Institute offers links to MIT for parents

You help them fill out their applications, celebrate their admission to college, pack their bags and drive them off to school--but what can a parent do next? MIT has many resources for supplying information and answers--including an e-mail address just for parents' questions.

When messages are sent to , an electronic-mailbox "editor" sends the queries to different parts of campus to get answers. The MIT Parents Program, which runs the e-mail box, is a part of MIT's Alumni Association. The program has a Web site at with a newsletter called Parents News as well as the Parents Guide to MIT, which has information on career services, student accounts, freshman year basics, and an explanation of "numerology at MIT" so parents can understand what their daughter means when she says she's interested in Course VI.

Parents Orientation, run by the Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs for freshmen parents, was held at the end of Residence/Orientation and included open houses for the Athletic and Medical Departments, the Office of Minority Education and religious groups, a reception at the president's house, tours, and talks on topics such as MIT traditions, "Cutting the Apron Strings" and Greek life at MIT.

The MIT Parents Program will also host Family Weekend on October 4-5. Parents of MIT students can see what MIT life is like by sitting in on classes, attending open houses and concerts and taking special tours of campus facilities.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 18, 1996.