I asked my kid about parents weekend. It’s a 12 hour drive so it would be a flight and some pricey hotel rooms. All in probably $3K.
I asked if she’d rather have me at parents weekend or if she’d rather I put that money aside for her study abroad, and she chose the latter. Problem solved!
The other thought is - we’ve never been to a parents weekend - either kid. My son I saw - I got near enough for work I could go to dinner each semester.
My daughter - we’ve been - she’s in a vacation destination. We haven’t gone every semester - but I think on 4 of the 6.
We go a different weekend - one that works for her school wise and isn’t when all the hotels are triple in price.
And if she needs to step away school wise, that’s ok too - we’ll miss her for that part of the day.
Parents weekend is super crowded for S22, so I’ve never gone. Hotels go up in price too. First year, I went a different time and it was fine. Last year, I didn’t visit him at all, but he did fly home at Christmas and spring break. He chose to stay over Thanksgiving.
We are planning to have Thanksgiving in Nashville this year and both kids can join us there. Saves crazy flight costs and timing and forces time together :). We can all hear about D24’s experiences and not just have all the kids in their own bedrooms. haha. Plus, the semester ends just a couple weeks later and she’ll come home then for a few weeks.
As for books, my son is in engineering and has spent about $300/semester so far on books. I swear I spent that much 35 years ago. He has very few actual books and mostly online access instead.
We went to parents weekend only in freshman year. It was too chaotic for us, including for our D who asked us to pick a different weekend to come the following years. Even with reservations, restaurants were crowded and service slow and behind; hotel prices were jacked up and it was hard to find reservations (if you are planning on going, make your hotel reservations now!). The worst though for me were a lot of drunken parents reliving their college days that made the events not fun.
That said, we had some cool events and lectures, got to see a special marching band performance and had some of the choir groups singing at brunch but IMO, you can see those things outside of parents weekend too.
Pro tip - don’t have so many of niceunparticularman’s cocktails that you fall down the bleachers at the football game, start hitting on other parents in front of your spouses, or belting out your version of accompanying the choir at breakfast ; ). (Yes that all really did happen).
D20’s school’s family weekend was super low-key, so while we often visited her that weekend, we never did any anything school-sponsored…just enjoyed Boston in October.
We are planning to attend at least this first one for D24. It’s a little silly, because it is the weekend immediately following fall break, so we will send her back up to school on a Tuesday and then trek up their ourselves on Friday. But, it seems that it is a very big deal at her school, and I wouldn’t want her to feel bad if everyone else’s family are there.
It’s low key where D22 is too. And I think it’s just a freshman thing? I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s not that it’s not worth seeing your kid, which is sort of the reaction I get, but parents shouldn’t bend themselves backwards to make that weekend in particular work.
There are some lectures and special tours, but the students are knee deep in work that time of year and most don’t have a lot of time to spend with their parents.
The point is, maybe there is a better weekend to visit that works better for you and your student. If that is case, go for it. The goal, after all, is to spent time with them.
I forgot the “knee deep in work part”! My daughter had her first round of exams the Monday after parents weekend. She actually left the football game at half time to go study and didn’t meet back up with us until a late dinner. Seems like that is more common than not as the same happened at my nieces’ schools too.
If your students are registered for classes, you can probably get a read on textbook costs from the college bookstore website. I just looked up my own kids - one says an OER will be used (huge push in higher ed for that - open education resources/ free) and I know one art class has a materials fee added to the bill, and the only book listed is 67.50 to rent digitally… but when you search the ISBN, Chegg rents a physical copy for $38. So the total for my student’s texts and materials are around $160. The school doesn’t estimate textbook costs. (It’s lumped under “indirect costs” along with travel and spending money, etc.)
We went to D21’s Family Weekend her freshman and sophomore years, it’s a 12 hour drive or 2 hour flight to her college. We didn’t do much of the organized hoopla, but spent time with her. I think I attended one lecture about student mental health. My family tends to eschew organized activities so I was really the only one interested in the many events offered. Honestly D21 didn’t really care if we attended the one her sophomore year but we were driving her car to her and also touring colleges along the way with D24 so it worked out. For D24, we’ll go to Family Weekend her first year but most likely not after that. Both schools have their Family Weekends in February, I’m not sure we’d have gone or plan to go if they’d been held in the fall several weeks after move-in.
We are super excited for Syracuse parents weekend. My d loves the rah rah, and their football should be good this year. We tend to be the ‘fun parents’ that hang out with the kids, so it should be a good time. That said, getting to Syracuse from Oregon is no easy (or cheap) feat. Thankfully I reserved the air bnb before the owners jacked up the prices and if it works out we will have a direct contact for a place to stay all four years. Hotels are going for $700 a night for best western level motels.
Thanksgiving we are going to leave it up to him. Many of my friends have said the kids come home first year thanks giving but not the the rest of 3 years.
If he does not come for thanks giving and we dont go for parents weekend in sep then I think we will go visit him in October as 4 months of not seeing the first Sem may be hard for me 
Thanks that my thinking as well that we go the first parents weekend and skip in the future. If we cant make parents weekend in Sep then I am thinking of going in mid October.
S24 is going to a big school and I am expecting parents weekend to be crowded and debating if we should do Parents weekend or some other weekend. I need to have a more of this conversation with S24 as to what he wants.
S18 (public affairs) spent $300 in freshman year and $100 in sophomore year then nothing after that (almost all was for GEs). S23 (physics) has spent $220 in freshman year, most of which was required for access to online problem sets.
My son didn’t care if I came for parents weekend or not. He likely wouldn’t have wanted to do the events either. I picked a weekend I could spend more time with him and see the marching band, etc. It worked for us.
I’m thinking with 2 kids in the same state, I will find a weekend that works to visit both kids and do that instead of a parent weekend.
Let’s not forget a clean drinking glass for each and every sip of water you might take throughout the day. Water bottle? What water bottle? Those 37 water bottles I had to have…yeah. Haven’t seen them lately.
And those glasses simply cannot make their way to the dishwasher…
Dishwasher? Huh? 
We’re back home now after a week in Oahu for a family vacation. Very much needed break! It was a great trip. Got back home late last night. 2 nights in Waikiki and 4 at Aulani. Saw everything at Pearl Harbor. Did an ATV tour at Kualoa Ranch. Shopping at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. Ate lots of good local food, too. Got to hit up the infiniti-edge adults-only ocean view hot tub with my now-adult kid and that was pretty darn great.
ODD bought herself a new cell phone today and used Amazon Prime deals to get a discounted Otterbox case. We also finally bought a mattress topper for her dorm room. Hard to believe that in a little over a month, we’ll be hitting the road to drive her to college!
Love this!