Are you active in your kids college

[Anonymous]

My DC is starting at W&M this fall. I have been surprised at the amount of snail mail and email that comes to us as parents, the number of programs they offer for parents at orientation, opportunities to be involved, etc. Is this common nowadays? Is it just more sophisticated fundraising? I remember my parents just dropping me off at college back in the day and being totally uninvolved except for writing the tuition checks. After being involved in my kid's high school, I sort of think college needs to be his thing, and it seems weird that we would be active when we are not alums, although I can imagine wanting to be supportive if he is happy there. Curious to hear the level of involvement of other parent son their kids' colleges if they are not alums.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you don't like the school and you are fishing for validation of your feelings.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, OP. I was involved with my DD's school through her high school years, but do not intend to get involved with her college like that. We pay tuition, attended orientation and might add a small donation at some point, but won't be on any parent committees or anything. I consider her college to be her own "thing". As a family we enjoyed and appreciated the community that we had with her PK-12 school, but she is now heading into "adulthood" and needs to pave her own way and develop her own relationships.

I don't think you're off base at all in feeling like you should step back. Go with your gut on this one.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure but I have a friend who is an academic advisor, and friends who are professors, and they say the helicopter parenting is pretty outrageous the past few years. Maybe some colleges are creating ways for parents to be involved now, in response. Seems ridiculous to me.

[Anonymous]

I have two kids who are 20 and 23. The 20 yr old just graduated.

We flat out told our kids their tuition would be paid and we'd support them through school with the understanding they'd keep us apprised of their grades, and get help if they were slipping (we'd pay for tutoring if they needed that and it wasn't free).

We dropped them off at school and other than that visited once a semester. I never spoke with any of their professors except when we ran into one at a restaurant.

[Anonymous]

Because of the ever-increasing degree of helicoptering, many schools have put into place all sorts of "orientation" activities for parents, mostly to get them away from and out of the hair of their kids at drop off, and in response to demand (with of course some input from the development office!). But truly they are to distract you, and if you don't feel the need or have the time, simply dropping your kid off after a visit to Bed, Bath and Beyond to fill in whatever is needed and helping DC lug their stuff up the stairs and possibly move furniture, GET OUT OF THERE! Some of the orientation activities may be of use and important to hear, i.e. health care/mental health policies, how they skirt privacy versus wellbeing of students away from home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure but I have a friend who is an academic advisor, and friends who are professors, and they say the helicopter parenting is pretty outrageous the past few years. Maybe some colleges are creating ways for parents to be involved now, in response. Seems ridiculous to me.

This completely. You've got the right idea, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids who are 20 and 23. The 20 yr old just graduated.

We flat out told our kids their tuition would be paid and we'd support them through school with the understanding they'd keep us apprised of their grades, and get help if they were slipping (we'd pay for tutoring if they needed that and it wasn't free).

We dropped them off at school and other than that visited once a semester. I never spoke with any of their professors except when we ran into one at a restaurant.

+1 Except we rarely visited every semester. And I certainly am not going to make a donation to the university while I was still paying tuition.

College is a time for my kids to be on their own.

[Anonymous]

We have one that has graduated and two in college. I couldn't tell you their class schedules. I know what they are majoring in. They come home on breaks. We talk/text about once a week. I am not at all involved in their college lives.

[Anonymous]

Parent programs at Orientation, parent advisory groups, and other parent-specific programs have been around since at least the 90s. Not a new phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids who are 20 and 23. The 20 yr old just graduated.

We flat out told our kids their tuition would be paid and we'd support them through school with the understanding they'd keep us apprised of their grades, and get help if they were slipping (we'd pay for tutoring if they needed that and it wasn't free).

We dropped them off at school and other than that visited once a semester. I never spoke with any of their professors except when we ran into one at a restaurant.

+1 Except we rarely visited every semester. And I certainly am not going to make a donation to the university while I was still paying tuition.

College is a time for my kids to be on their own.

+2 No sooner had I paid last semester's tuition, than we got an "invitation" to donate to some school fund or other. Uh... no. Also, not involved in any parental committees, and didn't visit during the school year - DS came home instead, which was his preference. He needed time at home to decompress. I was very involved in his earlier schools, but college is definitely time for the kids to do their own thing.

[Anonymous]

We have a DS (our first to go to college) at W&M and were (and still are with a long line of kids behind) active at the high school. We chose to join the Parent Family Council at W&M and I can share our experience. Being "active" at a child's college is not like high school. You are not asked to design or implement programming. We have found it to be very informative and useful. As for visits to campus there is programming on Parents Weekend and the spring weekend when admitted students are invited to tour the campus. There are some faculty invited to join the lunch at both. What we took away was a better understanding of the student opportunities at W&M, and experiences of other parents' students.

I don't think it has been an infringement on "his thing" at all. We have met interesting parents from around the country and heard their viewpoint on the joint program with ST. Andrews which we had no knowledge of. We had opportunities to hear about lots of campus topics from safety to study abroad. I think it was very informative and actually a lot of fun. Williamsburg is a beautiful town to visit and having our own agenda made it interesting.

Yes, they will ask for a donation. In our case we qualified for in-state tuition which is much less than the other schools he was considering, each of whom charged over $60,000. We felt it appropriate to give something to make up some of this, and would have done so without the group. You can allocate to anything you wish if you so desire. The group also has a number of out of state parents who say that even their tuition is below the comparables and are happy to give. No one seems bothered by this part because the school provides such a good education.

I would say if you are at all active in a high school environment you would enjoy this interaction. We have found it very pleasant and interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because of the ever-increasing degree of helicoptering, many schools have put into place all sorts of "orientation" activities for parents, mostly to get them away from and out of the hair of their kids at drop off, and in response to demand (with of course some input from the development office!). But truly they are to distract you, and if you don't feel the need or have the time, simply dropping your kid off after a visit to Bed, Bath and Beyond to fill in whatever is needed and helping DC lug their stuff up the stairs and possibly move furniture, GET OUT OF THERE! Some of the orientation activities may be of use and important to hear, i.e. health care/mental health policies, how they skirt privacy versus wellbeing of students away from home

Oh please - involved parents have always existed. What kind of parent doesn't help their kid get settled in.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I hope this isn't the new "thing"! My son is going to college in the fall, but we're in Europe for work, so he'll be on his own, a continent away, at college. We were planning to fly him to us for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer. I hope he isn't the only one whose parents don't show up for random events...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, I hope this isn't the new "thing"! My son is going to college in the fall, but we're in Europe for work, so he'll be on his own, a continent away, at college. We were planning to fly him to us for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer. I hope he isn't the only one whose parents don't show up for random events...

It's not a new thing but I was the kid at college in the NE whose parents lived in Europe. I went home at Xmas/summer but never at Thanksgiving. For that or spring break I went to friends places or family in the region. My parents came once for parents weekend and for graduation. That's it.