<p>DS is a senior this year and I will miss many things about Yale. The P.O. is most definitely not one of them!!! Whenever possible, I do what The3Bears does: ship FedEx Ground to the RC. I’ve found that the cost is usually lower, too. But when I order books online, they are often sent through USPS and have to his PO box. :p</p>
<p>I tried shipping UPS to the RC once and it ended up that he had to pick it up at the Elm Street building. So I didn’t do it again. Seems the UPS truck took it there so I just use the Elm St. address plus PO box for online orders. Anyhow, tomorrow is his birthday, but he said not to send him anything baked since it’s too hectic this time of year at the post office. And he said he has his friends now and will be fine without something from home. Too far to drive from California:(</p>
<p>There seem to be some misconceptions about delivery times to USPS. First, unless you are sending the items “Express” the delivery times are not guaranteed. Priority shipping times are estimates. Second, just because an item is showing “delivered” does not mean it is available to be picked up by the student. It only indicates that it has arrived at it’s final destination (i.e The Yale PO). A clerk still has to go through all the packages and place notices in the students PO Box to notify them it is available. This is different then when you ship to a residential address. I have sent many items via USPS and it always is available within 1-2 days of showing delivery at the PO.</p>
<p>The same is true for items sent UPS or FedEx ground. Unless you pay for 2nd day or Overnight there is no guarantee on it’s delivery date. Perhaps the UPS office is better staffed and you may get it faster than USPS but typically it is MORE expensive than the flat rate shipping of USPS.</p>
<p>My point with the post office has nothing to do with “guarantees”. My point is that a package from my house to Yale (60 miles) took 8 days from shipment to yellow slip in the PO box (and yes she checked each day near the end). Amazon took 7 days from “your package is shipped” to yellow tag in the mailbox, and 4 days from “shipment delivered” to yellow tag in the mailbox. If others think that’ OK I’m cool with that, but I think other parents ought to be aware of what they might expect <em>at this time of year</em>. Other times the delay seems to be only a day or so.</p>
<p>Kdog, I of course understand that delivery times are not guaranteed. And I understand all too well that “‘delivered’ does not mean is it is available to be picked up by the student”! But this is exactly my complaint. When tracking reveals that a package arrived at the P.O. Monday morning, and it is still not available Friday afternoon, I think that’s an excessive delay. As I said in my OP, they should staff up better at back-to-school time.</p>
<p>My son is lucky in that we live a few hours away and were able to drive him and his belongings back to Yale. But many Yalies, including all his suitemates, fly in from much further away. As donnaleighg says, they and their parents will benefit from a warning. And I am still annoyed that he won’t be able to order books and receive them as quickly as he should.</p>
<p>Yale does so many things well that you’d think this would be managed better, esp. considering the number of students who come from far distances.</p>
<p>There’s a UPS store close to the bookstore. A box there costs about $120 a year or about $13 a month. They will hold your packages for you from any delivery service (USPS, ups, FedEx, etc). They email you when it arrives and you pick it up. After being burned by trying to get packages by the various delivery methods, this was our solution. Very reliable. Put the street address and the box number as simply #xxx or in the suite number space. Hasn’t failed us yet.</p>
<p>Great idea, prefect – will definitely discuss this option with my student for future. Thanks!</p>
<p>[Yale</a> station faces continued delays | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/09/05/yalestationfacescontinueddelays/]Yale”>Yale station faces continued delays - Yale Daily News)</p>
<p>Same old story – except now they’ve added the distribution of UPS and Fed Ex packages too – who thought that would be a good idea?</p>
<p>We just got our daughter a Kindle and she is ordering her books through Amazon, they load instantly and if you get the newer version they can take notes, highlight stuff to go back to and refer to etc. My son got one for Christmas last year and we finally bit the bullet for our daughter, they both love it and it saves the hassle with the Post Office. Just an idea.</p>
<p>Stopping back to report that D has received all but one book already. Some were sent separately by Amazon due to not being ready as fast as the others. I know she had a few different orders.</p>
<p>I do like the Kindle idea. Thanks for the suggestion. It was so much easier back in the day. Go to the bookstore, pick new or used, done!</p>
<p>Final mail update here: Son got his yellow slip but every time he went to PO, lines were endlessly long. Finally resigned himself to waiting; reports it took 100 minutes to get his pkg. We discussed the UPS and tablet options for future.</p>
<p>It is ridiculous that they don’t handle this better…</p>
<p>[Yale</a> station faces continued delays | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/09/05/yalestationfacescontinueddelays/]Yale”>Yale station faces continued delays - Yale Daily News)</p>
<p>Amazon shows things delivered/signed for …yet getting them to K1 is another story.</p>
<p>Kindle/digital books wouldn’t be a feasible option for K1 who is a STEM major.
In fact right now K1 is waiting for computer engineering equipment that had to be ordered online…not something available at B&N on campus.</p>
<p>K1 did get into a seminar --almost 200 had tried to get in and so K1 is thankful for the slot.</p>
<p>Fogfog, thanks for the link. As a newbie, I thought I’d test the system even after reading through the previous posts on here. Had the genius idea of sending the boy some homemade Brownie Rubble as a surprise. It shows it was delivered Wed at 11:43am and ‘Ready for Pickup’ but he was yet to be notified. Still waiting on a book as well. Am hoping it improves after the start of year crunch passes, but still a disappointment. Just glad I didn’t send anything in dry ice!</p>
<p>Yes, I noticed last year that UPS packages were going there. When I shipped something UPS to the RC, it ended up at the PO station. Like others, on Amazon I have the physical address of the PO station and his PO box. That way no matter how Amazon ships, it gets there. This is probably why the PO station is handling both. UPS has that address on the package. It’s really probably a result of Amazon and other online stores shipping various ways – you need to give one address that works for both USPS and UPS. And, in a way, it’s better. Several years ago, students complained about having to chase packages all over campus. Even if they had been addressed to the RC, it often became a scavenger hunt to find a package. That hasn’t happened with my younger son.</p>
<p>I hate to ask this, since I know it was answered somewhere in the 200+ pages of this thread, but I started looking and don’t have time to go through it all. Could someone please tell me how to address packages being shipped from Amazon? Is it the PO Box and the RC master’s office address? Or, as I just recently saw, the PO Box and the PO Street Address (which I don’t know what that would be)?
I stupidly ordered a bunch of books through Amazon and put the PO Box only. When I checked the status, they were shipped via FedEx SmartPost and are in New Haven, but apparently in limbo somewhere. Now I need to ship something else and don’t want the same problem.
You’d think by senior year I’d have figured some of this out… 
Thanks for any guidance!</p>
<p>This is what I do for Amazon (learned it here) and it works:</p>
<p>First Name, Last Name
206 Elm St. #111111
New Haven, CA 06520</p>
<p>Do not put “PO Box” before the number – just #</p>
<p>Except you may want to use CT not CA unless you want your stuff in California. :o</p>
<p>This is what my son has used for Amazon for the past two years without fail:
First Name Last Name
206 ELM ST # XXXXXX (replace X’s with box number)
NEW HAVEN, CT 06511-9992</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, CT. Guess I was on autopilot. Fortunately, I have it correct on Amazon.</p>
<p>Wait–what’s the correct ZIP code?</p>
<p>We used zip code 06520 for Amazon order with addressing as indicated above.</p>