At OSU, family members are asked to be on campus the morning of Bid Day. They actually find out which chapter will be offering their daughter a bid before the girls do. The family then walks to their daughter's new home away from home to meet the other parents and wait for the girls to arrive. The girls literally run from campus to Greek row screaming, chanting, and crying to greet their new sisters and families (check out "the running of the girls" on YouTube for an old, but funny look at this OSU tradition). Formal and informal pictures are taken, house tours are given, and a parents meeting is held. While parents are asked to assist and attend meetings on move-in day, no one was encouraged to stay in town for the week, in fact, the girls are so busy they often are not able to call until 11-12 at night, and are exhausted to boot. Panhellenic is great about keeping the parents informed throughout the week in daily emails as well.

WTF? Don't they just then text their daughters with the news?

Nope. If I remember right, they don't have their phones. Somewhat nerve wracking as a parent too, that morning you get up, drive from your home to Stillwater, having no idea if your daughter has been offered a bid until you get there, and check the lists. May be why some, especially those from out of state, may stay the week.

That's correct..the girls don't have thier phones so parents can't text or call them. In fact, Im pretty sure they don't have thier phones until later, after they have attended all of thier parties for the day. I remember this because my really good friend's daughter was the first out of all of my friends daughter's to rush and we were all on pins and needles everyday waiting to hear from her. OSU goes through recruitment a good week and a half before most of the Texas schools...so she was our trailblazer that year..lol..

UT on the other hand allows phones throughout the process and my daughter often called me in between parties if she had time...Im not sure which is worse...lol

What if the parents don't know the girl is going through rush?
What if the girl isn't on good terms with her parents?
I certainly hope providing your parents' contact info isn't a prerequisite to going through rush. This sounds extremely intrusive, not to mention infantilizing.

I agree with all of this.
It's the girl's rush, not her parents'. I have no idea how this practice came to be, but if it were ever suggested at a school where I was advising, I would do everything in my power to keep it from coming to fruition.

Begin heli-parenting and university response to heli-parenting rant...
I remember when universities considered themselves the stepping stone between being under a parent's thumb and being thrown to the wolves of the adult world. They allowed students to make mistakes and face consequences, they allowed students to find their own paths, they allowed students to decide whether to succeed or to fail. And now, in part (I think) due to the increase in heli-parenting, institutions have gotten soft. It's becoming a cycle that's hard to break. Early on in the heli-parenting years, it was relatively easy as a professor to say to a parent, "Your daughter is the one whose grade is on the line - I'd be happy to have this conversation with her. But I can't have it with you." Now, universities are too worried about not getting phone calls from irate parents to support their faculty in upholding FERPA. And now that parents are used to being overly-involved, it's only becoming more prevalent.

Let our kids grow up. Let them make their own decisions. For crying out loud, let our daughters be the first to find out which sorority has offered them membership. This just really baffles me.

Like.

I was horrified when my friend had to jump through hoops to get the administration at her freshman daughter's school to evict her roomate's mom from their dorm room. The mother had been sleeping on the floor for over three weeks to help her daughter adjust to college life. It's a small religious college and both my friend and her husband are notable alums, not some big bad faceless state school. They were continually told to be patient and it was only when they threatened to pull their daughter out of school and discontinue some major financial support that the administration finally forced mom out of the room.

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

(Repeat the above about a hundred times)

My question is...how on earth did this not make the daughter a complete pariah?? That's what I don't get, that other members of the child's peer group find this behavior acceptable rather than continually ragging on the kid, which is what would have happened in my generation.

I don't know what her peers' reactions were, but given the things I've seen done in the name of good parenting among the parents of the collegians I work with, it wouldn't surprise me if many didn't even blink an eye. I definitely agree that had this happened in my generation, the girl would have received a nickname that would have stuck through her entire college career.

I'm curious as to how a school entity can legally release information about an 18-year-old adult student to her parents? Do they sign some kind of waiver?

I can answer those questions for Auburn. I made my kids do all application paperwork and make all contact with their universities because it is their college, not mine. After my daughter's orientation, she said something about not knowing when the health form was due and asked me to call admissions. I restated my policy and told her they can't talk to me about her information (or grades or anything else) anyway because she is 18. She said, "Yes you can. They had us all sign permission forms at orientation." I was shocked. The pamphlets she received clearly said that if you are caught with alcohol and under the age of 21, your parents would be called. Whatever happened to them being adults?

well, they really aren't. Glad to see some institutions realize that.

Yet silly little institutions like the US armed forces manage to see things differently.

I think the between the ages of 18 and 20 are the grey years. Yes kids can vote and serve in the military. But they can't drink, rent a car, get rooms in some hotels, can't gamble etc. and what their parents make affects their financial aid and some scholarships.

So while at 18 the are legally adults, our society does not really treat them fully as adults.

That being said I am really pushing D to handle her college stuff. I did have to send one email to the billing office on TGTF because my husband and I bought the fund for her and were required per the paper work to notify the school ourselves.

Agreed. There are some things I am handling because hypo just doesn't has the knowledge (like some aspects of financial aid, student health insurance issues- which I am even struggling with and I work for my health insurer!) and other things I am making her handle.

The insurance is so confusing and I have been in HR!