Your finaid offer will come out after Spring break. Figure out how to pay.
Figure out where you are going to live.
a. UT dorms
b. Private dorms
c. Apartments in West campus or North campus
d. Some other apartments around Austin
Decide if you are going to bring your car or not. Students can use free bus around campus and use Mega bus to travel to other cities, or they can pay for UT garage, garage in other dorms/apartments, or parking permit.
Decide if you want to bring bicycle.
Open student bank account. The most convenient are University Federal Credit Union or major banks on the Drag (Guadalupe St) - Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America.
5.Register for summer orientation, take all the tests, answer all the questions, don’t forget about vaccinations
Here is UT information. all you need to know. http://orientation.utexas.edu/freshman
Parents. When you go to Family orientation, join Texas parents. You will get emails with all kind of useful information that students might forget about, but you can remind them. Scholarships, jobs, internships, major events, where to buy what, all kind of tips and advice. http://texasparents.org/
Create UT account and ask your student to give you proxy access to his/her account (proxy has to be renewed every year) https://idmanager.its.utexas.edu/eid_self_help/ https://mybealonghorn.utexas.edu/my/create-account?f=5E05431D-9F68-4158-A72F-74CF6DC7B9CF
You will be able to access some important student information
What I owe – you can pay your student’s bills
Financial aid – you will most likely need it for taxes
Dine in Dollars (meal plan for students living on campus) and Bevo Bucks (UT money that can be used for food or other expenses on and around campus, can be used by any student living anywhere). You can add Bevo Bucks to your child’s account. Etc
You will have access to some other resources as well, like the university class schedule on registrar’s office (not your child’s but general schedule)
There is some very limited number of stores on the Drag (Gualdalupe) like CVS or University Co-op, but nothing big.
If you live on campus you will not need furniture, kitchenware etc. UT Housing will provide you with list of necessities http://www.utexas.edu/student/housing/index.php?site=1&id=96, they will also mail some flyers where to buy stuff to benefit UT.
It you rent an apartment you need to go for serious shopping, plus you probably need to do your own grocery shopping during the school year.
I am not from Austin. So any corrections and additional information will be appreciated.
We usually go shopping north of UT campus because the traffic is better.
The closest shopping center with Sears and HEB is Hancock Center 1000 E 41st St, Austin, TX 78751. You can use I 35 or take Red River from UT campus.
Further north there is a shopping center at Barbara Jordan Blvd. Bed,Bath & Beyond, Marshalls, Navy, The Home Depot, Best Buy etc
Next to it is Capital Plaza Shopping Center with Target. 5621 N I H 35, Austin, TX 78723-2431
Also with regard to shopping:
If you don’t already have an Amazon Prime account, that is something to consider. You can get Amazon Student- 6mth free/ then 50% off regular cost= $49 a year. (there may even be a better deal that can extend the free mths!)
I understand a lot of students buy things online & take advantage of the free/fast shipping.
Your student needs to upgrade their “My UT EID”, if you have requested Financial Aid. It is under the FA tab in My Status. Currently ours says our FA is being reviewed "Please check back in two weeks and click ‘See CASH’ ". Clicking ‘See CASH’, shows what you need to do to complete the FA process. This is the same place where your student needs to sign the FERPA release so parents can have access etc. Updating the ‘My UT EID’ is their form of a On-Line Signature authorization. Supposedly, you have to go to Austin to do this. BUT, you can click around til you find a form that the student can get Notarized and thus mailed it to the UT Austin FA office. This is good for 180 days, or until you go to an orientation visit this summer. As I read these FA pages, it looks like this is needed to complete your FA Package. I could make an argument that it’s really only needed to release the FA funds when needed prior to starting in the Fall. A UT administrator gave me the yes and no on this, so we’ve completed it anyway and mailed it to Austin, just in case.
Yeah this was really confusing me because I wanted to get my financial aid information before going to orientation, but it seems as though you either have to upgrade the UT EID earlier or just wait till orientation for financial aid.
@TXDad56 when I looked at my daughters status under “CASH” it says that she needs to show proof of identification and that she needs to actually go down there to do it, is that the same thing as what you are talking about??
@amottmers , yes it is. If you then click ‘Learn more about Upgrading My UT EID’, it will open another page. Scroll down and click ‘EID self Help Tool’. Next page click ‘Continue’. Next page click ‘Download Form’. The form is self explanatory. Again, I’m not 100% sure we need to do this now, even though it says it’s ‘required to complete the FA application’, The UT admission counselor said yes and no. So…we did it. And it’s only good for 90 days, which in my mind covered the time most people expect to receive their FA package from colleges.
I believe the financial aid information can be viewed without upgrading your EID. My son upgraded the EID during orientation in June. And before that, we already saw the financial aid information on the web. Well that’s what I recall, but I don’t trust my memory anymore :).
Just happened to look in the FA TAB in MyStatus and the ‘See Cash’ link page has been updated. They must have received and updated the UT EID I sent last week. It now shows that everything is COMPLETE, but that “Your financial aid award information is not yet available.” From what I’ve been told, FA packages are suppose to start coming out around mid March. Well, nothing for us to do now but wait…as usual.
Does anyone know if the financial aid info (whenever it is posted in mid-March) will include any merit scholarships? Or is the FA tab only for need-based aid and/or scholarships?