that the campus was a nice place and was impressed with what was within walking distance. Yes, even he discovered there is a life on a smaller liberal arts type of campus!</p>
<p>choff:
That’s funny about your other son and his views on LACs. When we were touring schools, eldest was looking at LACs. Youngest thought they were AWFUL. (“Boring.”) He is much more of a technical type kid. I am not personally looking forward to the big U tours (much less the tech schools like RPI etc), but to each his own!</p>
<p>And, yes, we have shopping (needs sneakers and cleats) and fine dining on the schedule. Son wants to go to a French restaurant ($$$) - “Yes darling. Anything your little heart desires.”</p>
<p>Weenie,
You hit it right on the head, S1, with big U experience, was my technical, IT major, guy. S2, despite being very good in math, is totally liberal arts/poli sci. Re: shopping, it’s amazing what they discover they need on their own, despite mom’s questioning during the packing period in August. “No, I don’t need gym shorts”, suddenly changed to “I need a pair of workout shorts for the fitness center” after he got there. As for dining out, his birthday was the next day, so it was well justified!</p>
<p>Is it wrong I told my folks not to bother? They’ve been up to the University around 3 times, and I go home every other week. They seemed fine with it, but I would just like some more parental opinions.</p>
<p>Well, it’s probably fine. Especially because they’ve seen you! There will, no doubt, be lots of kids whose parents don’t come. Maybe you could tag along with a friend and his/her parents if they go out to dinner. We’ll be looking to pick up any “strays.” :)</p>
<p>We have always enjoyed Parent (oops, it’s called the more politically correct FAMILY) Weekend at our D’s school. We are headed up for our fourth and last one the weekend after next. D’s school invites family members to sit in on Friday classes but that is our travel day so we miss that, but otherwise fully participate in the program. </p>
<p>Yes, it is a mini-vacation and after all the work in getting into and paying for college for our kid, what a treat for us to just enjoy the experience and see her so happy and flourishing there!</p>
<p>Enjoy it!</p>
<p>We are heading to Penn in two weeks…couldn’t make it freshman year and D felt left out. But some of her friends’ parents adopted her for the weekend. This time we will be doing the adopting…probably taking mass quantities of close personal friends out to dinner nightly!</p>
<p>My parents didn’t come…I’d already seen them once and my mom was in town for business a couple weeks ago, so we had dinner then. </p>
<p>It wasn’t the end of the world, not having them here. Nobody offered to “adopt” me, but I wasn’t that bummed out (in fact, I probably was too busy all weekend to hang out with my parents that much anyway). And fall break is in two weeks anyway…so I’ll see them then.</p>
<p>Now I just have to get them to come to one of our football games…</p>
<p>Ours is coming up on the 21st - my H and I are both looking forward to it. I will have to ask my son if anyone he knows needs ‘adopting’. There are a few internationals in his house that likely won’t have visitors.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, made me feel much better. Yeah, they’ve already visted me once when school was in full swing and I’ve taken them around and they’ve met my friends and whatnot so my decision seems good now. Not to mention I’ll be at home in a week or 2 after that one anyway, so it all works out.</p>
<p>Heading to parent’s weekend in a week. D is granting me an audience for a few hours on Saturday.</p>
<p>From the perspective of a parent of a sophomore:</p>
<p>Just got an email yesterday from S. Parents weekend is in two weeks, but he informed us that he will not be on campus this year. (Good thing we hadn’t scheduled the flights!) He informed us that his club sport will be competing in a tournament quite a distance from campus,many many miles away. In fact, it is being held in the city that is the birthplace of Elvis! Not only do they have a museum there, but the city where the tournament will be held also takes pride in their buffalo park and automobile museum…he did invite us though.</p>