Out first DD went to school 45 min. from home so it wasn’t hard to be there for her. DD18 will be 1000 miles away but in the same city as her sister. Since it’s a totally different situation, I was hoping to get some tips from other parents.
I’ve seen one to get parents weekend dates for flights. What came up that you weren’t expecting, what was handy, etc? I appreciate any advice! If there is already a thread for this, please point me in the right direction.
We have Amazon Prime and I will have her sign up for the student deal. She won’t have a car and will be in a warm climate. We will also open an account for a bank that has branches here and on campus. Is there any benefit from opening it while on campus during orientation? Otherwise, we’ll open it here to avoid lines.
Did your child adjust ok? She’s a homebody but really looking forward to going so far. Thanks for tips and suggestions!
My older daughter went to college 2000 miles from home. I saw her university twice, when we moved her in before first-year orientation and when she graduated. I didn’t feel comfortable spending money to visit her in between because our family income was low at the time.
Most of her trips to and from the school went fine, but she did miss a flight once. A friend drove her to the airport and they just didn’t leave in time. Lesson learned (for the most part; she missed a flight for the second time this January, at the ripe old age of almost 27, when she put her phone on silent and thus missed my very-early-morning wake-up call.)
She adjusted very well to the school and to being far from home. She loved her school. The fact she wanted to go far away and that she adjusted well didn’t surprise me much, although I was a little worried during the week before our trip to take her to college because she became very anxious.
Think ahead for medical appointments when she's home. I scheduled VERY EARLY both kids dental, dermatologist, doctor visits, especially the December ones as doctors get slammed with all trying to get in before end of insurance year.
-the obvious things; get the academic calendar and eyeball fall, winter, spring breaks, parents weekend if you go, etc. Don't make flights home for Tuesday before Thanksgiving if she has a Wednesday class....have her talk with instructors first. Same with Christmas. But! if she's doing Southwest, be on top of it, as those fares go quickly. Be prepared to have her fly back Thanksgiving Saturday, because sometimes that's all you can find!
-If she's in same city as her sister, bonus! If planes get cancelled, she's got her plan B!
Not sure if you/she is going back this summer for orientation but when we went in July, we flew Southwest and each took our 2 free suitcases (large) filled with stuff for her dorm. We rented a car, did a bunch of shopping then, and rented a small storage unit near campus - unloaded the suitcase contents and purchases there. It was less than $75 for the month we needed it until school started. When we flew back to move her in, we took another 4 suitcases and cleaned out the storage unit. It was nice to not have to ship boxes from home. We ordered things from Amazon (Prime) and they were waiting for her at campus too. It sure made things much easier when we got there at move in and we barely had any shopping to do. Oh, and if you have an IKEA nearby, their blue bags are awesome for move-in. Buy a bunch. They even have ones now that zip up. Great for storage. We’ll use them again to pack everything back up to move out in a few short weeks!
Definitely book your hotel for parents’ weekend - and move-in weekend if you are going then too. They book up really quickly near campus. You can always cancel.
Encourage your child to keep things simple. Is X absolutely necessary, or is it just one more thing that will need to be stored or shipped home at the end of every school year?
Our son went 1,800 miles away from home to college. We were nervous about him being so far away with no real local support group if he needed it. But four years later he graduated with a job to start right after graduation.
Parents will be surprised how children adapt and thrive. It was a great experience for him, and we parents enjoyed traveling to Colorado for visits. Each year I’d say we went out 3-4 times a school year for special weekends and athletic games. He always flew and we always flew.
I had two that attended school over 1,000 miles away.
It was a very big help that both schools (i) were a direct flight away rather than connecting, (ii) did not require a long drive from the away airport to the school, and (iii) Southwest served both of the away cities. Southwest’s cheap fares, no change fees, and two free 50 pound bags per passenger are huge. The kids always had a duffle bag with them on every trip home carting stuff back and forth. We’d book flights many months in advance for any possible trip, and then would frequently change/cancel them and use the fare for another future trips.
Having a family member near the school will come in handy in a lot of different ways.
Make sure you plan for doctor visits and prescriptions while your kid is still home and on breaks. In my experience, dealing with the student health centers or local docs is a big pain to be avoided if possible.
We too always flew Southwest. When he went out as a freshmen my wife and I also flew out and we each checked two suitcases for free on Southwest, six total. We always flew Southwest because of non-stop flights, cost, free checked bags. Our son did return to college after winter break on United once, and my wife and I returned once on Southwest, both instances because of flight times and price.
We use the Hopper app to find the cheapest flights. But for move in we made the road trip. We didn’t go back during the school year.
We also used the Ikea zipper bags to move her stuff. They have straps that you can use like a backpack. We used space bags to suck the air out and make more room. Fridge rental seemed pricey so we ordered one from Lowes and picked it up when we got there.
I agree that coordinating dental, dr. appointments has been a pain. Fortunately our dental insurance covers “twice per year” not just “every 6 months”, makes life much easier.
Another vote for Southwest. Besides free checked bags, we seemed to add up miles for discounted/free tickets faster. Southwest also allows ticket changes without a fee - which turned out to be very handy several times. We packed 4 big boxes and 2 suitcases when we moved our daughter to college 1000 miles away. There are max dimensions listed on the airline web site - the big boxes were def easier to pack and held more stuff. We also took advantage of the Bed Bath and Beyond college program: order stuff at home and then pick it up at the destination. No need to prepay and if you sign up they will mail a 20% off the entire purchase coupon.
I attended college 1,200 miles away from home; our D, a junior, is attending college 4,800 miles away from home and she is also doing fine despite not having a car. As other posters have noted, an important consideration is for her college to be near an airport served by commercial airlines. She is an experienced Uber and Lyft user when she can’t get rides from friends with cars.
She has become quite an experienced flyer and has connected through all of United Airlines’ domestic hubs without any problems. We use an airline credit card for most of our purchases and use airline award miles to purchase her plane tickets (we book them one way) since the change fees are cheaper if changes need to be made. Make sure you enroll your D in TSA PreChek if she will be flying a lot as it is a real time saver and stress reducer. I recommend her enrolling in an airline frequent flyer and hotel frequent guest program.
Our D is financially responsible so I gave her a credit card as an additional user on my account on the condition that it can be revoked in the event of irresponsible spending. She also has a Target charge card in her name which she uses to build her own credit rating. She opened up a checking account at the bank our family uses and my name is also on her account so I can transfer money online from my account to hers.
Because we live so far away, it’s impractical to bring all of her stuff home during the Summer breaks, so she has rented Summer Storage through a local warehouse that has a pick-up and delivery service serving her college. We pre-ordered many of the items for her dorm through Bed, Bath, and Beyond and picked them up at the store closest to her college. Depending on what her roommates have brought, she has sometimes rented a mini-refrigerator and microwave when needed since it is easier than having to store them when she is away for the Summer.
Most colleges have pretty good IT support, but I also purchased AppleCare for her laptop computer in case she has hardware problems (she hasn’t thankfully).
Eye doctor/contact lens renewals were a bit of a pain. Eventually we went to online lens purchases shipped to her at school, although she still had her annual appointments at home.
DD is attending school on the opposite coast. We never attended parents weekends. We found that it is much cheaper to fly her home then for us go there. We got her credit card that earns miles. Originally we planned to do all medical checkups in the summer when she gets home but it is very difficult to plan since we didn’t take in consideration summer / winter internships all over the country.
We are looking into this as a possibility and I have one tip and some questions too.
My tip is airport “practice”. We flew down to a college visit this Sunday and back yesterday. As much as I could, I had DD lead the way, locate the screens and figure out the gate, etc. (DH walks faster though so she wasn’t always in the lead!) We have flown on family vacations numerous times, but if you’re just following your parents you don’t pick up on stuff that much. We talked about various scenarios and such while we were there. Will your DD have a layover? If so, is there a plan for if she would get stranded there due to weather? I’m not sure what ours would be…I’ve heard at that age they can’t get a hotel for the night, so do they just stay at the airport?
For this trip I had finally gotten the Southwest app and it was pretty helpful. I’m trying to figure out how to make that work with DD, whether she needs the app logged into my account, or whether I’m getting her own RR number and login. Maybe both. I may do a mix of paying with points and paying with cash. I also wasn’t able to figure out how to get it to show my boarding pass on the app which I would like to be able to have hers on her phone.
The location of her potential college is such that we could do a long drive for move-in/move-out. Honestly with the layover and a small delay, it took about as long to fly as it would have to drive so as parents we might just drive when going. But we don’t plan to send a car with her and have her drive that long herself, so it was good to have her see what it is like to do the flight.
To expand on the great tip from @bjscheel about teaching travel skills: There are no non-stop flights to our DS’s school (although American Airlines is starting one just in time for his senior year…). He is a space cadet (said affectionately), so we were a bit worried about the many things that could go wrong: missing planes, losing or forgetting ID, misreading itineraries. To the extent possible we have insisted from the beginning that he think ahead and make all his own travel arrangements–getting to and from airports, searching for and making reservations, remembering what he needs. I have been pleasantly surprised with how well he has handled it. I won’t say that there haven’t been a blip here and there that required parental attention, but we have been pleasantly surprised by how well he learned to navigate on his own, including when things have gone wrong (redirected or cancelled flights, for example). I think that making him responsible for his own travel to and from college has actually taught him some life–and problem-solving–skills that I hope will translate to other parts of his life…
If you are planning to fly her to school, look into Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up her sheets and towels at the destination instead of mailing all of that. You shop in your home town, and they assemble everything you want to buy in the store near the college. Then, you can still buy only a portion of it, no obligation. Its a very nice service. Also all colleges offer summer storage, but she can store things with her sister, perhaps. There are also sheet and towel buying programs at some universities, a bit lower quality than BB and Beyond, and may not last all four years.
Don’t have much to add to the tips above except that I would advise booking holiday flights as soon as you find out the finals schedule. We also tried to have our daughter have layovers (there was no direct flight between her city and our city) in cities where either she knew someone or we knew someone in case she was stranded with a holiday storm or cancellations. Also good to check with your health insurance. Any time there is a medical situation that is not handled by the student health center, you could incur out of network charges. Some insurance policies have a “student out of network” medical deductible that is different from regular out of network (which can be $$$$$).