Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m letting (helping) my son get an apartment. I’m fine with him not coming home for breaks other than holiday visits. They are adults. He’s going to get a job and make his own decisions.

I get that...and if my DD was a sophmore or older I'd say sure. But she is 18 and I don't mean this to sound sexist but an 18 year old young "lady" being on her own in apartment complex that may or may not be in safe areas.....I haven't even broached this with my DH, but I'm fairly certain what he'll say.

If you have other children, I'd suggest you prepare them better for leaving the nest. Because this is absurd.

NP. Not absurd. My 18 yo dd looks (but does not dress obviously) like a 5th grader in stature.

Anonymous wrote:

I’m letting (helping) my son get an apartment. I’m fine with him not coming home for breaks other than holiday visits. They are adults. He’s going to get a job and make his own decisions.

I get that...and if my DD was a sophmore or older I'd say sure. But she is 18 and I don't mean this to sound sexist but an 18 year old young "lady" being on her own in apartment complex that may or may not be in safe areas.....I haven't even broached this with my DH, but I'm fairly certain what he'll say.

If you have other children, I'd suggest you prepare them better for leaving the nest. Because this is absurd.

Honestly, what is she supposed to eat? Those weird take away boxes? At least with the apartment she has a kitchen. How stupid to pay for meals, when they are pathetic boxes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point in getting an apartment if all classes are online. Social gains?

Most young adults do not want to live with mommy and daddy, abiding by curfew, no drinking, no overnight guest rules.

Mine is home, all his friends are away at different colleges. Not sure who he’d be drinking with right now.

Well, I know exactly whom DD is drinking with now. Had the roommate at my house several times, and met one other. Am I upset about it? No, she was driving me crazy at home, and I could not get my work done and the house, well DS's room was a disaster! I love my young adult kids, but they need to learn to be on their own. Even if that means I am paying the rent, for now.

I can’t afford rent for him so it’s a non-option for us. We honestly weren’t sure how we were going to be able to afford this college but now we’ll be able to afford it by saving during this semester. He’ll be independent soon enough.

And, you won't get stuck with your financial part of the off campus apartment lease if the college ends up closing to everything except dl.

Anonymous wrote:

You said that she'd be alone in her dorm, but is that actually the case? I don't think it can be. They aren't even going to open a dorm if just one kid or a tiny handful of kids are in it. Does she already know her freshman roommate or has already been in a lot of contact? She may be scared about "I don't know anyone except Roommate and I'll be all alone!" Talk to her about that because that kind of fear is normal even in normal times and not a good reason to cling to roommate and do as roommate does.

OP here...our decision is that she will stay on campus in her dorm. It was actually her freshman roommate who she has been in contact with that told her today she was going to move off campus to rent an apartment and wanted to know what my daughter's plans were.

As of now...assuming her roommate does end up off campus...my DD will be in a single with tons of closet space!

Which is a good thing! Less risk of transmission by a potential roommate, and DD still gets to meet other people in the dorm or easily go to socially distanced activities. It's a win win OP.

There will be lots of partying in off campus apartments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point in getting an apartment if all classes are online. Social gains?

Most young adults do not want to live with mommy and daddy, abiding by curfew, no drinking, no overnight guest rules.

Mine is home, all his friends are away at different colleges. Not sure who he’d be drinking with right now.

Well, I know exactly whom DD is drinking with now. Had the roommate at my house several times, and met one other. Am I upset about it? No, she was driving me crazy at home, and I could not get my work done and the house, well DS's room was a disaster! I love my young adult kids, but they need to learn to be on their own. Even if that means I am paying the rent, for now.

All depends on your parameters. We are LMC and DD’s choices were attend her current college remotely for semester from home and then live in the dorms or attend local school with in-person courses and commute for the next 4 years (we can’t afford 8 semesters of r&b or similar costs anywhere, even with loans). So remote was a huge opportunity to save money and definitely not an opportunity dd would want to waste by paying for an apt.

Move off campus so your kid can still experience some sort of “adult”!life with her roommate in case college closes and send kids home. Yes, you will save money if she live at home and study remotely, but letting her move off campus will at least give her some independence. With covid, there won’t be a lot of freshmen events/gathering. This would allow her to at least meet other kids at her college since there is a chance for social distancing events outside.

Yes, apartment with her own bathroom, or even shared with one person is a much better idea. While my dd is a sophomore, UMD dorms are ghost towns, so depressing. I did see a few kids moving in, it was depressing compared to last year. They are all wearing masks, and you can see that there are a ton of students in CP, I saw them in Blaze ordering, but eating outside. They are socializing, but wearing masks, except when eating. I think she will meet more people this way, if that is the reason to go as opposed to study from home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point in getting an apartment if all classes are online. Social gains?

Most young adults do not want to live with mommy and daddy, abiding by curfew, no drinking, no overnight guest rules.

Mine is home, all his friends are away at different colleges. Not sure who he’d be drinking with right now.

Anonymous wrote:honestly...is it too late to defer?
I wouldn’t recommend starting college in the middle of this shtshw.

It's not all a shitshow. Many colleges are moving forward just fine. Deferring for my kid would be smoking pot and playing video games in the basement. Hard pass.

You said that she'd be alone in her dorm, but is that actually the case? I don't think it can be. They aren't even going to open a dorm if just one kid or a tiny handful of kids are in it. Does she already know her freshman roommate or has already been in a lot of contact? She may be scared about "I don't know anyone except Roommate and I'll be all alone!" Talk to her about that because that kind of fear is normal even in normal times and not a good reason to cling to roommate and do as roommate does.

OP here...our decision is that she will stay on campus in her dorm. It was actually her freshman roommate who she has been in contact with that told her today she was going to move off campus to rent an apartment and wanted to know what my daughter's plans were.

As of now...assuming her roommate does end up off campus...my DD will be in a single with tons of closet space!

I wouldn’t let a freshman live off campus. Yes, this year will be different, but a big part of the college experience is dorm life, even during Covid. If things shut down and classes move online, she will be in the same boat as most other freshman. I think being stuck in an off-campus apartment as a freshman would be boring.

Anonymous wrote:I would recommend AGAINST starting college in an off campus apartment.

Those are riskier for corona spread. There is no one (like an RA) organizing social events, and keeping an eye on how residents are faring. In a dorm, your daughter would also have recourse if the roommate situation goes south in a dorm (i.e. , they will mediate any one moving out, no lease complications, etc). Also, this means your daughter can focus on school, without having to find time to grocery shop, cook, etc. Finally, if your daughter were to get infected, the school would kick in to care for her (food, monitoring, etc). Who knows how that would work off campus.



Let her adjust to college first, then in years to come, she can make the move to living off campus.

New poster. Parent of an older college student. OP, I agree with the post above 100 percent. Read the news -- off-campus apartments and houses are always hotbeds of partying at the BEST and safest times, even among the "good kids" who don't party as hard. Right now, off-campus residences will be virus incubators. Partying in off-campus living, even before classes began, is what sank UNC and other colleges just weeks into their school years.

PP is also absolutely right about other aspects like zero recourse if there are roommate conflicts, plus the hassles of shopping for food (more virus exposure potential, too), the big time suck that is cooking for yourself, etc. etc. And good point as well about how if your DD gets infected, who handles what? Will the college provide a quarantine space for her somewhere so she can get out of the apartmetn and not infect roommates? And if she becomes actively sick--what then? Colleges may not have the ability to be responsible for kids who are sick but not in campus housing. And if her roommate(s) get infected, do you really trust they'll self-quarantine?

This fall sucks for freshmen but I would not set her up for these problems. And once she's off campus she may find it difficult if not impossible to get back into campus housing later on. Some colleges never again guarantee you housing if you leave campus; you go to the bottom of the list for getting into dorms once you're "out of the system" at many colleges (not sure about UMW specifically). This pandemic is dragging on forever but by next fall there may be more normal college schedules and residential life, and she might be shut out of that if she's off campus from day one of freshman year.

You said that she'd be alone in her dorm, but is that actually the case? I don't think it can be. They aren't even going to open a dorm if just one kid or a tiny handful of kids are in it. Does she already know her freshman roommate or has already been in a lot of contact? She may be scared about "I don't know anyone except Roommate and I'll be all alone!" Talk to her about that because that kind of fear is normal even in normal times and not a good reason to cling to roommate and do as roommate does.

I would not give my kid this option, if I were in your position, OP. The issue is with the roommate reneging on their arrangement -- the issue is not your DD or dorms per se. I know you'll get "she's an adult now, let her choose!" types of replies here because that's common on DCUM, but frankly, she is still inexperienced enough that it's not helicoptering to intervene as you see fit in this particular case.

If the campus closes again, would you really want her sitting in an apartment in the same town, doing remote classes? Why? She can come home and do them. If she were a junior or a senior things would be different but as a freshman -- I'd say dorm, and then come home if campus closes.