re 529- We have had no problem with the 529 disbursing the funds. From the time I request it’s been about 5 days to get the check to the school. I did make a mistake the first time and the check was sent to me- in my name- I expect I will get audited at some point for that but hopefully with proof of payment I’ll be ok.
@Illinoismom4 - audit issue is exactly why I did not want check to myself. Would rather just send it to college… will watch when it posts - so I can have some back up time for this.
On the roommate front, I was assigned to a triple freshman year. I met one of them a couple weeks ahead because she lived just one school district away. We encountered the third one when we got to school. I’ve been telling my D how the new roommate looked about 25 and when she saw us (we probably looked 15 and highly nerdy) she said something like "this won’t work, " and fled the room for another dorm. As for the first roommate, we live about two miles apart today (about 400 miles from the school) and are still friends.
We took in another girl whose roommate constantly had her boyfriend sleep over. Maybe @tranqil218’s D will find someone who is fleeing her own roommate.
It might be a good thing to have one’s own room… I love being around people, but I don’t need them to be around me all the time. I think I snore; I wouldn’t want to bother someone with that. I doubt it will stunt one’s chances for an active social life. At least if you’ve got your own room, even if suitemates have visitors with sensual purposes, I figure I can use my door and some loud music to ignore it.
@tranquil218 - although your D will likely end up enjoying her single I can understand her disappointment at the loss of an experience she was greatly anticipating. So glad others on her floor are already reaching out to her - it all sounds very encouraging.
@Sally22 - my MIL had set up a a 529 for S and disbursed it into a joint account for both of them. So now she or S directly writes the university a check from their account and no other paperwork necessary to prove it went towards university expenses?
@rhandco, I’m curious, how do you buy out a dorm contract? Or do you mean taking over the lease for an (off campus) apartment? I just never heard of buying out a contract for a college dorm - what school was this?
We just redeemed money from our 529 plan into our checking account which took three business days to appear. Our school endorses Tuition Management Systems (TMS) where we found we could make a free one-time online payment to the school from our checking account. I’m assuming that it will take 3 business days each for TMS to withdraw then deposit. We figure if we get audited there will be a deposit and a withdrawal of the same amount within days of each other.
Since spring tuition is due by January 4th, we figure we’ll repeat the process toward mid-December to redeem and pay within the same calendar year. We’re not earning much on the 529, so we don’t mind paying a week or two before the deadline. We are just so fortunate that we can afford to make lump-sum payments.
" @rhandco, I’m curious, how do you buy out a dorm contract? Or do you mean taking over the lease for an (off campus) apartment? I just never heard of buying out a contract for a college dorm - what school was this? "
My roommate and I were in the same sorority, and I said “if you can find a place to stay in the sorority house, my parents will give me a check to give you for the rest of the semester’s room fees”. The issue was totally different sleeping and study schedules and disrespect of my schedule (lights on and noise when I was sleeping, yet I was always really careful). My parents understood this, and I think it was something over a thousand dollars I gave her, right before break so it was half the room fees. She moved into the sorority house, and her parents paid her full year in the dorms. We remained friends, and actually, I met my spouse through hanging out with her at the frat house her boyfriend belonged to.
This was at Penn. But their housing had nothing to do with the arrangement, and future dorm arrangements.
I hope all the 2015 kids have livable matchups, but even the “bad” roommates can be lessons. I’m sure there will be interesting stories this time next month.
What in the world will our kids do at parties in their mid-20’s without awful roommate stories to share? Sounds like a great social liability to me. 
Move in day is 8/22, first day of classes is 8/24. Which irritates me, because all the other state schools have a move in day of 8/20. It seems awfully quick for a freshman to show up Saturday and figure everything out and be ready for class on Monday.
She probably got the worst dorm - not just old, but full of jocks, which she’s not thrilled with. She’s rooming with an old friend who is going there as well. Not happy with that for many reasons, but it’s not my decision.
It took a lot of reminding from me for her to finally go online and fill out the forms she needs. Forms where they were very clear in saying if you don’t fill them out … you don’t get a key to your room. We went shopping together once and I went a couple of times without her. So far, I feel like there’s a lot more to get yet I have spent way too much money already.
It is concerning me that she doesn’t check her college email account at all. Doesn’t go online to familiarize herself with the online student center. I’m not going to be doing that stuff once she moves in. And that is how everything important will be communicated to her. I’m not going to keep checking her email … no way … I’ll let her screw up royally. Thing is, she can be so stubborn that even if she screws up, she’ll find a way to blame someone else and learn nothing from it.
How are you guys packing everything? Clothes in big trash bags? Everything else in big plastic containers? The one good thing about her rooming with her old friend is that I am friends with the roommate’s mom. And she is getting a Uhaul and inviting us to use it as well. We’re both skeptical about how the roommate situation will work out, but promised each other no matter what happened, that it’s up to our daughters to figure it out and we’re not going to blame/get involved at all.
We are still very much in summer mode here. D doesn’t need to be at school until Sept 1 (a week of orientation, trip, etc before classes begin on the 9th), so we have almost a month still. She won’t have a dorm or roommate assignment until mid-month, and she won’t choose classes (or be able to buy books) until she gets there. So we’ve been camping, swimming, doing not-too-far-away travel, will do an extended family beach trip next week. When we return she will be trying to see all her friends before they go off to their schools.
Then we do our “go to college” trip - a 12 hour drive - with all her stuff, so we’ll go a couple of days early to see family/friends in the area and eke one more mini-vacation out of it.
On the 1st I am dropping her off, doing whatever parent orientation stuff there is to do, then driving an hour and a half to see one of my oldest friends so I can have a good cry over a bottle of wine and an attitude adjustment before I head back home to begin life without my littlest living here. Fortunately I have a big event after I get home - jumping right into a 5 day work/fun music festival ought to help
^^^ Banker’s boxes so far for me. I’m pretty much just piling it all in with some notion of order (box of small things, like pencils and protractors), box of larger things (like the iron and trashbags), etc. and taking inventory to know what all I’ve got. Not sure about clothes yet… I need to bring a duffel bag in case I fly home for break, so I’m considering packing most of my clothes (underwear, socks, jeans, t-shirts) in that. But I need a way to keep the suit and a couple other things nice… maybe I should bring a garment bag?
@albert69, Iron?? Suit?? What are these strange things of which you speak? 
Youtube videos on packing suits. If you invert them and roll them loosely, you can pack without a garment bag. Garment bag works well, too.
@ItsJustSchool I’ve been wearing CAP uniforms, which are very similar to Air Force uniforms, for almost 4 years. I’ve gotten used to ironing formal clothes… I don’t want to be without something sharp to wear, and if I have that, I feel I need an iron and an ironing board to take care of it correctly. I just got a small ironing board, a tabletop one from the college section of BB&B, and the cheapest and smallest iron I could find at Walmart. Not fancy, but I hope functional.
@albert69, I was just giving you a bit of a hard time. You may find that small is not a great thing for an iron. Travel iron maybe, but you may find that you wished you had something with weight, a big baseplate, and several steam settings to go between wool, silk, cotton, etc. for weekly/monthly use.
And do look at the various rolling techniques for not terribly wrinkling suits, and shirts.
WTF are “Academic Excellence Fees” and why are they SO MUCH?
College Confidential even stars out acronyms? Great googly-moogly.
@ItsJustSchool It’s a regular size iron. It’s just not as fancy and huge as some could get, that’s all. I will look up ways to pack a suit and shirt, thanks for the tips.
Get a hand steamer. Trying to iron decently on the mini boards is a surefire route to insanity.