<p>Interesting comments, amciw.<br>
My S went to boarding school and complained about the food constantly, so I guess everything is relative. He may get tired of it eventually, but I still think it’s better than lots of other “institutional” type menus.<br>
As for the offer to let me know if he’s drinking, I appreciate it, but will decline. I’m fairly sure that he does drink at college; we’ve discussed the issue of alcohol abuse with him before school started (and at other times over the years) and it’s my hope that he does not take drinking to excess. In the dark ages, when I was in college, drinking was common - some things never change - and my mom was unaware of the details of my social life. I don’t need to know everything he does; he’s growing up and has to learn to make these kinds of decisions and choices on his own. I can only hope that we’ve given him a good enough foundation to help him make (generally) smart choices with his life.</p>
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<p>I have no doubt that there is plenty of underage drinking in large quantities on campus. It would be a very odd campus (?BYU) that does not have that. I have no problem if an underage inductee on tap night has a drink or two (or few). I would hope that she isn’t regularly imbibing large amounts of alcohol to the point of damaging her liver and brain- and making a nuisance of herself to her suitemates by constantly coming back in a drunken state, passing out or throwing up all over the suite. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is a matter of expectation vs reality- i.e, I expected the ‘alcohol factor’ to be much bigger than what my D seems to have encountered in these first few weeks.</p>
<p>Re: Drinking - D who is now a junior says that the freshman drinking subsides dramatically second semester. She was shocked at how much underage drinking goes on but after visiting several of her friends at various schools she says it is just as bad if not worse at all the schools she visited. In her experience, most kids are pretty responsible about the drinking by their sophomore year.
Re: USPS - we have always sent her care packages using the priority mail flat rate boxes and she always gets them in two days. We live on the west coast btw. So far it has worked well for us. The only time she got a package really late was when I mailed it by Usps to her RC. Since then I use her po box when sending by USPS and her RC address for all other carriers.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on packages, Dandemom. Don’t know what happened with this one, but your experience gives me hope that it’s not always that bad! I did check with FedEx Ground pricing and was pleasantly surprised about how reasonable the cost was between here and CT; a 10 pound box was under $7. Cheaper than Priority Mail; I’m going to give that a try next go round.</p>
<p>About the food: decades ago when I was there, the food was much better than most college food. My take is that it has declined somewhat, but what has really happened is that the food has improved tremendously at a lot of other colleges.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard that Yale’s food quality declined a lot when it outsourced food services, but that it has taken it back inhouse and it has improved again. I don’t know if that’s the case though–maybe somebody else has details.</p>
<p>What is your child’s experience with the transportation between Phelps Gate and Bradley International Airport, especially during “off-seasons”?</p>
<p>DS usually took CT Limo. But sometimes on days that are not the beginning or end of a semester/break, the service provided by CT Limo is sometimes not reliable, meaning that the van may not show up at the scheduled pickup time. It seems it is more likely to happen for the ride from the BDL airport to Phelps Gate than the other way around.</p>
<p>Did this ever happen to your loved one? Or, the service has been improved recently? When you have a flight that is scheduled to depart at a particular time, you really do not want to worry that the van (or bus) may not show up on time. Also, when you have just had a long flight, you really do not want to be stuck at the airport for hours. It is still tolerable if you only need to wait at the airport for 1 to 1.5 hours, but DS had to wait there for 2 to 3 hours (calling CT LIMO endless times) at one time.</p>
<p>We really like the BDL airport, but the ground trip from/to the airport is sometimes not very pleasant.</p>
<p>Mcat2: D had the same experience with CT limo a couple of times - it is very frustrating after a long flight and layovers etc. Now she only flies into Newark and takes Amtrak directly from the airport to New Haven and she likes this option a lot better. We live on the west coast so this way she can fly non-stop. There is no direct flight from our nearest airport to BDL. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are too many transportation options between BDL and campus - at least not that we’ve heard.</p>
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<p>Dandemom, Thanks for your good suggestion. I will see if we could explore that option from where we live - Texas. I know DS can fly non-stop to JFK. But it will take much longer to travel from JFK to New Haven. I heard many students from west coast(esp. California) fly (often red-eyes) to one of the two airports in NYC.</p>
<p>In the winter especially, the non-stop flight could eliminate a lot of headaches. DS got stuck at BDL (for a trip from Yale. The flight was canceled at the last minute) and Dallas (to Yale) in the past.</p>
<p>How does your D go from Newark airport to the Amtrak station? I guess the train station is not right next to the Newark airport. Does she need to take a cab or some shuttle bus between the train station and the Newark airport? With two large baggages, it is even not convenient to take a cab. Walking a long distance with one or two large baggages could be an issue in some not-so-safe part of city, even for a few blocks.</p>
<p>BTW, I really appreciate the helps from CC parents in the past years.</p>
<p>[Administrators</a> react to Elevate arrests | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/administrators-comment-arrests-elevate/]Administrators”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/oct/02/administrators-comment-arrests-elevate/)</p>
<p>Apparently, several news organizations have reported this. Yale College Dean Mary Miller also emailed students regarding the situation.</p>
<p>I may be mistaken, but I believe Berkeley screw is scheduled to be held at said club. Not sure what to make of it all. Spoke to D yesterday about it and she is concerned about the alleged force used by police (Swat gear? Assault rifles?). Not that I have had any (known) reason to worry about her behavior, but I talked to her again about “thinking and drinking.”</p>
<p>Having law enforcement in my family and knowing Yale police officers and New Haven police officers, I hope the issue is resolved soon. Police sometimes step over a boundery and students also, and both have lied in the past. I wouldn’t take either side right now. </p>
<p>Bottom line, there has been a crack down because of some violence in New Haven lately. Their safety is uppermost in everyone’s mind. My daughter doesn’t drink (at this time), but said students take many chances when drunk and not having a certain party wont be the end of the world.</p>
<p>Agree, Debruns. Party or not, everyone’s safety (both students and police) must be uppermost. I, too, hope it is settled soon (with all the wiser).</p>
<p>Bradley is a terrible airport to fly to from the West Coast - you are an idiot (or lucky to get a cheap airfare) if you do. JFK to New Haven is not as optimal as Newark to New Haven, because one train trip is better than four. JFK to New Haven requires AirTran from JFK to the Jamaica LIRR station, LIRR to Penn Station, subway (or your feet) to Grand Central, and then Metro North to New Haven. It’s not a great trip at night, especially while waiting for the LIRR in Jamaica. Newark to New Haven is a simple AirTran ride from the terminal to the rail station, and then Amtrak directly to New Haven,</p>
<p>The police stormed a Yale College party (which they knew would be a Yale College party) with the SWAT team…</p>
<p>We haven’t found Bradley to be as inconvenient (or idiotic) as amciw says. Both S’s have used CT Limo without too much problem, and when we fly in we rent a car, so no problem. It all depends on airfare prices at the time. We also use LGA frequently, taking the New York Airport Service bus over to Grand Central and then Metro North to New Haven. Never a problem either. We have not tried, however, the Newark-Amtrak itinerary suggested by amciw, so if airfare prices work for us, we may try that sometime this year, although online the schedule for Amtrak trains looks like the number of trains is not many. This might make it inconvenient depending on flight schedules.</p>
<p>Are you flying from the West Coast? Bradley invariably gives me multiple stop trips that are $200 more than a short flight to SLC coupled with a a direct route to Newark or JFK. Amtrak doesn’t work if you are getting in after 6:00, but I can usually get a flight that lands at 4:30.</p>
<p>We tend to go with JFK + GoAirport or CT limo. </p>
<p>When making plane reservations I consider what options will be available if a flight is 2-3 hrs late. Consequently I tend to favor non-stops, morning departures and airports with round the clock ground transportation. JFK is a miserable airport these days but it does fulfill these criteria for us.</p>
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<p>This is also my West coast D’s preference, on a non-stop flight. She has used Go a couple of times after being disappointed in CT Limo’s wait times, and prefers Go now.</p>
<p>Personally, I had the occasional probs with CTLimo from BDL when I was a student flying from the midwest or from visiting my g/f in CA. However, if you (a parent) are ever accompanying your kid or are visiting Yale, I highly recommend booking a rental car and airfare with one of the online airlines’ “vacation” packages. Much cheaper than a la carte (airfare and car). My last weeklong trip to New Haven saw $150 for a week’s use of a car.</p>
<p>Did anyone happen to watch the Yale Concert Band concert live-streamed last night? I knew that concerts were sometimes live-streamed, but completely didn’t think about it–S found out afterwards that it was, and we could have watched. So sorry to have missed it! (We live too far away to attend every concert). Now I’m going to have to check out that website before every concert he’s in, just to make sure it isn’t being livestreamed.</p>
<p>Are there any “Don’t Miss” activities going on that weekend? We are a short drive from campus and were planning on attending some events for Saturday</p>
<p>If you haven’t seen the schedule of events:</p>
<p>[Schedule</a> of Events | Yale College](<a href=“http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/schedule-events]Schedule”>http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/schedule-events)</p>