Residence Hall Linen Program

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I have received a mailing from a school my son ended up not attending… about buying all his dorm room stuff in a kit ~comforter, sheets, mattress pad, laundry bag, etc.
This kind of seemed like a good idea but I am wondering if it is a good deal… seems like I might do better online. Does anybody have any online sites or dorm room packages that they would recommend?
Kit 1 - 2 sets sheets , pillow, and cases
fleece, pad,egg crate pad,blanket,2 kinds of each towel, pop up hamper,underbed storage, bedside buddy ( organizer w/ pockets).
Suggested Retail $312 Their price $229/free shipping</p>

<p>Other variations also offered.</p>

<p>It stated "regular sheets " wont fit our beds. Didn’t know that!</p>

<p>Also offered -Shower Pak and First Aid Kit</p>

<p>What would you experienced parents add to this list? TV, Laptop, Docking Station…</p>

2

<p>You’ll need to check with your students school about the sheet size. Most use XL Twin. RH Linens do not get very good reviews at all as far as quality. You can do much better putting together what your student needs from Target, TJMaxx, Marshalls, etc. They will have quite a bit of dorm supplies come mid June.</p>

3

<p>Horrendous stuff! Throw the mailing in the garbage. Go to Target, TJMaxx, and/or Bed, Bath, and Beyond. You’ll save money and get better stuff. </p>

<p>There are many previous threads on CC regarding Residence Hall Linens. Most Agree–the stuff is junk and not any cheaper in the long run.</p>

<p>TJMaxx—between $14.99-19.99 for a complete set of XL Twin Sheets.</p>

<p>One Pop-Up Hamper–between $5.99-$9.99 at your local grocery store, Target, KMart, etc. You don’t need a laundry bag if you use the Pop-Up hamper. The Pop-Up hamper has handles and just carry it to the laundry room.</p>

<p>Bed buddy—waste</p>

<p>Couple of towels—$6.99–$9.99 depending where. Don’t get the big Bath sheet size. They take too long to dry and they add to the amount of laundry you have to do.</p>

<p>Bring a multiple outlet surge protector and a long ethernet cord. Sometimes the wireless offered is too slow.</p>

<p>Make up your own first aid kit. Buy a small plastic bin and fill it up with cold medicine, motrin tylenol, antibiotic cream, benedryl. stomach/diarrhea medicine, one instant cold ice pack (when you squeeze it) for an emergency, and whatever else you think you’ll need.</p>

<p>Plastic bins take up a lot of space. Keep it simple. Store your suitcase under the bed and use that as your clothes storage bin.</p>

4

<p>We did the make your own first-aid kit and this has been great. S2 just headed off to a summer internship and grabbed it to take with him. Besides what was mentioned (we added off the top of my head) a digital thermometer, ace bandage, emergen-C, cough drops, Claritin, band-aids, antiseptic wipes, cortisone cream…I’m sure there were a few other odds and ends but that’s all I can think of.</p>

<p>I ended up getting my son different towels because his wouldn’t dry in the dorm and you can image…yuck! BB&B has at least one that is specific to dry fast (it’s not simply thinner). I used coupons and bought two so it wasn’t a fortune. Very worth it to have dry towels.</p>

<p>Before you buy too much check the housing website for your students school. They should have a list of things to bring as well as tips for things that aren’t allowed. For example, our kids can only use surge protectors - no extension cords. Trash cans are provided no need to bring one. The octopus lamps you see in every dorm catalogue aren’t allowed. It’s good to check first.</p>

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<p>thanks for your comments and suggestions, so helpful!</p>

6

<p>blueiguana and nysmile have great suggestions. Check on your son’s college website for sheet sizes and allowed/disallowed items. Save your BB&B coupons. They’ll take expired coupons and you can use more than 1 at at time when you’re buying several items. My children added lapdesks to their stuff to take since they’ll sit on their beds to do work. Add a Target/Walmart gift card to stuff they take to school. The first week of school there’s always runs to the local Target to get stuff they need but didn’t think of until they move in into their room.</p>

7

<p>Do not even look at the Residence Hall Linens. They somehow get mailing lists from the colleges and then customize the mailings to look like they are the official supplier. They even have a line in there …" our stuff is the only linens that will fit “Xxx school” beds." </p>

<p>Throw it away. Quickly</p>

8

<p>

Somehow? They buy them, and the colleges are happy to take the money, though I think they should be ashamed of themselves allowing their names to be associated with poor quality items. Come final exam time parents will get a similar mailing seemingly under the school’s name offering overpriced goody packages filled with junk. Throw that one away, too, and send your kid a much cheaper package of items you choose yourself that you know he or she will actually want.</p>

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<p>Bought some sheets from them last year – the prices looked reasonable, and they were available in a color that I thought I would have trouble finding elsewhere. But when I went to check out, they asked if I wanted to upgrade the quality of the sheets for more $$. I wound up doing so. The sheets were fine, but so are the ones from TJ Maxx – and those are cheaper. And the packages look like a ripoff.</p>

10

<p>Don’t forget to check out the current offer for Amazon Prime/Student. Your student can get an account with their university email ( .edu ). When S2 got his it was free for a year, renewal at $39. Shortly after I think they went to free for 6 months then yearly renewal at $39. You get the free 2-day shipping on almost all items. Your student can use it, but things can be mailed anywhere and more then one payment option can be held. Meaning you can share the account using their login. I use it more then he does to send him things. He does order used books, some school supplies, etc. No crowds or out of stock frustrations. You can upgrade to next day shipping for $4 if its something important.</p>

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<p>^Student prime is definitely at 6 months free now.</p>

<p>Prime is really great for ordering school supplies, books, etc. and you also get video streaming, music, and a couple of other services. It’s worth the $40/year for students IMO.</p>

<p>Skip RHL. Twin XL sheets will fit. Call the Housing/ResLife office and ask if you’re not sure.</p>

<p>I also did the make your own first-aid kit. The medicine was particularly helpful, because the last thing you want to do is go to the store when you don’t feel well. In fact, funny story: The weekend before I was supposed to go to Indiana to interview for my (now) Master’s program, I got horribly sick. Chills, probably fever (I never checked), extremely exhausted. I didn’t get out of bed for two days. I felt the chills in the morning and knew something bad was coming so I went to the store for medicine; Dayquil and Nyquil, liquid. When I went to check out the cashier asked me something. I stared at him in a daze for a few seconds before I figured out he was asking me if I wanted paper or plastic bags and replied “Oh, plastic is fine.” </p>

<p>Yeah, he was asking me for my ID because you have to be 18 to buy that stuff. I must have looked/seemed so out of it (I answered a question he didn’t ask for crying out loud) that he finally just gave me the medicine. Went home, crawled into bed, didn’t get up for a full 48 hours. It was awful.</p>

<p>Anywho. The point and the important thing is to make sure you refill the medicine once you use it; otherwise it’s no good.</p>

<p>Invest in a good pair of headphones, especially if your son will have a roommate. They don’t have to be super expensive, but noise-cancelling helps. My roommate and I had different music tastes and the headphones really helped us get along; generally, whoever was home first got to pick music to play over the speakers and the other wore headphones. Unspoken agreement, and it worked well for us.</p>

<p>Something else that has really helped me over the years: I bought three of those large Rubbermaid “roughneck” bins and that’s how I store a majority of my stuff over the summer. (Random stuff that can’t go in other boxes.) Mainly kitchen stuff, decorations, books, etc. They stack on top of each other when they’re full and inside each other when they’re empty, so they don’t take up that much space.</p>

<p>Best purchase I ever made, and I still have them 4 years later.</p>

<p>Keep the boxes of anything you get: coffeemaker, TV, mixing bowls, etc. and re-use them for storage over the summer.</p>

<p>There’s also a really great “What to bring to college” list in the College Life forum. :)</p>

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<p>Didnt know about the College Life section… thanks.</p>

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<p>[Amazon.com</a> Help: About Amazon Student](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_200500380_abstudent?nodeId=201133670]Amazon.com”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_200500380_abstudent?nodeId=201133670)</p>

<p>^ I can’t say enough good things about Amazon Prime (especially the college student deal).
Need a book fast----they’ll have it to your college mailing address usually within 2 days).
When my sons were in college, they used it often. They were able to get just about anything they needed (not only books) within 2 days. Not bad at all.</p>

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<p>Won’t any “Full” size sheet (or larger) fit over a Twin XL mattress? Back in my day Mastadons roamed the Earth my mother packed Full sheets in my college footlocker. Sure, they were bigger than the mattress but it really wasn’t a problem to just fold the excess under the corners.</p>

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<p>Why mess with wrongly sized sheets when you can get sheets that fit for around $14.99-$19.99 a set? Who really wants to deal with an oversized fitted bottom sheet that is constantly falling off the bed and bunching up underneath you? </p>

<p>Check the housing website specific to your college to see what size beds they have in their dorms. It’ll be Twin or XL Twin and it’s easy enough and cheap enough to get decent sheets that fit the bed perfectly.</p>

16

<p>We also received the mailing from RHL. Logged on to pose a question, and was happy to see this thread. Question already asked and answered. Love this forum. Will head to Target.</p>

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<p>It’s that time of year! <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1150825-residence-hall-linens-they-good.html?highlight=residence+hall+linens[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1150825-residence-hall-linens-they-good.html?highlight=residence+hall+linens&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/986183-residence-hall-linens-they-dont-fit.html?highlight=residence+hall+linens[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/986183-residence-hall-linens-they-dont-fit.html?highlight=residence+hall+linens&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Totally agree with the recommendation re: Amazon Prime (we sprang the $79 for our own Prime membership, for the freebies @ Amazon Instant Video). Amazon’s textbook buyback program has also worked quite well for us: more generous buyback amounts than the campus bookstores, and our son’s spring semester trade-in credit paid for all of his sister’s fall semester textbooks, plus books for 2 of his own fall classes!
I sprang for an RHL package deal for our D (although her college doesn’t partner w/RHL, so we had it delivered to the house instead of the dorm). Her brother didn’t want/need a lot of the stuff in the RHL packages, but the D’s freshman dorm is older w/older beds, so she should be able to use everything. Now, the D does like dorm shopping a lot more than her brother did, but the RHL package (so far) seems comparable in quality to Walmart/Target stuff we would have otherwise purchased, and we can still shop for other stuff on her college’s “what to pack” list.
We recently found some nice things @ Bed Bath & Beyond (a bedrest that matches her sheets, microwavable plastic plates, etc.) and happily confirmed that BB&B does accept expired coupons (despite what their website says).
Scored excellent deals on the minifridge & microwave from the Walmart website - $114 incl. tax for both, with free home delivery (“ship to store” would have meant a 30-mile roundtrip on move-in day after a 2.5 hour cross-country drive, so we didn’t bother with that).</p>