Well we have had over 8500 students move onto campus in the past 8 days, and boy has it been a rush. This is my third opening at UNC, and my 8th overall, and I feel like there's been at least some improvement each year. But one thing that never changes are the influx of parents and students bringing with them the same questions, no matter how obvious we make the answer on our website.
Case in point, "When can I move back in?"
Me: "As early as Wednesday, August 18th, or any day after."
Them: "So what about Thursday?"
Me: <speechless>
And schools are becoming much more direct with the separation of students and parents, and forcing it to happen earlier. I fully appreciate this movement, as the longer a parent stays around the more complaints or requests I get that simply cannot be accomplished. We've learned that parents generally are much more needy than the students, which is interesting since it's the student that lives on campus. But sure enough, if the parent remains on campus for more than a day someone on our staff will hear from them about an improvement that is needed for their perfect student to achieve greatness.
We've always called these people "helicopter parents" for their nature of hovering. But yesterday I heard a new term, "velcro parents." I think that adequately describes their tendency of sticking to their students in an almost annoying fashion.
Don't get a me wrong -- I know that parents and students are my job. But sometimes I wonder if we all just take a few seconds to think about what we're asking if stress can be eliminated -- especially since I get the same question 15000 times!
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