<p>My son is an incoming freshman at a large private university. He has done all the things he needs to do – housing survey, orientation, and bills paid. He has yet to receive a roommate or dorm assignment. </p>
<p>This school started posting housing assignments in JUNE and said they would continue to post them through July and into August. Well, we’re 1/3 of the way into August, and he leaves for school in less than two weeks. If he wants a microfridge … the deadline for ordering such a thing from the university vendor is this coming Friday. </p>
<p>I find that I am distinctly put off – especially after having written a very large check to the school that includes an <em>estimated</em> housing charge. Estimated because they haven’t assigned him to a dorm.</p>
<p>He’s decided that he’ll call the housing office on Wednesday – but I am starting to panic, and therefore vent!</p>
<p>He came to me and said he’d determined that he would call them on Wednesday. I said I thought Tuesday would be fine. But … it’s his decision. He’s worried about being annoying because they said they would do it in August. </p>
<p>Oh yes, he did get a letter from Housing in mid-July that said they knew he did not have a room assignment, but would he register his arrival date for their planning purposes. Which he did. And it’s coming up FAST.</p>
<p>I think one of the most important things a young adult needs to have learned is not to be afraid of being annoying. You should see how many posts there are in different areas of this forum with kids saying they have really important questions or a major issue at school, but they don’t want to call the appropriate office to check up on the situation because they are afraid of being annoying. There are people who are in fact paid to answer phones and take questions.</p>
<p>What makes calling on Wednesday any less “annoying” than calling on Tuesday? </p>
<p>Help your son to understand that asking questions does not equate to being annoying.
If he feels that asking questions and asking for help is annoying, he may be too afraid to ask for help once he gets to college. He will need to overcome this idea if he plans on succeeding in college and beyond.</p>
<p>I would have called a month ago, myself, not my kid. Three years ago when D1 got off the waitlist, everyone already got their housing assignment, and D1 got a room in the most undesirable dorm. She called the housing office, they told her that she would have to wait until she arrived on campus before they could do anything(would that be before she unpacked or after?). I called housing and explained to them that it wouldn’t really work for us. While I was on the phone with this nice lady, she was able to give me few options and we managed to get D1 a new room.</p>
<p>We want our kids to deal with issues by themselves, but unfortunately many adults do not take kids seriously. While my kid is in school and I am paying for it, I have no problem in picking up that phone to talk to administrators. D1 is learning to be proactive and not wait for people to get back to her.</p>
<p>There was just an article in the newspaper about the younger generation doing more and more texting. They don’t make phone calls because they’re thought to be “annoying.” Kids will actually text to say, “Can I call you at 4 today?” </p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder to tell my son it’s OK to call people when you need something!</p>
<p>This might not be it, but my first thought was that he was nervous about being perceived as “annoying” if he called, so he wanted the extra day to mentally prepare himself for something he finds a little stressful. Or maybe he’s just a procrastinator.</p>
<p>(I have mild social anxiety and find phone calls, emails, etc. to be rather nervewracking, so I do this all the time. My mother tells me to call XYZ or email my piano teacher back about the recital, and my answer is invariably, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Drives her up the wall.)</p>
<p>Anyway, have him call (like your planning) but tell him to get the name of the person whom he talks with, that way you don’t have to go through the whole jont with another person.</p>
<p>If he’s nervous about what to say, you could try a run-through or role play of it beforehand. Make it funny by being a variety of “administration characatures”, and presenting outlandish scenes - “cnp55son? oh, yes, here’s your file, hmm, we seem to have placed you under the viaduct in our fabulous Cardboard dorm.” In realty, they’re probably working on it and you’ll know any day, it’s just nail biting to wait.</p>
<p>All I can think of is that they ran out of beds and are looking to see who didn’t pay their bill before shunting freshman off to the Hyatt. Which they supposedly weren’t going to have to do anymore because they built enough housing.</p>
<p>Call ASAP. It might be better if you make the call. I know that the kids need to learn to do so, but he’s going to college and will have other opportunities. At this point you need an answer.</p>
<p>As a parent I would also call. Yes it’s important for the kids to self advocate, but when it comes to “invoice” related activities, I have no problem stepping in. Generally I ask my kids if they would like me to call and generally they say “yes.”</p>
<p>I’m another of those people who have to wait a bit before making these kind of calls. S is the same way. If it were my son, I’d let him call tomorrow (one more day isn’t going to make that much difference), and would run through a practice call with him first, and would make sure he got the name of the person whom he talked to. If your son is like my son used to be, he’ll need to make the call in a room without me breathing down his neck, and he’ll need to calm himself a bit in advance of making the call.</p>
<p>I would not do other calls unless he really ran into a situation in which a parent needed to step in, which I think is doubtful.</p>
<p>I would help him handle whatever needed to be done to follow-up. Tempting though it would be for me to step in and do it for him, I’d know that he would need to learn how to do this because this hassle/mess-up won’t be the last that he’ll encounter while in college. By guiding him as he handled this situation, I would be preparing him for other situations in college. </p>
<p>One thing for parents who’d step in to keep in mind: While away in college, students may run into major hassles and not tell you about them. They may even ignore the hassles until it’s too late to do anything about them, and some permanent damage results. An example could be a student’s avoiding talking to a prof who has apparently miscalculated a student’s final grade. If the student avoids contacting the professor, the wrong final grade could remain on the student’s record forever. </p>
<p>Despite my own anxiety about making these kind of calls, I can do them. I didn’t learn to do them until well into adulthood because my mom used to step in for me. My S – despite his anxiety about making these calls – is able to do them well and very appropriately now, and learned at a much earlier age than I learned. That’s because when he encountered these kind of situations, I taught him how to make the calls, role played with him, and then let him make the calls even when he was in high school.</p>
<p>I would call in this situation. My help has not hinder D1’s development. She is a pro now in advocating for herself. Kids learn from their parents.</p>
<p>read through half of this thread thinking this was an overenrolled public (like Iowa?)…a little suprised that this ended up being a $53,000/year private…shame on BU…</p>
<p>yes, it would be wonderful if he would make this phone call immediately, but imo, this is unacceptable, especially since they guarantee housing for freshman…you need to call and hope that res life is more amenable to parental calls than at Syracuse (but that’s for another day and thread)</p>