I’m starting to hear/read about Parents Weekend and am reminded of our one and only parents weekend when our D was a freshman. I thought it would be fun to share experiences…
The Good - We were soooo ready to see our D after dropping her at school 7 weeks prior. I literally couldn’t wait to see her as it felt like an eternity! There were a lot of fun events on campus for parents - tours of honors college and buildings, meet and greets with professors, concerts with the school bands and choirs, great free swag, a lovely brunch, etc…
The Bad - All the hotels in the area jacked up their prices. We paid $800 for a horrible hotel with a wet carpet from a ceiling leak, mold on said ceiling and in the bathroom, etc… Thankfully it was a Marriott property and we ended up getting our money back after we complained. Restaurants were also crazy overcrowded, we had long waits even with reservations, and service was iffy at best. Worst of all, the first round of exams started that following week so our D was worried about finding time to study.
The Ugly - Drunk parents at the football game trying to relive their youth. I was hit on in front of my husband and child by some drunken guy who kept wanting to buy me more beer. We also watched an intoxicated mom fall down the entire run of bleacher steps. Miraculously she wasn’t injured but it was quite scary and her daughter looked mortified.
After freshman year, we always picked a different weekend in the Fall to visit!
Y’know what’s cheap? The weekend AFTER Parent’s weekend! No lines anywhere. Hotels drop their prices. Your kid’s friends aren’t trying to balance brunch with their own parents and dinner with their roommates parents. And the campus will be picked up, spotless, and ready for Fall.
We went to Parents weekend for our son freshman year only. There was always a school musical, and he played in the orchestra. We barely saw him. Luckily we had relatives to stay with.
Our daughter was across the country, and school was on quarters. They had parents weekend in the spring. We never went. Other parents adopted our DD and that worked well. We repaid them graduation weekend when we had a poolside dinner party!
Just got back from Parents Weekend. First one! Purposely booked a hotel a little farther away. My son wanted to get off campus for once, so we went bowling, took him shopping. Did none of the scheduled stuff.
Our first Parents Weekend with older S made me not attend another until younger S’ senior year. We were all gung ho for the weekend. We even got a hotel room down the interstate so we could attend both days (Friday-Saturday). We didn’t realize S would have class all day Friday, and he was half sick and pretty down. And it was cold for mid September and raining. There’s not a lot to do in Lexington, VA in the cold rain outside, and we were not into the parents stuff. We did walk around some and saw VMI and I bought a sweatshirt from the W&L gift shop to keep warm. The football game at night was sort of fun, but overall I found it depressing. It was also very crowded with parents who were obviously much wealthier than us. I know S never felt self conscious, but I did around the parents.
I much preferred just driving up on a few random Saturdays a year (we were 2:30 away) and taking him out to lunch or dinner and then going home. We did the same for younger S. However, for his senior year, his GF’s (now FDIL2!) family was coming down for parents weekend and asked if we would be there. We did go to that one and went to the football game - in the pouring rain again!!! But, it was more fun there despite the rain. But in general, I hated the crowds. I don’t do the parents activities… I would much rather pop up on a random day where we can enjoy the visit without all the hoopla.
The good: Went to my first D1 hockey game, and it was such a good time.
The bad: D24 texted us on our drive up to tell us she had just found out some upsetting news (boy-related), and she was in a very upset state (on the verge of tears) the whole weekend.
The ugly: I booked the hotel so late we literally got the last hotel room in town. It was horrendous (like, blood on the coverlet, only 2 functioning light bulbs in the room, the smell of fumigation and cigarettes lingering everywhere).
Overall, it was not a good weekend. So, are we complete masochists and doing it all over again this year? Why yes, yes we are. We’re looking for redemption! This will most likely be the last one of these we attend, so hoping to go out on a better note.
Our other big mistake was not really planning anything specific and just assuming D24 would would take the lead on activities (there were a zillion going on all weekend)…
Let’s just say this time I have plans, back up plans, and back up to the back up plans for each day. Not leaving anything to chance.
We never visited on Parents Weekend. Our kids were lucky enough to have friends whose parents would include them in a meal on those weekends. And then we’d travel to the area another weekend in the semester and include those friends in a group dinner then.
The introvert in me was much more comfortable without the crowds and “mandatory fun” and all of the kids got a couple of great meals out of it.
One PSA based on bad experience–if your kid goes to a school near a (or more than 1) big school, double check dates for Parents Weekend or Alumni Weekend at those schools as well. You can think you’ll have your pick of hotels by going “off weeks” only to realize the only option is the scary hotel down the highway.
It’s year #2 for us and so far, no plans to go visit over Parents Weekend, which is same as homecoming weekend. Going to visit the weekend before instead.
Check the dates that hotels open up for commencement…. that was our piece of learning after a bad parents weekend experience. We booked 366 days in advance which seemed insane except it wasn’t….
No joke! I lucked out totally by finding an airbnb. It was a brand new listing and while not perfect the 200 bucks/night beat the heck out of 800 plus!
Got slammed in May, 2 graduations, paid more in Clemson than Boston (although Boston was a hot mess, apparently they canceled my reservation in January and I missed the email, so had to scramble and pay close to $900 a night). Last one is local, thank goodness, no hotels, trains or planes.
We did the one freshman year. It was great to see DS, meet teammates, etc. although he was dragging a bit from one of those “overwhelming exposure to a new set of germs” illnesses (which his roommates also had.) Personally, I enjoyed a lot of the programming (games, sitting in on classes, a capella groups, etc) The weather was beautiful, and Maine has spectacular falls, so hard to be unhappy!
We got organized late so had to stay a bit of a distance away.
We’ll be at our 6th parents weekend this year. It would be our 8th in a row if it wasn’t for Covid. We have obligations and meetings with the administration so we make the trip. This will be our last, which isn’t a bad thing. Luckily the school provides us a discounted room and feeds us.
Went to S22 parents weekend his freshman year - it was fine since we lived in driving distance from his college at the time (since transferred) and we didn’t have to get a hotel. We also went to S24’s parents weekend last year and paid through the nose for a crappy hotel room. Fortunately, I did reserve dinner a month in advance so that wasn’t an issue but all in all I’d go another weekend if possible. Too crowded and typically there aren’t enough unique activities to make it worth the cost, crowds and hassle.
We always went a different weekend. Both daughters were in sororities that had their own parents’ weekends, so we’d go to those instead. Also, both went to colleges that were less than 3 hours from our home, so it was easy to pop in without too much planning.
Never went to a parents weekend for my S25. He goes to WPI, which is on a quarter system. The quarter is so short that we knew when he was a freshman that he’d be stressed out and not want to spend time with us. Instead, we visited him over fall break (he had to stay on campus for his sport).
For my younger son, a current college freshman, we went to parents weekend last weekend. I told my husband to consider it more of a weekend getaway for us, where we’d also briefly see S25. So in that vein, I planned a different type of trip. Instead of paying the jacked up price to stay at a hotel in Clemson, where there’s nothing to do but the college, we stayed in a sweet little AirBnB in Greenville. Because of the driving distance, we had to take all day Thursday and Sunday to drive. But Thursday night we explored Greenville a bit, and found a fun place to eat dinner and hear music - it was like date night, but not in our town. We continued the theme Friday morning - S25 couldn’t see us until late afternoon and there wasn’t much programming for parents - the only thing really was college specific info sessions, and those didn’t start until 4:30. So we had the kind of lazy morning that you typically don’t do at home, because there’s always laundry or chores to do, and a nice walk and breakfast out. We only saw our kid for 30 minutes in the early afternoon, then he had to do work so we saw the little bit of downtown Clemson, then brought the kid for the 4:30 thing - which was good. It was really the only thing that made the trip useful. S25 is in a unique major, and they were running an info session at their off-the-main-campus space with a few senior professors and students. It was a really good opportunity to see his space. After that the kid ditched us but we watched a volleyball game that was fun then went back to Greenville and found an outdoor movie to watch and did more walking around their cute downtown.
We hit the football game on Saturday which was not great - we were looking forward to the hoopla of big southern school football (which is new to us). And we got some of that in that we were invited to join some tailgates and everyone was super friendly. But no school in the south should have football games at noon. It was too damn hot. People were passing out and falling down the bleachers, the first aid tent was packed, and we were roasting and miserable (plus the game play stunk). We abandoned the game and did a little walking around campus with S25, but by then he was exhausted from the heat and in a bad mood from the game play, so we left him early, didn’t even try to do dinner with him. Took ourselves back to Greenville for dinner and found a live band to listen to for a while.
So moral of this story - there wasn’t much about parents weekend that was particularly appealing and/or useful. But since we treated it as more of a weekend getaway which just happened to have a few hours here and there with S25, we weren’t disappointed and had fun. We likely won’t be going back for parents weekend - other than seeing that one academic space, there was nothing really useful or special about it and it’s a LONG drive for us that requires taking two days off work.
