Greetings to Our New Williams Families!

We greatly look forward to welcoming your remarkable students—and you, their remarkable parents—on Tuesday, August 28, the first day of orientation for the Class of 2016.

Meanwhile, your student should have received a large envelope containing everything he or she needs to do to get ready for Williams. While it’s your student’s job to get this stuff done, a gentle parental nudge can’t hurt. The sooner that envelope gets cleared out, the smoother the college transition will be for everyone.

Please remind your student to read the information thoroughly and browse the First-Year website before calling or emailing us. Nearly all answers can be found in those two places, including all the info you need to know about Move-In Day.

FOR YOUR STUDENTS
This checklist (which is also in your student’s packet) will help focus the conversation. The following items are the ones that matter most!

1. Activate Williams email and PeopleSoft accounts. These are truly the keys to the kingdom for everything from housing requests (due June 4) to fall course sign-ups.
2. Tuition and fees. Williams bills students (not families) for all tuition and fees, and all bills are electronic. In order for you to be included on our monthly email billing notifications, your student must sign you up as an authorized payer. A separate, detailed email message on e-billing will be sent to students in June, and that will be your family’s opportunity to decide who should get the monthly statements. More information is available at the Bursar’s Office.
3. Healthcare premium. Massachusetts law requires all college students to have health insurance, so Williams bills your student an annual premium (more than $1,000) for the college’s Student Accident and Sickness Plan. If you determine that your own insurance plan provides comparable coverage, you must waive participation in Williams’ insurance plan to avoid that charge. In the coming weeks, your student will receive more detailed information, including the actual cost of the 2012-2013 premium and instructions for how to waive the premium if your insurance allows you to do so.
4. Physical exams for your student must be within one year unless she/he is an athlete. More info here. NCAA rules mandate that athletes must have a physical within the six-month period preceding the sport season.
   
5. Your Student’s Dorm Room. Refer to the Student Life website for dorm room floor plans and fire/safety regulations. By midsummer you’ll also find there a helpful packing list in something we call The Bell Book.
6. Williams Reads. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is our Williams Reads book for the 2012-2013 academic year and will play a central role in our first-year orientation program. Your student will receive a free copy of Nickel and Dimed in June.
7. Subscriptions to The Williams Record, our weekly student newspaper, are available here.
8. Student employment information.
9. Shipping to Williams.
10. Class of 2016 first-year photo information.
11. Bed sheets (of all things!). Regular ones won’t fit Williams beds, but the ones our linen program provides do. Feel free to sign up here.

FOR YOURSELVES

First Days: We recommend that you attend the August 28 session for families at 1:30 pm in Chapin Hall. It’s a great way to begin your Williams relationship by meeting President Adam Falk and our Williams leadership team. (You’ll find Chapin on the campus map.)

First-Year Family Days, October 26-28: You can attend a Friday class, meet other parents, and get to know better the community your student will have settled into by then. Learn more here. We’ll open registration for this event in August.

The Williams Parents Website: You’ll find answers here to many of your questions, as well as key campus contacts, schedules, calendars, and community activities.

Your own contact info. We’ll ask your student to enter or verify parent email and post office addresses, phone, and cell phone numbers on PeopleSoft and on the EphVentures registration. Once we have that information, we can always be in touch with you at a moment’s notice. Our Office of College Relations will follow up soon with information on how to get involved as a parent volunteer.

Williams Regional Associations: If you live in an area covered by one of the 77 Williams regional associations across the country and around the world, you will be invited to every local event. You’ll also be invited to participate in Williams travel-study trips, usually in the company of a Williams professor, to destinations ranging from Florida to Bhutan.

That’s all (and plenty!) for now. If after reviewing all of this you have any questions, feel free to email firstdays@williams.edu.

Have a wonderful summer. We’ll see you in August.

Dave Johnson ’71 & P ’99
Dean of First Year Students
Associate Dean of the College
Lecturer in Art History

Parents are great sources of job and internship information, which we hope to tap for the benefit of our students. Feel free to use this form to alert us to appropriate opportunities for undergrads, seniors, and recent grads. It’s a great contribution to Williams!

Learn more about how the Office of Career Counseling can work with your student on post-college plans here.