Agree, maybe not most – but it is a WHOLE thing down in these parts!
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Me over here with my son in the Northeast–
Me: We should buy you a comforter for your dorm and what else do you want?
Him: I am just going to bring one from here. It works fine.
I just showed him an inexpensive XL twin one on sale on amazon. He says, “I really don’t care. Sure, you can order that one.”
So much for the Ikea run I was excited for.
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My S25 doesn’t care in the least, either – so I am just buying him whatever I want, and he can be surprised at move-in! 
I found some vintage movie posters cheap on Amazon (he’s a film kid), so those will be fun to decorate with.
I loved doing the IKEA run with my older daughter – buying a Poang chair for her first apartment was so fun. Plus some fun little accessories. She picked out a nightstand and built it herself, and I think it was the first time she’d ever used the tools in her tool set, LOL.
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You are
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S25 doesn’t care very much about room decor, and his roommate doesn’t care at all. Unfortunately, his roommate’s mother cares. A lot. It’s going to be over the top. 
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D25 is only a 2.5 hour flight away, but yeah, we are not going to fly her home more than 1x a year. I don’t even have Thanksgiving to blame because she will be international and doesn’t get a Thanksgiving week off. Will I miss her? Absolutely. But this is part of the experience and commitment to a different locale–you actually have to be there.
She is not going Dorm Crazy thank goodness, but she is a certifiable clothes horse and we will be her mules slogging through the airport.
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At this point I’m reasonably certain S25 doesn’t care at all about his room decor. We did, however, spend an inordinate amount of time trying to pick out pillows this weekend. Not decorative, sleeping pillows. And I probably paid more than I needed to on the pillows he eventually chose. But pillows are one of those things for me that are worth a splurge. I can’t sleep with crap pillows, and I’m like The Princess And The Pea with pillows. And sleep is important, so yeah, I’ll spend more for better quality there. It’s like the shoes I wear to work. I buy stupid expensive work shoes. But I wear the same 2-3 pair all year long, every day. I need them to be comfortable and good quality or I’m miserable all day. These are things that are worth splurges in my book.
That said, I’ve been thinking about the room decor. It’s not my jam. But if it’s something that makes a kid excited, or that a parent wants to do as some kind of treat or splurge, good on them. I get some looks from my friends sometimes because I still pack my 18yo’s lunch every day. Sure he’s capable, but this feels like a way that he can know I’m thinking about him and I care about him and a little way for me to send him my love. And maybe room decor is the same thing for some people. That’s great, they should do their thing. As long as no one is making a roommate feel somehow less-than, then i guess what’s the harm.
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Dropping in from '26 to add: I once had a bus driver in London say, “Always buy good mattresses and good shoes because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other!” I don’t recall why he said that to me…
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It’s very unlike me to have not started shopping for the dorm room yet. It seems like a classic move I would make. I do have an Amazon list where I saved some ideas, but we won’t know which dorm S25 is assigned until early August. I plan to do some binge shopping then, although S25 seems very disinterested in the dorm outfitting process.
I packed lunches for my kiddos (with personal notes) at least twice a week all the way through school until they graduated high school. It was an easy way (for me) to show them love during the day and they loved getting surprised by what was packed. The other days, they would either pack a lunch themselves, buy at school or leave campus for lunch with friends.
One of my kids really cared about room decor…we spent over 8 hours getting kiddo’s rooms exactly the way they envisioned it (color scheme: white and natural wood with pops of coral and aqua), fairy lights, picture collage, extra storage under the lofted bed…and of course the run to the local Big Box store to get the stuff forgotten in packing. There was a coffee station between the two desks. It was definitely OTT and exactly what she wanted. Her roommate loved it too - they didn’t coordinate sides but did have complementary color schemes, lol.
Another one of my kids didn’t really care at all. Rented linens from the school, so didn’t even get to chose the color scheme. Didn’t decorate at all. Did care about pillows and mattress topper - we had to send upgraded versions because getting the bed feeling right so much more important than looking a certain way.
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My S25 is another one that couldn’t care less about room decor. We’ll be doing Target pick up order and/or shipping to Amazon locker so we have fewer things to fly with. I think he will default to some basic color (probably Navy blue) everything. I honestly can’t imagine him even wanting to hang anything on the wall. He has a few things up on the wall in his space at home that he has had there for 7+ years without changing.
Even my D22 had pretty basic ideas - she picked out a pretty comforter she liked, and we bought a nice rug for her room. Other than that and bringing her houseplants from home, even she didn’t really add anything to her room. Her freshman room had basically no sizable wall space.
The people doing the over-the-top decorating things seems really crazy to me, but no one in my family cares much about decor. I am the type where I hung a few things on my walls when we moved into our house, and really have only updated family photos since then!
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D25 just wants me to do most of the picking and decorating. She chose a plain blush comforter and said yes to a wall hanging of fake flowers and yes to a framed 16x24 print of a bible verse with flowers (I’m totally agnostic but this youngest of mine identifies as more Christian). She doesn’t use pillows at home but I got 2 plus a body pillow from walmart to use as a headboard. She has fairy lights she may bring.
The most expensive things thus far are the under bed storage units (I got 3, I think we will use 2) and the 2 bean bag type chairs for the shared area. Her and roommate have a shared document I guess but I havent seen it. I may be returning some things.
My other purchases thus far are a shower tower for holding things (bathroom is only shared with roommate), extension cord with flat wall plug, a set of 6 plastic/ikea bags, a plastic rolling cart, and a water bottle cleaning brush set.
We have quite a few storage/organizing things here at home already so we will bring what we have and purchase what is needed once we get there.
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this sounds like my kid.
also - " my room is tiny, I want to bring as little as possible, I will just buy something if I need it"
Can’t say that is a bad philosphy!
They had zero interest in what color sheets, etc I ordered as long is in blue/gray/black color range.
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Yep! Black and black and gray over here! I figure it is nice he saves me money.
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Fwiw
AP scores are appearing in some college’s systems (if you sent a score report already)
I saw on Reddit somewhere and my kids scores were indeed in their student info system which has course selections and what not.
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It worked for us! I was so surprised but it was there 
thank you!
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I was surprised too! It must be a fairly slick system that matches by name and birthday automatically from college board.
They can’t possibly have hand input them quickly.
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Well, we dropped off S25 at USMMA with a small duffle bag containing 14 white t-shirts, 14 pairs of white socks and 14 pairs of white underwear, two pairs of white sneakers and his toiletries. Easiest college packing ever!
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WashU st Louis ?
U Penn Weitzman?
Columbia / Fu/ Barnard ?
tufts?
Georgia tech ?
I was just coming to ask that. C25 can see their scores on their college portal.
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