Our sentiments exactly! Not a good fit for our S26, but as an adult I love how different Kenyon’s environment is from mine that I would enroll in an instant for the immersive experience of intellectual curiosity.
1 Like
I know it wasn’t your first choice, but congrats to your D19! I’m sure she’ll thrive in her familiar environment. And it really is the greatest city in the world. 
4 Likes
Hooray for those whose kids are a step closer to a decision and to those who’s going through the first steps after committing!
S26 finally started the first steps as a soon to be first year! IT checkist done, activated college email, and orientation date scheduled. This is my first nag post S26 officially commiting 
. He admitted that college is far from his mind right now as he’s up to his eyeballs with AP exam reviews, concerts, prom, etc etc. But things had to be done for college soon! I can’t wait for S26 to be done with high school - just 16 more days! 
On another note, anyone else’s kid’s college requiring first year students to stay 2 days and an overnight in the summer on campus? It’s part of S26’s orientation where they get to learn about the university’s resources, get to eat at the 2 dining halls, stay at a dorm, meet others, learn where things are and register for classes. S26 will be with 200 other first years. We love that this transition/orientation will continue for another 6 weeks after fall move-in.
4 Likes
I’m with you – I feel like we’re missing something with all the steps, but I know D26 has filled out the housing application, accepted the honors program stuff, sent official SAT score, etc. I don’t think official school email has happened yet? Unsure. She needs to send in a picture for her ID, but they’re requesting a passport-type photo, so we need to take one.
She has something similar this summer for registration in which some kids spend the night at the dorm, but since we’re local, she only needs to go for one full day. It was like buying concert tickets to register for a date for that, so she got her second choice of July 9, but that’s still fine.
Oh, and it has the most ridiculous acronym I’ve ever heard – it’s called FASET, which stands for Familiarization and Adaptation to the Surroundings and Environs of Tech. 
Is that not the most Georgia Tech thing ever? I was telling my D22 about this, and she said, “They could have put Campus instead of Surroundings in there so it would have spelled FACET and been an actual word, at least.” LOL.
They do have another week-long orientation before classes start, but she’ll be at band camp during that same week, so unclear how many of the activities she’ll be able to do. Either way, she’ll get a chance to get familiar with the campus a little early.
Only five more days of school here! And this is senior week, so every day is something fun (although actual schoolwork is still happening). Monday is wearing a white uniform polo tie-dyed. Also her STEM teacher is taking the class (seven students) out to lunch because they finally turned in the final project yesterday. Tuesday morning is the spring band concert – which they perform three times, for lower, middle and high schools – and D26 gets to open the concert with a small clarinet solo, which is cool. Wednesday is college t-shirt and painted skort day. Thursday is honors day, and Friday the kids ride scooters into school and around the quad, lol, and then have final senior chapel in which they scream the Bible verse they’ve been reciting weekly since kindergarten, then run out the doors to the quad where they tearily hug parents and pick up their yard signs and then go have a special lunch. And DONE.
11 Likes
Crazy that your kid’s college t-shirt day is before actual decision day happens. My kid may not have actually even officially decided by then.
5 Likes
There are always a couple kids that haven’t decided or haven’t gotten a chance to get a t-shirt because they just decided. One year I saw a kid wear John’s Belushi’s t-shirt from Animal House that just said “COLLEGE” They put him in the back of the class photo, lol.
9 Likes
Ours doesn’t do this- but I wish they did- sounds fun!! and a great way to soft launch the dorm experience ;-).
RIT does have a mandatory orientation for incoming students. Seems awesome! it is the entire week before classes actually start.
D26 did sign up for a pre-college program that starts almost a month before the regular orientation does! Not sure yet if she will get in or not- but we went ahead and got the travel (refundable options) arrangements lined up just in case.
The first week is an online thing (so still at home)- then they move up to RIT for a 2-week class. (The set up feels a bit like a summer camp experience)
The only issue is that there is a 1-week period between this and the regular orientation. She wants to stay up there for that week 
instead of coming back home.
So if she gets into this program- she will be heading off super early for college. I am not emotionally ready for that!!! Getting those plane tickets with 3 on the way there and only 2 on the way back hit a little harder than I was expecting.
8 Likes
My daughter told me kids taking a gap year at her school wore “GAP” shirts last year.
16 Likes
Not C26’s, but Boulder would have required this. I thought it sounded good but also another layer of expense for those a flight away! I imagine there are some exceptions eg international students who wouldn’t have or wouldn’t be able to use their visas yet, etc.
UIUC has a one day registration/orientation in June/july that is mandatory in person for everyone within a 500 mile radius, which I thought was quite a wide reach! They also have “welcome week” full of social and academic orientation activities the week before class begins (move in is 4-7 days before depending if LLC, time slot etc). Idk how widespread these are, Boulder I think had something similar but nyu didn’t.
I don’t know whether to 
or. 
this post!
3 Likes
University of Florida - “Preview” - Two Days 8a-5/6p.
There are several options to chose from so it’s not as if we can’t make one work. So we looked at our 10 day break when we’d be driving down to the barrier islands outside of Charleston for one of our summer breaks - and picked a Monday/Tuesday session that would allow us 3 days of break, then two days at UF, and then back for another 5 days of break. Plus instead of a 7 1/2 hour drive Raleigh-Gainesville and back, it’s down to a 4 1/2 Charleston to Gainesville and back which isn’t bad at all.
But wait, then there is a 5-6 day orientation week that starts immediately after the two day freshman move in period in August… I’ll be driving her down a day or two early, buying the bulky stuff (rug, fridge/freezer, chair/futon) in Gainesville, moving her in, hanging out for another day to see if she still needs ‘dad’ (most likely she will be eager to have me eat breakfast with her the day after move in and then say “Oh, yeah you can leave now”) and then drive back.
I spent 5 days for drop off with D22 at University of Texas - Austin for her move in but she was 1st, totally new city / new school and we flew in, so there were a lot of Target / Lowes / Costco runs. Spent 3.5 days for drop off at Purdue for S24, but we drove in for that one so mostly I felt like I was orienting him on - here is student health services for when you hurt yourself during school hours…and here is where the city medical urgent care / ER is for when you hurt yourself outside of school hours…
So for D26, I think she is in third child mode of “it’s my turn, and I don’t need everybody babysitting me anymore, I’m off to do my thing”… So I could probably do a 3 day - drive down the day before, move in on day 2, two store item trips, eat lunch on day 3 and then leave… and we probably won’t hear from her for two weeks.
5 Likes
Since you may be doing fly-in / fly-outs for the next 4 years - may I suggest you consider Indianapolis International versus O’Hare.
It’s about a 90 minute drive going due east on Interstate thru nothing but (corn)fields. IND is on the far west side of Indianapolis - so you do not go into or around the city to get there, and it’s considered to be one of the most efficient airports in the nation. Plus car rentals are a breeze there. This makes the fly-in and drive to UIUC and then the reverse Drive to IND / Fly-out a pretty predictable tight window. ORD itself faces lots of flight delays - plus you get the unpredictability of the drive into ORD because you do have to go into the suburban sprawl that borders the city and swing around from the south to the (north)west or you have to go into the city and cut thru it via interstate. That can be a rather variable drive time.
7 Likes
I like your D’s suggestion of using “Campus” so that it’s Familiarization and Adaption to the Campus and Environs of Tech - FACET! Still a mouthful, but like your D said, it’s an actual word LOL! My S26’s summer orientation is just called Orientation, and then once he’s at UVA, the next 6 weeks are called Wahoo Welcome lol. I still giggle at Wahoo, ‘Hoo, and I’m an alum!
This is constant here at our house. “Are we missing doing something?” lol. We are grateful that UVA has a checklist with deadlines on the Student Portal which is very helpful at keeping my anxiety at bay. lol
That’s great that she’s so close to home! Our S stays at the dorm 1 night, and we, parents, are staying for 2 nights since Orientation starts at 8:30am! AND we have to pay as attendants (S26 is “free” or I’m sure it’s embedded in his tuition/fees)!!! Orientation registration at UVA isn’t like concert ticket buying, thank goodness - they have spots set aside for every orientation session for the most popular classes. S26 wasn’t worried, and he ended up with a date that works well for our family.
What a cool way to end your high school years! Congrats to her! I can’t believe she’ll be done by the end of next week! How does AP testing work at her school?
1 Like
Yes, we’re grateful UVA does a summer orientation. For students who live more than 6 hours away from Charlottesville, they are given the option to register for a summer orientation closer to move-in day to save $$ on travel. I thought that was very considerate of them.
That’s exciting! Is that pre-college program at RIT? I like that it’s 2 weeks long - gives students a sneak peek at how it’s going to be like in the fall. I like that!
I would feel the same way if my son ended up going super early for college!
1 Like
Thanks, we have already looked into that - the main issue being that there’s only one daytime non-stop flight a day from here so may or may not work.
They are putting more flights into Champaign itself though and starting to think it may make sense just to do that (flights connect at ORD) rather than fly then drive or bus, at least for when C26 is traveling solo.(I know the bus is easy from ORD, we saw where it was when we rented a car from there last time, but the buses get full, flights get delayed etc). CMI airport is only like 15 minutes from campus. We’re testing it out flying back that way from registration (we got C26 to choose 6/22 so making a Juneteenth long weekend out of it, Chicago first). The flight was barely more expensive than just the flight from Chicago too, but I don’t know if that’s typical pricing.
Definitely logistics are one drawback for this college!
1 Like
Thankfully, we live relatively close to UVA, and UVA gives international students and students who live 6 hours or more away the option to attend summer orientation closer to the fall move-in date so they don’t have to travel twice to UVA and save $$ !
3 Likes
D26 FINALLY got a passkey into the housing portal. And thank goodness. Now we need to actually fill out the form, but that’s tomorrow’s hurdle. She too is distracted with AP exams and prom plus her close-knit circle of friends. And the new BF. I’d love if there were an orientation overnight thing in the summer at her university but there is not. And that’s probably a good thing for my personal sanity because even though she’s super outgoing and would normally enjoy something like that, I highly doubt she’d agree to attend right now.
We have 20 more days of school, then exams, then senior week. So a little while to go!
4 Likes
I’m not counting days but our schools always have exams last week of semester so we have senior week first (2nd last week of school), then exam week, then graduation on the Friday at the end of that week! So busy!
3 Likes
Yes, it is at RIT.
This one is called the New Signers Program. It is for students that fall under the NTID umbrella (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) that do not have/or have very little ASL.
I think the goal is to help all students under the NTID umbrella to be able to communicate with each other at an easier/more comfortable level. Helps build the over community experience.
The students that fall directly under the NTID college program will immediately move on to another orientation program that goes up until the start of classes. Where students like my D26 that are crossed registered and attend other colleges at RIT will have a week until their orientation starts with the rest of all incoming RIT students.
I assume most will go home that week- but they give an option to stay on campus. My D26 has picked that option 
Though it is advertised as an intensive ASL course- it also acts as a nice pre-orientation experience. (And when you look at the schedule- it looks like a summer camp with all the fun outings and experiences they have planned!) Plus they will get 4-hour credits for this course, so that is a nice added bonus!!
5 Likes