Have you joined parents Facebook groups?
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Anonymous
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No. Didn't when my oldest was applying, he's 3 years in and I never joined anything.
Don't plan to either with my current HS junior. |
Anonymous
| Did for DS who is a sophomore, once he decided on the school. I don't chime in, but have gotten some good information time to time. |
Anonymous
| I sent 2 kids to college without a Facebook account. I don't know what I missed but they got by ok. |
Anonymous
+1 I have gotten a lot of advice and tips. I just scroll by anything that doesn’t apply or isn’t interesting. Clearly, some DCUM posters never learned to do this.
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Anonymous
Same. I've already gotten some great tips. |
Anonymous
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I never pass up an opportunity to connect with others. You never know when you may need help or information.
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Anonymous
| Yes - but 99% of the posts are from moms needing one of two things: a ride to/from the airport for their kid or roommate advice because kid's roommate is a partier and their kid is not. Nothing else of substance. |
Anonymous
| I’m in a parent FB group for an Ivy and it’s alarming how many posts there are from parents whk whine about how hard the courses (usually math and chem) are. It makes me wonder I don’t know if it’s always been like this or just post pandemic but it’s surprising that the kids seem unprepared for freshman level math and science courses. |
Anonymous
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Yes, did it during junior year as all of my kids starting developing their college list. You can learn a lot about a school from other parents. You learn what the real issues are at a school, ones that the administration is never going to publicize. So you learn if finding housing after freshman year is a huge pain in the ass or damn near impossible, you learn if half the dorms are mold infested, you learn how the administration responds to major issues (good and bad), you also learn how helpful the parent community can be or not be. With all of my kids ending up 2-3K miles from home, I was glad they picked schools where the community is tight knit.
For example: as covid hit spring 2020, my kid had come home for spring break with their backpack and a 20" suitcase. Then covid hit and the world shut down while they were at home. They had no textbooks/notebooks/anything related to their classes. Before online classes began, my kid was able to get someone at the university to go to their dorm room and retrieve their books/notebooks/items they needed for academics. The school then allowed another parent to pick them up and ship them to us. And I Venmo'd the parent. A month later, thankfully roommate was able to clean out the dorm room and ship all of my kid's belongings to us. But if roommate had not been able to go, I had 15+ parents who were willing to send their local kids/or themselves into the dorm room and pack up my kids things and ship it to us. Same goes for post of "my kid is sick and needs something". I've seen local parents go to the hospital to sit with a kid they don't know with appedicitis/emergency surgery/health issues and be the local parent until the parents can get there 24 hours later (have to fly). You name it, I've seen parents happily step in to help out. I for one am glad my kids are at schools with helpful parents. |
Anonymous
| I'm anxious enough as it is. I can't be around other parents who are just as bad - everyone feeds off each other. |
Anonymous
Was that the "We are . . . here for you" (Penn State) group? What the local (and not so local) parents and alums will do to help out a student is amazing. |
Anonymous
| I thought it would draw me in and make it harder to let go. This is their life now, not mine. |
Anonymous
| We joined a Facebook page after our daughter committed (she's a sophomore now). It's somewhat useful, but it's also kind of fun watching helicopter parents freak out. |
Anonymous
oh there definately can be drama. here's a few entertaining examples: 4 or 5 years ago, the parent complaining that the cafeteria their kids eats breakfast at has been out of bacon for the last 2-4 days. Who should the parent complain to? Let's just say it's still referred to as "bacon gate" at least 3-4 times a year when people start complaining about ridiculous things. Parents who are currently complaining about "when will we have the exact date for graduation ceremony It just says a certain Sat or Sunday in May". Well there's a reason for that---they use the same stadium in town as the NBA team, and that's playoff season and the NBA team gets preference over the university---so gotta wait for playoff schedules to come out. Yet many many parents are complaining, several also saying "their kids were 2020 HS grads and missed out on so much that year, it's not fair to be missing out as a senior in college". It's like: just book your flights so you can be there the entire weekend. There is nothing the university can do---considering for 2022 graduation they held it at an OUTDOOR venue, it was 36 degrees that morning with a windchill below 30 and the ceremony lasted over 4 hours, and they started 45 mins late because they waited for people who drove to ceremony and parking was backed up. (yes I had a 22 grad and we froze our asses off, so I'd have gladly had it inside in a nice warm, almost new NBA stadium thank you). But I think the best was a parent arguing for 3-4 days (until the thread was shut down) that it is NOT fair that some dorms are nicer than others (there is one 2-3 yo dorm on campus at that time, most others are 40-60+ years old, only about 25% have AC, the new one does. This parent seriously wanted the university to spend millions to retrofit all the old dorms with AC---hint the school is in an area where there are typically only 2-3 weeks in fall that are warm (yes it can be warm and humid) and maybe 1 week in spring...but see above graduate was freezing one year, and one year I picked my kid up and it was 45 and rainy that week and it really had not been warm yet that spring. The parent seriously thought it would be a great use of university monies to do this---not to mention that it's so cost prohibitive simply because no building that old has the wiring in place to support window AC units in 100+ windows. So yeah there is some drama, but mostly it's entertaining and in reality most parents are really helpful and kind. Both kid's schools have 20%+ First Gen and one has 25% Foreign students, so there are alot of parents who need help navigating the process |
Anonymous
You can skip those discussions, and just read what is more important/helpful for you |