Things you know now, you wish you knew then (After Admission Edition)

Parents Forum
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Have them create a file (or use Apple wallet) with their insurance info, passport info, license info, credit card info, etc.

Also, include any scholarships they have and what the requirements are for yearly renewal if there are any, and then add the dates onto their calendar (My friend works in the guidance office and you’d be surprised at how many kids lose local scholarships after the first year because they don’t send in their grades or contact the scholarship sponsor.)

If your kid will be flying back and forth, figure out how to optimize your credit cards or loyalty programs.

If your kid goes to a campus where people traditionally move off-campus after freshman year, be aware that at some schools people start signing leases in Oct/Nov. It feels like your kid just got there and way too soon for them to be thinking about such things. They might feel like everyone else is making plans and start to panic. I know at our school, and I’m assuming others, there are still plenty of places available around spring break. We began looking with a strong preference for campuses that guaranteed 4 years of housing so I was dreading dealing with any off-campus housing issues but there are many complexes set up for students near most campuses.

I’m not sure of the actual statistics, but it seems like kids who go with a random roommate placement are at no disadvantage when it comes to getting a “good” roommate.

Know the hours of the health center and the urgent care facilities you can use if they are closed. Also, have a plan on how you would get there. This one comes from experience.

See if there is a parent FB page. While I was reluctant because I thought it would be all drama all the time, the tone of the page I joined basically squashes that. It has turned out to be an incredible community with local parents volunteering to drive sick kids to ERs and injured kids to physical therapy appointments, provide emergency housing when kids have been stuck in another part of the state due to a snow storm or felt unsafe in their living situation, offer rides to the grocery store because they were going anyway, pick up a kid with a flat on the side of the highway, receive packages prior to move in and provide local resources for car repairs, therapists, computer issues, etc.

Find hotels with a good cancellation policy and then book about a year out for Parents Weekend, move-in, graduation, etc. Not only will they fill up months ahead of time, but the prices will increase the closer you get to the event.

Carefully look at the requirements for your major. Is there a summer session course required? Is it a possibility you will need to stay an extra semester because classes are only offered on an “every other year” or “fall/spring semester only” schedule? All of this will affect finances and most scholarships are only 8 semesters.

Are there prerequisite courses for your major or gen ed classes? At DS school many kids can not enter their major or certain gen ed classes until they test out of three prerequisite math classes. The placement test is given after you have committed, so I think some kids were caught off guard and thought they would pass and are now having a lot of trouble passing the online remedial classes. I’m not sure if it would have influenced their decision to attend if they knew they’d be taking 3 online courses and that they were notoriously hard to pass, but it sounds like a bunch of kids transfer or end up taking those classes at a CC over the summer. It seems very stressful. DS says that he sees a lot of people struggling in his chemistry class because they can’t do the math that is needed. BRUSH UP ON YOUR MATH SKILLS and if they have a study guide online, use it. DS finished Calc 2 junior year and did 2 or three math classes beyond that and said he was glad he took a look at the study guide.

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Yes, be familiar with requirements. DD’19 wanted to double major which meant no room for any class that didn’t count. The course catalog was our best friend when the advisor misunderstood and put her in unnecessary classes.

I don’t know how many colleges this tip applies to- my DDs went to community college and a directional- but those schools had foundation (or department) scholarships given every year or semester. There was a common app that applied to them all. A lot of kids didn’t bother. Have your kid do it every time.

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If your child doesn’t have a passport - apply for one now. Also, get the extra pages.

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I totally agree on the passport, I wouldn’t want my kids to miss an opportunity because of paperwork!

This is more trivial, but I’ve worked on introducing my kids to a variety of foods so that they can confidently accept a dinner invite and have a solid idea of an order that isn’t nuggets and fries - they can go out for Indian and know they like tikka masala, for instance, or california rolls at a sushi restaurant. (We do not live in a hotbed of cuisine here, so some of these have come from buying a bunch of frozen Trader Joe’s meals and doing taste tests! (We are not doing the same with drinking, though…)

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You’d be surprised at how many times DS passport has come in handy as a form of ID beyond traveling.

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Global Ebtry is awesome too. And Capital One reimburses you the application fee, $100. Also the renewal fee every 6 years.

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So S24 really wants to attend a school OOS. If he really goes through this, I might need to start searching for healthcare provider near the school. Now, would a 18 yr old be a little too old for pediatrician? He likes to think he is gonna be a big man, but i still think he is… not quite there yet…

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Before you do that, you might consider whether you can just continue to use his health care provider at home for regular check-ups and the college or university health service when needed for prescriptions or occasional care. My daughter’s pediatrician will see patients through college, providing age-appropriate care – much easier to stick with someone she knows for now, and then she can find a new provider when she graduates and perhaps moves to a new city or joins a new insurance plan. In the meantime, she can get prescriptions at her OOS college, and if she needed immediate medical care, our insurance would cover that in her college town (her college doesn’t have its own comprehensive health services but rather contracts with a hospital and pharmacy adjacent to campus).

If your son needs more frequent health care from a regular provider, the situation might be different, but if it’s just a matter of scheduling annual check-ups, he can do that when he’s home on break.

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Ah good points.

S24 gets sick easily during winter, which sometimes triggered his asthma. So probably need someone local, or close to his school if he really needs to get it check out.

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So my daughter has similar issues. Our plan was to use healthcare on campus. But if she has an emergency, I found an urgent care near the campus, or she would call 911 to get to a hospital. If she needs a follow-up after an emergency visit, we were going to use campus provider. It’s another reason why we like Georgetown and GW. They have a hospital on campus. Our pediatrician sees kids until they turn 21. But it might not be a bad idea to transition to an adult doctor. I’ve been trying to figure when and how to do that for my daughter. I just haven’t had the best experience with providers, and I’m really worried they won’t know to take some of her past history into consideration.

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DcMdVaMom That is my worry too if I move S24 to see an adult doctor. The last two times we moved between systems/providers, they have turned into huge mess.

I will also need to check if there are urgent cares near the schools as well, now that you mentioned it.

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Not surprising. That’s exactly what I’m expecting to happen. It sounds like we’ve both been through the medical system enough with our kids to understand that nightmare.

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We thought about this carefully for S23. His regular pediatrician and his pediatric specialists all said they’ll see kids until they’ve graduated. So far, that’s what we’ve done. He saw his specialists over the holiday break. The plan is to wait until he’s graduated and settled in his new city for work. If he settles near home, his peds specialists will just transfer his care to docs at the adult hospital next door.

I did spend quite a bit of time figuring out which clinics etc. accept our insurance. I recommended certain facilities for urgent/emergent care that isn’t related to his issues (like he’s sick or broke his arm). I recommended the more hectic hospital at a nearby med school for anything urgent that is related to his diagnoses. It gave me peace of mind to search the specialists at that same hospital to just see there are adult providers that seem good if he needs to transfer his care there.

He’s gotten such amazing care from his docs that we aren’t in any hurry to transition soon.

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I think this is one reason my kids have been fine with dining halls, I’ve never been fond of “kid” food, and there is really nothing my kids won’t eat (tikka masala was served about once a month here). We also live in an area where pretty much any cuisine is available, and they’ve tried it all. As a SAHM, I rarely repeated a meal more than once a month, and I don’t like fast food (although I did try Popeyes chicken this year and it’s not that bad, and my husband and sons will get it on the road).

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My 25 (almost 26) year old son just switched providers and gathered his medical records from his pediatrician. His pediatrician prescribed his ADHD meds, he would go in every 3 months, and kept forgetting to switch, and he needed his prescriptions. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on that waiting room wall, 6’1”, 220, beard, without a kid with him.

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They are an authorized user but have it only for emergencies. Otherwise, they use their debit card (limited to $100 max in that account to protect their money in case it’s lost or stolen).

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I made my daughter an AU on one of my cards when she got her license, entirely for my convenience - if she has the car I have been known to send her to the grocery store or Target to pick stuff up for me. It is a good one for travel as well, so she will use it on her school trip to europe next month (and then just pay me back.) Obviously, it would be different if I didn’t feel like I could trust her with it, but I intend to have her keep that through college for emergencies, necessities, etc.

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I have memories of when my father and I shared the same pediatrician, actually. Although my dad was one of those guys who looked like he was 14 when he was 25.

ETA: but I agree with most posters who say that pediatricians will usually see 'kids" through college age, so keeping with the same doc is sometimes a good plan. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that not all pediatricians love reproductive healthcare, so if that is the case for a kid’s pediatrician, it is sometimes better to switch to an adult doctor.

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Great advice. In addition to keeping up on requirements for scholarships…ensure that they are fulfilling any requirements to maintain health insurance once they’re over 18.

This will mean different things for different families, e.g. my S23 must send an enrollment verification letter each semester from the registrar to show that he is a full time student to maintain his health insurance.

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All of my daughters started seeing a gynecologist at 16 in addition to their pediatrician.

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