What surprised you most about your DC's first year in college?

[Anonymous]

How neat he kept his room and good habits he kept as if we were there hugging him - laundered regularly, loved most profs. Also like others regular Communication, even daily and FaceTime. The bad-- how Greek life so dominates the party scene under the nose of admin, dangerous drinking, drugs, rushing Thurs-Sun, freshman girls drawn ineasily, ambulances and alcohol Poisoning not uncommon, most underage. Acid, coke, etc. that said many support
Groups, visible counselors abound. If my kid were a partied I would demand FaceTime on a Fri night! The top students with good habits need to work to find each other, but they always do. First few weeks toughest so if u can do attend weekend if in the fall!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised how quickly it went by! Hard to fathom that he's a quarter done with college already. Surprised how easy a transition it was and how little we heard from him. A bit surprised that he has a serious girlfriend....I thought it was more of a hook-up culture in college these days but what do I know. Mildly surprised how easy he found the coursework at a highly selective LAC. Definitely surprised that colleges no longer send report cards to the parents that are actually paying the bill.

I graduated from college in 1983, and colleges didn't send "report cards" (grades) back then either.

I don't see what paying the bill has to do with it.

I graduated in 1979 and my college didn't do that. Today it would be a FERPA violation.

[Anonymous]

It surprised us how much we fell in love with her school. We got to know a new area, a new state. We were kinda sad to have it end.

[Anonymous]

Mono. Kicked our kid's butt first semester. Yowsa. Doing great now but, wow, the first semester was tough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised how quickly it went by! Hard to fathom that he's a quarter done with college already. Surprised how easy a transition it was and how little we heard from him. A bit surprised that he has a serious girlfriend....I thought it was more of a hook-up culture in college these days but what do I know. Mildly surprised how easy he found the coursework at a highly selective LAC. Definitely surprised that colleges no longer send report cards to the parents that are actually paying the bill.

I graduated from college in 1983, and colleges didn't send "report cards" (grades) back then either.

I don't see what paying the bill has to do with it.

I graduated in 1979 and my college didn't do that. Today it would be a FERPA violation.

What has surprised and annoyed all of our children is that they don't have the ability to REQUEST that the grade reports be sent to us. So now they just give us their log-ins and passwords -- the oldest was the first to make the choice and then the others followed suit since we don't ask. But it would be nice if we had our own log-ins and passwords.