Facebook College Parent Groups - What you need to know
By Karen Treon, Senior Editor & College Parent
If you know, you know. Facebook groups for college parents are a THING. If you are a Facebook user, we suggest you follow the official pages of your student’s university. We also suggest that you follow the unofficial parents’ group of your student’s university. These are usually started and administered by a dedicated parent, and often have thousands of members. You can find the right one by using the Facebook search function and looking for “<name of college> parent group”. Often the administrators will ask a few questions before allowing you to join. These questions confirm that you have a student at the school and that you understand the group rules (which often include things like be nice, respect other viewpoints, don’t talk politics, and don’t promote a business).
There are many benefits to these groups, including:
Close to real-time information about incidents on campus, such as power outages or storm damage.
Information from other parents about local resources and places.
Insight into campus activities.
A sense of community.
Cooperation - there are many instances of a local parent bringing a meal to a sick student or arranging an airport pick up.
Details about things like family weekend or graduation that your student might not be passing along to you as quickly as you would like.
There are disadvantages too, which will likely become apparent.
To leverage the benefits and minimize the disadvantages, we suggest a few guidelines to keep in mind:
The first rule is the big one – maintain your student’s privacy. Always.
Don’t bring up roommate issues.
Don’t discuss academic challenges or issues with professors.
Don’t post personal info about your student - mental health issues, loneliness, academic struggles, dating - nothing (believe us, we have seen lots of posts about these issues).
Colleges are big places that we expect to run well. But sometimes, they don’t. Try to avoid griping about the college - it is contagious and doesn’t lead to any changes in this forum. If your student is seeking resolution to a specific issue, this group might have someone who can point you and your student in the right direction.
If you are seeking specific information (for example, you are looking for tutor recommendations for a class your student is failing), consider posting the query anonymously, and taking personal detail about your student out of the message.
If you are looking for help, minimize the detail and ask anyone with knowledge if they can contact you through direct message.
These groups can be incredibly helpful, and plenty of people are sad to “graduate” from the group when their student graduates. Jump in and enjoy the community, but remember to keep your student’s affairs private.
