As a newbie is there anything you wish you knew going from the beginning or “words of wisdom” you’d like to share…
Get hotel and restaurant reservations for Family Weekend, Harvard-Yale Game, and Commencement way in advance. Don’t stay right in New Haven for those if you can have a car available; prices are wildly jacked up. At other times, the Courtyard, Study, and Omni are all fine and walking distance to campus.
My son and I drove two days to start his first year. This gave us hours of time to talk, and relax.
When he was on a four day FOOT, my wife arrived by airplane. I drove to NYC to pick her up, and we helped him move in together.
Then we made the trip back home. More time to talk.
A road trip is a good chance to disconnect. We enjoyed it.
Treat yourself to some white clam pizza at Pepe’s
Second that! Our 35th reunions have come and gone, our kids weren’t accepted, and we still pull off I-95 whenever we can to get a clam pizza at Pepe’s (and then cannoli or sfogliatelle or biscotti or something at Libby’s next door).
I have a few great shopping tips.
This came from my daughter’s Godfather who kept buying her great Yale gear that I didn’t see in the bookstore. He goes to Fanatics.com and for everything you buy you get points for discounts. I did a lot of my holiday shopping on black Friday there this year. Its a lot cheaper than the book store and Campus Customs. I bought my mother in law a baseball cap that said Yale on the front and her name on the back for $15. It was really nice quality when it came in.
Campus Customs is the only place you will find residential college merchandise. However, we found that the RC was selling their own gear at the RC the day of move in at a table and it was considerably less expensive. We bought sweat pants there for $15.
Also if you ask at Campus Customs, they almost always will give you a student discount of 10% I believe.
The admissions office has discount coupons for the B&N bookstore. They never expire, grab a few and keep on hand.
Books are much cheaper if you buy them online. Try Half.com - but make sure that you buy them asap because they may take a while to come in and you don’t want your kid to miss work because of it.
Don’t waste too much money on tee shirts for your kid. It seems that my daughter will get a new one every other week from one place or another. Although she wears the ones we bought the first week she was accepted the most because she is emotionally attached to them.
I personally do not recommend buying books online. For my daughter, the savings might have added up to $20 or $30 per semester, but the Yale post office seems to be completely incapable of handling beginning of year traffic. Books could sit there for a week before the student gets a notice it’s arrived. I just wasn’t willing, as a parent, to have my kid deal with an extra layer of stress. (and the lines at the PO can be ridiculous)
I’ve only been to Pepe’s once so far but look forward to going back. Is the line always long there - we stood in line for about an hour to get a table - or is that more just in the warm weather months?
@donnaleighg, I agree if the price difference is $20 or $30. I think that the Yale PO is shameful, and a sorry example of what happens when accountability is missing.
That said, the cost of math/CS textbooks is such that the savings are considerably higher, and might be worth the extra hassle of ordering online. We are Amazon Prime customers, so we get notified when shipments arrive; this might be available to non-Prime customers also. On more than one occasion, DS was told by the PO that his package was “in that pile over there.”
I have to agree on the poor state of the Yale PO unfortunately . . . monopolies are usually not good for customers and this is no exception.
I dunno, my kid was a STEM major (astrophysics) and her books just weren’t that expensive, and the savings not that much.
Amazon Prime is half off for collegians with an .edu email address (and mom and dad get to be users too! whoopee!)
What if your kiddo had a very trustworthy and reliable friend off campus? Could that address be used to bypass 06520?
I think it’s rotten that the PO has declined – in the pre-email/social media days (shortly after the earth’s mantle cooled), I loved stopping by my PO box to pick up my mail. What good ol’ days!
Not only is the post office slow but they are horribly rude to the kids. I was in line waiting for a package with my daughter that I knew had been delivered there and yet she had not received any notice of it. The girl in front of us was treated so badly that my daughter was terrified to ask him to look for her. I handled it and made it rather clear that I wasn’t going to be treated the same way. Alas she had her package. It had been put aside for the wrong PO box. I do like the idea of having them sent to a reliable friend. I wonder if maybe sending them to a local business would be effective as well. I know she is a regular at the coffee shop around the corner 
Oh and one of her books was supposed to be $350 and she only paid $100 for it - it was certainly worth ordering online. Same with her paperbacks for another class. Used they were only $1 each and the new ones were $17. I suppose it all depends on what books you need.
@Memmsmom @canoe2015 @T26E4 @IxnayBob @ElMimino @donnaleighg @JHS @Hunt
Many thanks for the solid advice!
Those of you discussing dining options had me envision eating my way through our drop off next fall. One way to fill that empty nest 
I’ve heard thePO is horrible. I like the idea of finding someone off campus as an alternative.
When we visited campus last summer I noticed a venue that had live music (I believe it was close to Bar) do any of you know if it is a 21yrs and older or open to all ages?
I’m sure there is plenty in terms of entertainment for students but I remember being annoyed at my college town that none of its music venues allowed under 21.
tonymom, maybe you’re thinking of Toad’s on York Street, a few blocks away from Bar. I’m not sure if it’s always open for <21 but from what I understand there are certain nights anyway when it is.
Toads place is the bar you are talking about and for its concerts and on Wed nights and Saturday nights, I know it is 18 and older. They have a check for ID at the door. On Wed and Sat nights they are college kids only. Wed is Yale students only and Sat is Yale and Quinnipiac students. I also know that they host lots of bands and most if not all of the concerts also are 18+. Toads is on the same block as the Campus Customs store and Barnes and Noble store. Technically I believe it may actually be on campus because of where its located but its really close to everything if it is not.
@Memmsmom
Thanks! My kiddo loves live music so I was hoping there was a venue that was under 21 friendly…although I don’t think there will be any problem finding fun distractions on campus
@T26E4 - my thoughts exactly. I lived in Wright Hall and the post office in in the basement. I was always passing through looking for a letter from home - especially one that had $20 bucks in it. Now with electronic banking, text messaging and FacTime, all the fun has gone out of going to the post office to look for news and money from home.
We finally got my son a PO box at the UPS store on Dixwell Avenue, and I wish we had done so sooner. The Yale PO is a disaster, with lines of over an hour even a few weeks into the term. He does like to order books and other things on line, and the UPS store is efficient, friendly, and emails him when packages arrive. I can’t imagine the Yale PO being worse than it is now, but then I think about the increased enrollment when the new RCs are built. Yikes!