<p>D just reminded me that S1 would need shower shoes. She always had soccer slides, so we didn’t have to think about it for her, but S1 hates soccer slides. However, Old Navy has their basic flip flops way on sale, so he now has two pairs. </p>
<p>I really would have forgotten about this - hooray for those fresh, young brains.</p>
<p>fireflyscout & CBBBlinker - yep, we went with TD Bank North for WPI, too. I would have preferred to open his checking account with our usual bank, but their ATM was pretty far from campus. Also, I saw somewhere that they might not get their roommate info until July 30th!</p>
<p>
Aaackkk!!! Yes, they will be rising high school freshmen in just two years!</p>
<p>I have a 2014. Last year (7th grade) she seemed so little and young that HS seemed a million miles away. Now she is taller, starting to get a few little curves and thinking over what her HS ECs are going to be…a big change in one year.</p>
<p>RE: banks and atms
We’ve never been fortunate enough for kids to go to school in a place that has the same banks that we have at home. In our case, we’ve decided it’s better and more convenient for our family for our children to have accounts at our bank.</p>
<p>Our children never-to-extremely-rarely have an ATM fee. They have learned to get cash back when making a small purchase at a store. When I visited S2 in Denver, the cashier at the local drugstore joked that she was used to my son buying a pack of gum and getting $35 back. He protested that sometimes he buys a box of kleenex or a bottle of shampoo.</p>
<p>Make sure your children are aware they can get $$$ that way and avoid ATM charges.</p>
<p>missypie–re the '11 thread–I couldn’t agree more! Just a totally different vibe.</p>
<p>CBBBlinker–thanks for the heads up. D was horrified by the dorm tour during Accepted Students Day. The room was fine, but there was gasp only one closet! She lucked out in her assignment & got the one dorm with shared rather than hall bathrooms.</p>
<p>fireflyscout, I did google map a CVS store. D has a prescription here and shes able to pick up medication at the CVS near her OOS college.</p>
<p>boysx3, my D started her freshman year at college in June. She had cash on her when I left, and I was wondering today if she had any cash left. She said when she needs cash she’ll buy a pack of gum or a drink at a Walgreens or CVS, then requests $20 or $30 cashback.</p>
<p>JSM,
Exactly. My son doesn’t understand why anyone would pay an ATM fee. if he needs more cash, he might go to 2 or 3 places if there is a limit at one!</p>
<p>There aren’t any TD Banknorth branches in Texas, so that was out. No Wells Fargo banks (my bank) in Massachusetts, either. Found a Bank of America ATM within easy walking distance of campus (and there’s a branch right across the street from where I work).</p>
<p>CBBBlinker - your son definitely has an advantage knowing 2 female students at WPI!</p>
<p>We set up a bank account for D1 at a local bank, and she never used it. She did everything with credit card, debit card, and “cash back.” Since the ATM at D2s school would charge her $2 each time she uses it, I think I’ll suggest D1’s route to her. But it makes you wonder: why don’t banks waive the fees for college students – unless they don’t want their business …</p>
<p>Son’s bank (Bof Amer) has no branches in his college town, so I’m putting that on his list to do – open up a Wachovia/Wells Fargo account here, since there is a branch in college town.</p>
<p>CBBlinker–your husband sounds exactly like mine! Same hobbies/vacay choices! I always encourage ‘guys’ trips’ since I go out more often w/my friends.</p>
<p>If anyone needs BB&B coupons – I sent out an email to friends/family & have been inundated. I think I have about 30+ if you count expired, about 20 new ones.</p>
<p>I’d never heard of this site until recently:</p>
<p>[AllPosters.com</a> - The World’s Largest Poster and Print Store!](<a href=“http://www.allposters.com%5DAllPosters.com”>http://www.allposters.com)</p>
<p>And if you use this coupon – WC2476 – you can get 20% off.</p>
<p>There are thousands of posters! I’m going to have S take a look and order a few for his room. I don’t think we’ll get them framed, though (unless he wants one of the more expensive ones). </p>
<p>Just wanted to share!</p>
<p>Nice post, Deja. D and S1’s school always has a poster sale during orientation week, but allposters has a much bigger selection.</p>
<p>missypie, thanks again for the tip about ordering an actual insurance card, rather than the tattered photocopy. </p>
<p>I think we’ll suggest that S1 do the same thing D has done, for banking: Open a small account with the place that has an ATM on campus, and maintain the home account for checks, etc. Because they opened their home bank accounts when they were 16, I’m still a co-signer and their accounts are electronically linked to mine, so in case of an emergency I can transfer money to them.</p>
<p>D registered for classes this morning. Interesting ordeal since Core is required but the system wouldn’t let her register for it. After calling the registrar she found out that she came in with so many credits that the system was blocking her. Registrar fixed problem and signed her up for the section she wanted. I told her that there are advantages to having problems early on so you can learn how to actually fix them.</p>
<p>D also got her roommate assignment and put up a note on facebook. She left for work so won’t be able to look for a response until this evening.</p>
<p>We’re going to open an account for D at the local branch with an ATM on campus. Her current account was just for kids anyway and I had no desire to convert it into anything bigger. There are no shared resources from here and we do almost all our banking on line anyway that it will be easy enough for her to have her own set up. S opened his account at a different bank that had branches on the campus and this worked out very well. Since his spending money was all his own anyway, he managed how and when he made withdrawals. Also was told by Richmond that the kids can always cash a check at the bursar (which I thought was pretty cool).</p>
<p>D’s replacement laptop needs to have a replacement wireless card. Works fine if you’re within 2 feet of the router. At least I’m hoping to have everything fixed and running before she leaves.</p>
<p>We are such idiots. Son’s laptop arrived but we don’t know our password to the wireless router. The warranty for the router has expired so tech support for the router wants to charge us $29.99 to tell us. I keep thinking that with Husand and Son home all day, one of them will either pay the money or figure it out on their own, but they haven’t. Do I really have to spend my weekend on the phone to India trying to get internet access for the laptop?</p>
<p>missypie, usually when you create the password for the router you use a phrase which is then converted to computer speak. I think you can reset the password by actually connecting via cable to the router and then resetting the password. See this web site for instructions [url=<a href=“http://www.tech-faq.com/forgot-linksys-router-password.shtml]I”>http://www.tech-faq.com/forgot-linksys-router-password.shtml]I</a> forgot my LinkSys Router Password?<a href=“if%20not%20a%20linksys,%20just%20google%20for%20the%20actual%20brand%20name%20and%20router%20reset%20password”>/url</a>. Once you reset this, write down the hex characters. Any time you allow access to your network you will need those characters. (This is why we have a password book which is half filled with codes)</p>
<p>Thanks. I was working on it for a whle the other night, I got that far, but when I read about how it would return to default settings I got scared because how do we know what the non-default settings are and how do we change them back to non-default if we need to? After about 15 minutes I gave up (it was about midnight anyway.) I guess I need to avoid turning this into a family battle but Husband is a SAHD and Son sleeps till noon and works about 12 hours a week…I practice law full time. Why am I the one who needs to spend my time dealing with this?</p>
<p>Default settings are usually just fine. I don’t remember needing any modifications and I think this is about the 3rd or 4th router we’ve had. </p>
<p>Don’t forget if you reset the password that you will have to redo the other computers on your household network too since they will all stop working.</p>
<p>Good luck, and yes you should not be the one having to deal with this. I am the one who needs to deal with any of those things in our house (am about to move to a new hard drive for my main computer) so I’ve learned to deal.</p>
<p>D just called to tell me the Freshman Seminar topics are online. She was so excited!! It made me well up and smile at the same time to hear the excitement and enthusiasm in her voice as she talked about all the courses she would like to take. It’s moments like these when I know everything’s going to be okay.</p>