Girlie AGDee's College Search Thread

[alum]

You may not need that UHaul. Bed, Bath and Beyond will allow you to buy items at any store and have it waiting at the store closest to the college. They also have lists online of the college housing restrictions in terms of allowed and forbidden small appliances, whether the dorms all have XL or regular length twin beds....

You also may want to check if the college provides summer storage or are there facilities nearby?

I went to school 12 hours away from my home. My parents drove me out during freshman year and picked me up at graduation. I flew home for all other travel but again both my home and the school were in major cities. My school did provide storage in a dorm during the summer which made it very easy. I have no idea if they still do that

My D's school was only 4 hours away but it was located in a rural area. Despite the fact that it was at least an hour to a small airport and about 3 hours to a major one, they had a full complement of kids from across the country. No summer storage was provided so she did have to bring everything back and forth each summer.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by alum

You may not need that UHaul. Bed, Bath and Beyond will allow you to buy items at any store and have it waiting at the store closest to the college. They also have lists online of the college housing restrictions in terms of allowed and forbidden small appliances, whether the dorms all have XL or regular length twin beds....

You also may want to check if the college provides summer storage or are there facilities nearby?

We definitely did not do the U-Haul. Dorms, at least at the schools your daughter is interested in, have basic furniture like a bed, shelves, a desk, and occasionally a wardrobe. At the time I started college, however, you could still check 3 large bags at no additional cost...so, my father and I ended up packing a lot of stuff and flying it up. Still, most of that stuff was bedding, clothing, and smallish items like books. The lamps, computer, etc., we just picked up at Best Buy or BB&B once we arrived.

There was an option to rent fridges/microwaves from the school...they dropped them off in September and picked them up during the last few days of the Spring semester. Extremely convenient.

I had summer storage through the sorority but I think other students were able to get it as well.

Both my undergrad and the undergrad of the university that I attended for graduate school have large numbers of international students and kids from all over the US--so they made things like delivery of items and rental of small appliances extremely easy.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Time is another element in traveling for a short period of time like Thanksgiving too though. It takes an entire day to get here from California, because you lose three hours! Renting a U-Haul to get her out there with a three day drive is a little overwhelming to me too, admittedly. Chicago is a one hour flight or a 5 hour train ride or drive in comparison. NYC is a longer drive, for sure, but still doable in one day. She doesn't seem that interested in going quite that far away either, which is ok with me.

If she's living in a dorm room there is no need to bring a U-Haul, and if she wants things from home sometimes it is not cost prohibitive to ship it as extra luggage, cargo on the flight, or ship it another way, I think PhoenixAzul as well as others used Greyhound shipping with positive results.

My parents didn't take me to school, so I took everything as luggage one time or in my car the other time and bought things when I got there. There was no storage in the dorms when I did my stint there and everything was kept in our room under the bed or on top of the wardrobe. In the summer people get storage units and usually share with friends to get a bigger one at lower cost. I know people who put theirs cars in storage units over the summer instead of leaving them parked in town or on campus.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

There was an option to rent fridges/microwaves from the school...they dropped them off in September and picked them up during the last few days of the Spring semester. Extremely convenient.

We had that too. I rented one every year til I moved into my sorority house. Some students would BUY their own minis, but I really didn't see the point.

Sidenote: it made for a really exciting day when you moved into your own place and experienced the joy of a full-sized fridge that's not at your parent's house. lol.