By "orientation", do you mean like a visit/tour, or do you mean he's been accepted and you are talking about the formal "Preview" that he has to attend and will do Fall registration at? If you mean formal Preview/registration, here is what I have sent others that asked. First paragraph is more about once he starts school and all the websites you'll encounter, Preview stuff in bullet comments:
Congrats! Here is the thing you'll find, EVERYTHING is done online and it's not all in one place... there are about three different places that your son (and you guys to monitor things like payments due and any holds on the account, let alone what's going on with classes) will have to log in to get things done. Here's a couple of things you'll need to do right off the bat, some of which are probably in the preview checklists:
- Formally accept and pay the deposit (or whatever it's called).
- If he's going to live in the dorms, pay the housing deposit. Hopefully he applied for UF as early as possible as housing selection times are totally based on "first applied/first choice."
- Figure out which Preview session you are going to because that's when he will register for his Fall classes. They say that it doesn't matter whether you go to the first session or the last, that they allocate course section slots for each Preview class, but I don't believe that for a second and recommend going to the earliest (if not first) Preview session offered this summer.
- For that class registration session at Preview, ONLY your son will be with the "adviser", you are not allowed. Therefore, you need to do the following BEFORE going to Preview... please trust me on this:
- He only needs 12 credit hours to be full time. A lot of classes at UF now are 4 credit hours, so he might only need (and I would advise) to actually be enrolled in 3 classes (4 max) that first semester at UF. I highly recommend that if he can get away with it because with it being first semester, football season, Rush if he's rushing.... you want to set him up for success with the most manageable workload possible.
- That said, for both our sons at Preview, we registered them for between 15-17 credit hours because you have plenty of time before classes start to drop anything you decide you don't want. It gives you more flexibility. So register for 15-17, then drop and actually be enrolled for 12-14.
- Don't just pick the courses he wants to register for ahead of time... you will be able to see all the actual SECTIONS for each course online before you go to preview. So, identify the courses and who is teaching them on the UF website, then go to www.ratemyprofessor.com and you can find almost all of the professors and find the easiest/best fit for you guys. Then go back to the UF website and make your list for registration with each course (e.g., ECO2013) AND at lease three SECTION numbers for that course that has the teacher you liked.
- When your son goes into see the adviser at Preview to actually register, he should take his cheat sheet with course and section numbers, and then tell him to be very polite but VERY direct and saying "Please, I want THIS course with THIS section number"... and if none of your sections are available, we recommend not taking the class that semester... that's why you want to have two or three "plan b's" for registration or why you can register for say 17 hours that day, then drop what you want online at home.
- The single most important thing he'll do at Preview is that 10 minutes with the "adviser." And I'm tellin ya, the "adviser" is just trying to jam kids though registration and will push him around if he's not prepared. Actual advisers in the colleges are much better, but Preview is a cattle process for registration.
I think that's enough for now! Let me know if it makes sense or if you have any questions at all. Also, any idea on what types of classes he is planning on registering for the Fall? I can probably provide input on that as well in the "looks good" or "WTF are you thinking?!?!!?" departments there too.
