Summer Pre-freshman Orientation - how common?

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@Pizzagirl

Neither of my kids’ schools had any kind of summer orientation, though they have friends whose colleges had such programs. Personally, it doesn’t feel all that respectful to parents’ wallets. Not every parent has the money to be able to schlep parent and child across the country, or have the parent take time off work.

</p>

<p>As noted above, it may make more sense for state universities:</p>

<ul>
<li>Most students are not as far away, so travel time and cost is less of an issue.</li>
<li>State universities may have more entering frosh and transfer students who live off-campus or commute, so it may be easier to handle orientation for them when they are staying in the dorm as a hotel for a few days.</li>
<li>Having entering students preregister for classes during the summer makes it easier to manage enrollment by alerting the school some weeks early about which classes have high versus low demand (so they can open additional sections of high demand courses, and/or combine sections of low demand courses, shifting faculty and TAs as needed).</li>
<li>Of course, parents are not required to attend.</li>
</ul>

<p>A private school with a wide geographic distribution of students, 100% dorm residency for entering frosh, and enough money to maintain spare capacity in all classes to accommodate shifts in demand would be different in terms of the value of summer orientation for students and the school.</p>