Parents' Prep

They arrive on campus nervous but excited. An upperclassman shows them to their dorms. Stumbling across the quad, maps under their noses, they grope their way to classrooms in modern buildings. They listen attentively as professors talk about opportunity. At night they gather in a big dining hall. A typical college orientation? Not quite. The participants are middle-aged--parents being prepped on what college holds for their children.

The University of Rochester, a small and expensive (tuition, room and board: $7,000 a year) private college in upstate New York, is one of a handful of schools that have taken to holding freshman orientation early and--rarer still--inviting parents along too. While the incoming students spend the 2 1/2-day period registering for courses and meeting their new classmates, they are firmly segregated (to their relief) from their elders. This year, the eighth in which Rochester has conducted the program, some 600 parents of 1,100 freshmen paid a small fee ($33) to learn about university life. Many are sending off their first child; some never went to college themselves. For all of them, says Administrator Arthur Goldberg, a 15-year veteran, "the orientation is partly an act of kindness. Parents have enormous levels of anxiety."

Nowhere is that more evident than in the dorms. The first look at the group bathrooms and cell-like rooms drives some adults to the nearest Holiday Inn. Most stay, however, and take advantage of the upper-class "parent-advisers," who are there to answer questions. "As long as I know he washes his face and hangs up his clothes, maybe I can relax," confides the mother of an only child. Indeed, the parents quiz the advisers closely about food, how roommate conflicts are resolved and whether refrigerators are allowed.

Oddly enough, no qualms are expressed about the coed living, and the parents seem to have only a passing interest in drugs. Said one father with a shrug: "Oh, that stuff has run its course." Few bellyache about the tuition, either. Nor is there much audible concern about whether the kids' costly education will lead to a job. Today, school officials say, parents still seem to prefer a liberal education to a narrowly vocational one. "They are concerned that students not specialize too early," says Goldberg. "Many were caught in the vagaries of the job market themselves and had to go into a second career."

To judge by the Rochester program, today's parents are wary about pushing their children at all. Says Murray Abramson of Bridgewater, Mass.: "Sometimes I find myself giving my daughter advice, and I worry that I'm more influenced by the things I'd like to do." Faculty members urge parents to take a hands-off attitude. "You must be supportive but not too directive," Arts and Sciences Dean Kenneth Clark told one assembly. "It's the student who's got to earn the grade and live with success or failure."

Warned that students were bound to get lower grades at Rochester than they did in high school, one worried mother asked who would help her son through the trauma of his first C. In answer, a panel of about 15 deans and assistants outlined a variety of academic, social and psychological counseling programs. Sighed another relieved mother, "They really understand kids here. "And parents.

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