Sarah*H
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by Sarah*H on Jul 16, 2019 13:22:22 GMT
We have to register for everything we're going to attend now (a month ago to be honest); I've procrastinated so long that I've already missed out on the ticketed event we actually wanted to attend. There are some fun sounding group activities still available though but I'm dithering because I wonder how much my college student will want to go apple picking or hiking at the state park or participate in family trivia night. Can't we just do those things on our own if that's what he wants to do? On the other hand, I don't want to just sit around his dorm room and hear "what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?" If you're an experienced college parent, have you participated in organized family weekend activities or do you mostly do your own thing?
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Post by auntkelly on Jul 16, 2019 13:31:19 GMT
We participated in group activities at both my kids’ universities on parents’ weekend. We found that the kids wanted us to do stuff with their friends and their friends’ parents. It was a lot of fun getting to know their friends and their friends’ parents.
You can always sign up for the activities and then not go if you don’t want to.
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ellen
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,516
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Post by ellen on Jul 16, 2019 13:34:51 GMT
We did not do organized events. We attended a football game and took her out to eat. We did some shopping since it's a great shopping town. That was about it.
eta - We only went to it her freshman year. It really wasn't a big deal at her school. We went out for a visit every year.
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teddyw
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,868
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Post by teddyw on Jul 16, 2019 13:38:30 GMT
We don’t go to the scheduled parents weekend. My kids never want to attend those. They prefer we come at different times and do things around that city.
My youngest dd has a friend whose mom plans a parent weekend for a whole group. Usually a football weekend.
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Post by walkerdill on Jul 16, 2019 13:42:19 GMT
I thought family weekend was so expensive. It was like $50pp to participate in the carnival they were having. I didn't not want to come & have dd feel bad that her family didn't show so we booked a hotel & picked dd up & did our own thing for the weekend. We went to the beach & she brought us to some of her favorite spots. We took one of her friends out to dinner since her family couldn't come for the weekend.
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Post by kkooch on Jul 16, 2019 13:43:40 GMT
We always participated. She went to school just outside of Boston so the price of some of the excursions were cheaper than if we bought on our own, plus we'd get bused to the entrance. Of course the trips were like Duck Tours, New England Aquarium etc. Always had a great time. There were free things to do but nothing exciting. Her college had an amazing bingo. OMG you were in line an hour early because they would surpass building capacity. The prizes were things like a huge flat screen tv, a bike, game system.
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Post by Merge on Jul 16, 2019 13:51:27 GMT
I’ll be honest, the thought of attending a family weekend and going on excursions with strangers sounds like the ninth circle of hell to me. I’m sure DD would feel the same. We’d be more likely to go and let her show us around, and spend time just with her.
What does your son think? Does that kind of thing sound fun to him?
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Post by peano on Jul 16, 2019 13:53:39 GMT
My take is that if you are the type of family who enjoys football and tailgating and specially organized group activities--I think ours last year were focused on health related things like yoga in the am--then you will enjoy family weekend. We aren't, nor was our freshman son, so we ended up doing more thumb twiddling than we wanted to--sneaker shopping for son with difficult feet, aimless trip to Barnes & Noble, unenthusiastic outlet shopping. We won't do it this year, but we might take a trip up during the fall that coincides with my medical f/u in Boston.
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amom23
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,338
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Post by amom23 on Jul 16, 2019 13:53:50 GMT
Neither of my kids has attend a college that had a family weekend. Is this a regional thing perhaps?
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Sarah*H
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,983
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Post by Sarah*H on Jul 16, 2019 13:57:14 GMT
I’ll be honest, the thought of attending a family weekend and going on excursions with strangers sounds like the ninth circle of hell to me. I’m sure DD would feel the same. We’d be more likely to go and let her show us around, and spend time just with her. What does your son think? Does that kind of thing sound fun to him? He is non-commital. I think the idea of him living away from us at college is still very theoretical to him. He’ll be fine once he gets there but he’s a kid who does not like change at all so I think he is actively choosing not to think about it. When I asked if he thinks he’ll want to go to the football game, he just shrugged and changed the subject. I would describe him as a very social introvert. And the rest of us are introverts so we would prefer to do our own thing. He could go either way depending on what his friends and their families are doing that weekend. But since his friends are all still imaginary, that is not helpful at this point for planning purposes! |
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Post by annie on Jul 16, 2019 13:58:36 GMT
Just bought my Northwestern family weekend football tickets a few minutes ago! Lol.
We will just go to the game and hang out and take my kid out to eat. Heck if I'm going to go listen to faculty lectures. Nope!
With my other kids, we did similar. Nobody cared about the "organized" activities. It was just an excuse to go visit them...
ETA: So in answer to your question, we pretty much do our own thing. We haven't always been able to afford to go, and I remember my oldest saying she was sad because it seemed like everyone else had their parents there that weekend. I felt so badly!
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Post by annie on Jul 16, 2019 13:59:14 GMT
Neither of my kids has attend a college that had a family weekend. Is this a regional thing perhaps? I don't think so because my kids have gone to school around the country and their big universities have always had them. |
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Post by supersoda on Jul 16, 2019 14:02:34 GMT
We haven't done a family weekend for my oldest, who will be a senior, and she hasn't had any interest in it. She's close enough we visit regularly enough anyway.
I doubt we do it for our soon-to-be-freshmen, either, unless they really want us to. They'll be much farther away, but we'd rather visit at a time that's convenient for our schedule and do our own thing instead of set activities. I already know I've got a work conference that will allow me a quick visit with one of my twins this fall, and it's only a couple of weeks before the official family weekend.
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peppermintpatty
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1345
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Post by peppermintpatty on Jul 16, 2019 14:07:19 GMT
We have to register for everything we're going to attend now (a month ago to be honest); I've procrastinated so long that I've already missed out on the ticketed event we actually wanted to attend. There are some fun sounding group activities still available though but I'm dithering because I wonder how much my college student will want to go apple picking or hiking at the state park or participate in family trivia night. Can't we just do those things on our own if that's what he wants to do? On the other hand, I don't want to just sit around his dorm room and hear "what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?" If you're an experienced college parent, have you participated in organized family weekend activities or do you mostly do your own thing? IMHO, they are a waste of time and money. Yes, it is nice to spend some time with my child but I found the organized events were meh AND the hotels during that weekend jack up the prices because they know they can. After the first year, we opted to just go and visit another weekend or just for the day when there was a lot less traffic and the hotels were a more reasonable price. I have friends who do the same thing because we realize what a racket it is. Generally, it is freshman parents who do the weekends. Upperclassmen parents are like "been there, done that". |
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Post by Basket1lady on Jul 16, 2019 15:33:23 GMT
We went freshman year for both kids and picked another weekend for other years. We didn’t do any of the scheduled activities for either kid. We were coming in from out of state and didn’t need to do a movie night or a lecture. We took both kids shopping for warmer gear (coming from Virginia to Minnesota, they were convinced by the beginning of October that they needed warmer clothes)! We took them out for dinner, saw a movie, and went hiking. I just didn’t want my kid sitting alone in the dorm while everyone else was off with their families. And it justified the expense of flying out there to see my babies!
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Jili
Pearl Clutcher
SLPea
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Jun 26, 2014 1:26:48 GMT
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Post by Jili on Jul 16, 2019 15:47:01 GMT
We have to register for everything we're going to attend now (a month ago to be honest); I've procrastinated so long that I've already missed out on the ticketed event we actually wanted to attend. There are some fun sounding group activities still available though but I'm dithering because I wonder how much my college student will want to go apple picking or hiking at the state park or participate in family trivia night. Can't we just do those things on our own if that's what he wants to do? On the other hand, I don't want to just sit around his dorm room and hear "what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?" If you're an experienced college parent, have you participated in organized family weekend activities or do you mostly do your own thing? IMHO, they are a waste of time and money. Yes, it is nice to spend some time with my child but I found the organized events were meh AND the hotels during that weekend jack up the prices because they know they can. After the first year, we opted to just go and visit another weekend or just for the day when there was a lot less traffic and the hotels were a more reasonable price. I have friends who do the same thing because we realize what a racket it is. Generally, it is freshman parents who do the weekends. Upperclassmen parents are like "been there, done that". Agreed! We actually never did a family weekend with our oldest for those same reasons. We're not really into sports at all, and the activities seem to mostly revolve around that. My older dd never really cared much about it. In fact, I think she might have come home over at least one of those weekends. There was always someone to hang out with whose parents did not come for the weekend, either. We did go to family weekend at my younger dd's school this past Fall. She goes to a school with a strong basketball reputation (though not this year) and their game during family weekend was against our alma mater (dh and I). We went to the game with friends of ours whose son also goes to the university (he is one of my dd's best friends). We did not do any organized activities. I highly doubt we'll do another family weekend. We just prefer to visit on our own schedule, avoid crowds, and just hang out together. |
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peabay
Prolific Pea
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Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Jul 16, 2019 16:35:04 GMT
We have attended every Parents Weekend at our girls' schools but never did the organized activities. We found lots of other things to do as a family, just hanging out together.
And the reason I always insisted we do it, despite the inflated hotel prices and the trouble getting dinner reservations etc... is for four years my parents entertained my best friend and roommate every Parents Weekend (took her out to dinner with us and everything else we did) because it conflicted with her father's golf game and her parents never came up. And I saw how sad she was and envious of everyone else - even if her parents came up other weekends, she felt like she stuck out because her parents didn't come.
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Post by cindyupnorth on Jul 16, 2019 16:54:34 GMT
We went to 1st dd's family wkend, but it was sort of a bust. So never went again, and she didn't want us too. It wasn't a big deal to her. 2nd dd's college was over 4 hours away, so we missed it, plus she was on the planning committee for it after her freshman yr, so she worked it every yr
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Post by baylorgrad on Jul 16, 2019 17:04:15 GMT
My parents came to every Parents Weekend every fall for four years. Of course, that may have been because I went to college two states away and didn't make it home that often! They loved meeting my professors at the university-organized event, and my German professor especially wanted my mom to come speak to the class because she's from Berlin. I was in the marching band, and I know they enjoyed seeing our performances -- my dad, especially, since he was in the marching band at K-State.
For those students whose parents or family couldn't/wouldn't attend, Baylor used to have (I don't know if they still do) activities for them. It was called "Negged by Your Parents Weekend." Negged was a slang term -- I never found out the origin -- meaning "stood up."
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Post by peano on Jul 16, 2019 17:32:12 GMT
I’ll be honest, the thought of attending a family weekend and going on excursions with strangers sounds like the ninth circle of hell to me. I’m sure DD would feel the same. We’d be more likely to go and let her show us around, and spend time just with her. What does your son think? Does that kind of thing sound fun to him? He is non-commital. I think the idea of him living away from us at college is still very theoretical to him. He’ll be fine once he gets there but he’s a kid who does not like change at all so I think he is actively choosing not to think about it. When I asked if he thinks he’ll want to go to the football game, he just shrugged and changed the subject. I would describe him as a very social introvert. And the rest of us are introverts so we would prefer to do our own thing. He could go either way depending on what his friends and their families are doing that weekend. But since his friends are all still imaginary, that is not helpful at this point for planning purposes! I think it may depend on whether he meets people at orientation (or may already know people there). DS had trouble connecting with people last year so his friends were “imaginary” too. |
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Post by just PEAchy on Jul 16, 2019 18:51:09 GMT
Last year was our first experience with Family Weekend. My son goes to a smaller state school & they don’t even have a football team. The big event was a volleyball game & then some other on campus activities-campus tours mostly. There were a few community events. None of that appealed to us, plus my younger son had a band competition on Sat. So, what we did was go early on Sunday morning & spent the day with ds. We went to lunch, took him shopping, he gave us a tour of what he wanted us to see on campus. We had a great time, it was very relaxed & we didn’t have to deal with crowds.
My dd will be Freshman at a different school, and beyond the date, I haven’t seen what activities they will have. We may end up doing the same thing with her.
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Post by Lori McMud on Jul 16, 2019 18:57:11 GMT
Neither of my kids has attend a college that had a family weekend. Is this a regional thing perhaps? My kid goes to NDSU in Fargo and they don't have family weekend or parents weekend. They encourage families to come when ever the want instead. |
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Post by holly on Jul 16, 2019 19:42:01 GMT
DS’s college has Dad’s weekend and Mom’s weekend. A lot of families end up going to one or the other or both. It seems they usually go to Dads weekend because there is a football game. Last year was our first year. I let my DH go alone. I thought it was important for them to have some time without me. We also only live 1 1/2 hrs away. If we lived farther I may feel differently. They went to the football game and a concert and hung out with some friends. I went down for Moms weekend in April. We went to a comedy show (Jim Gaffigan) and we did a football clinic tha was super fun and well worth the money. They fed us apps and gave us beer and wine for about 2 hrs then we got a tour of the locker room and met some players then headed onto the field and had different rotations with the players. It was a lot of fun to interact with the players and run different drills with them. They were all very obliging to photos and our star QB (who was only with us for a year) made an appearance. I was so happy to give my football loving son that opportunity.
Those were the only structured things we did. We took a day trip and checked out some waterfalls and ate lunch in a little town and I took him grocery shopping. His roommate went home that weekend so it was just us and it was nice. Luckily I was able to stay at his apt because the city jacks up the prices of hotels. It’s not unheard of to pay $300 up a night with a two night min. And $300 is for like a Motel 6. It’s a racket.
This year DD will be down there too so I am sure I will go down again. Moms weekend seems to be geared more towards doing things with mom and daughters. They have a huge craft show and plant sale (I hit both of them up when I went).
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Post by holly on Jul 16, 2019 19:42:11 GMT
DS’s college has Dad’s weekend and Mom’s weekend. A lot of families end up going to one or the other or both. It seems they usually go to Dads weekend because there is a football game. Last year was our first year. I let my DH go alone. I thought it was important for them to have some time without me. We also only live 1 1/2 hrs away. If we lived farther I may feel differently. They went to the football game and a concert and hung out with some friends. I went down for Moms weekend in April. We went to a comedy show (Jim Gaffigan) and we did a football clinic tha was super fun and well worth the money. They fed us apps and gave us beer and wine for about 2 hrs then we got a tour of the locker room and met some players then headed onto the field and had different rotations with the players. It was a lot of fun to interact with the players and run different drills with them. They were all very obliging to photos and our star QB (who was only with us for a year) made an appearance. I was so happy to give my football loving son that opportunity.
Those were the only structured things we did. We took a day trip and checked out some waterfalls and ate lunch in a little town and I took him grocery shopping. His roommate went home that weekend so it was just us and it was nice. Luckily I was able to stay at his apt because the city jacks up the prices of hotels. It’s not unheard of to pay $300 up a night with a two night min. And $300 is for like a Motel 6. It’s a racket.
This year DD will be down there too so I am sure I will go down again. Moms weekend seems to be geared more towards doing things with mom and daughters. They have a huge craft show and plant sale (I hit both of them up when I went).
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Post by littlemama on Jul 16, 2019 20:20:10 GMT
DS' school does not do a great job with Family weekend - they have a lot of activities for (much younger) siblings and then the football game and sometimes a hockey game. We do the sporting events and hang out with another family that we know from home, but rarely see at home! We all do dinner together and attend the games. that family does have a younger child, so sometimes they do some of the other activities.
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Post by maryland on Jul 17, 2019 0:43:02 GMT
We went to Family Weekend for our oldest daughter but just went to the football game, not the other activities. Her university is 5 hours away, and we couldn't get there until just in time for the game.
Our middle daughter's university is just 30 min. away, so we can visit any time! We attend all the football and basketball games as she is on the dance team and performs at the games. Her university plays in the pro football stadium, so unfortunately we aren't on campus for the football games. But they have a great library next to campus, so I have two reasons to visit often!
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Post by freecharlie on Jul 17, 2019 3:06:42 GMT
So we are going, but I am unsure whether we will register or not. If it is $70 per family, we might. $70 pp without the football game, not a chance in hell I'm paying that. I'll buy the football tickets separately and just do our own thing with DS.
Here is the schedule for the weekend:
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Post by littlemama on Jul 17, 2019 10:32:43 GMT
Yikes, $70 is a lot for that and it doesnt look like it includes the football game
The only thing we have to pay for at ds' university family weekend is the football game, which is maybe 10 bucks each (students receive free admission to all sporting events). Oh. And the hockey is club hockey, so we pay for that $5 each for us, $3 for students.
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