PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

The questions are constant.

“How long does it take for incoming students to complete the math assessment?”

“Does anyone know when move-in will be this year? My daughter will be a sophomore and living in a sorority suite, and she is telling me she has no idea.”

“What do most students do regarding cash? Is there an ATM? Do they use Venmo?”

Those are just a few queries from the more than 6,000 members of the University of Pittsburgh Parents group on Facebook — no affiliation with the university itself — who use the group to connect with other parents of college-aged kids at Pitt.

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There are questions about the dorm rooms (“Just what color are the carpets in Tower A, anyway?”), registering for classes, finding roommates, the amount of homework assignments to expect and even student health issues (“Do any parents swear by giving their kids multivitamins to keep them well while living in a dorm?”).

It’s a lot. But, parents say, it’s helpful.

“It’s like when your kid is in elementary school, you get together with the other parents in the PTA or the neighborhood group, and they give you the real information, you know, this is the best place to get school uniforms, this is the class that’s most interesting,” says Lesley Williams, whose daughter will be attending the University of Pittsburgh as a graduate student in the fall.

“Sometimes things get a little out of line, like, ‘My kid feels that they’re not getting a fair shake in this class,’ or, ‘This professor is mean,’” Williams says. “Most of the time, when that happens, the other parents just very gently suggest that, maybe, that’s something your daughter or son needs to deal with on their own.”

In the digital age, parenting doesn’t stop when you send your child off to college. Sure, college students are old enough to vote, smoke and rent their own apartments, but the pull of parental involvement is stronger than ever (there are Facebook groups for parents at all of the other universities and colleges in the Pittsburgh region, too).

It’s a vastly different experience than when older generations went to college. “My parents had to call the hall phone in the dorm, and the guy who lived outside of it had to come and get me,” says Keith Paylo, vice president of student affairs and dean of students at Point Park University.

“They had no idea what we were doing, or where we were. It forced us to grow up fast.”

Shift in Parenting Styles

So why the intense interest in managing the details of children’s lives well into adulthood?

“We used to call parents a few years ago the hovering generation — like those helicopter parents where you hover above and you stay far enough away so that you can see what’s going on but only get involved when you need to,” Paylo says. “And then we called the next generation the smotherers. They represented their students almost like they were agents. It took a lot of control away from the students themselves.”

This group of parents of incoming university freshmen (typically born in 2005 and 2006), Paylo says, has actually taken a step back from that intensity, at least from a college administrator’s perspective.

“Technology plays a big role,” he explains. Today’s parents have been connected to their kids throughout their entire lives, from FaceTime chats to constant text chains, so there’s a natural expectation to continue that throughout their child’s college years, he says. Universities, in turn, have decided to give parents more opportunities to be involved in all aspects of their student’s on-campus experiences.

A 2024 survey conducted by CampusESP, a cloud-based family communication platform used by colleges and universities, shows that 85% of current university families want weekly communication from their student’s college or university, up from 72% in 2023 and 65% in 2020.

Duquesne University paid attention to the trend and launched its own online parent portal in 2021, which gives regular updates to parents about everything from class registration to billing information.

“The interface is similar to Facebook, and it’s got a main feed and different communities,” says Jennifer Smith, the assistant director for parent relations at Duquesne University. “Parents can comment on our posts, respond to comments and ask questions as well. And it gives us a nice sense of what parents are worried about or what they want to know about.”

While privacy laws state that students own the rights to their own information (no matter who is paying the tuition bill), parents can go into the portal and request access to everything from grades and assignments to student billing information and health details. Permission for each of these categories must be approved by the student, so they may allow access to grades, but not health information, for example.

“It’s a one-stop shop for information about campus life and what students are living through,” Smith says.

The parent portal also gives the university the ability to reach out to parents about other news that might be pertinent to their students in Pittsburgh, including potential safety concerns and emergency situations.

How COVID Changed Involvement

Paylo says there are other universities and institutions that choose to only work with students, sending them bills directly or working only with them to register for courses. At Point Park, though, they encourage parents to be involved, up to a point.

“It’s a problem when the students aren’t allowed to represent themselves, but we don’t really see that a lot,” Paylo says. “It’s like many things, where we spend 90% of our time on 10% of the individuals we work with.”

Additionally, Point Park hosts parent orientations all summer and works with parents to prepare their students (and themselves) for the school year.

“We have an open-door policy in Student Affairs, where you can walk right in, you don’t need an appointment. We’re here to help get things done and support you,” Paylo says. “And that’s our policy for parents, too.”

The desire for greater parental connection became more apparent after the pandemic, Smith says.

“Before COVID, Duquesne didn’t even have a Parent and Family Relations office,” she says. “We saw the need for an office to focus on providing these resources to parents and families that they might need whenever they have questions.”

Students who are incoming freshmen were in eighth grade during the pandemic of 2020 and had a vastly different high school experience than those in previous classes. Parents, too, had to adjust — and universities are seeing those ramifications now.

“During COVID, parents had to wear so many different hats,” Smith says. “They had to be parents, friends, teachers, mentors, really everything to their student. So we’re trying to understand that influence with this group of students, and we’re trying to keep that connection strong, because we know how important it is on both sides.”

Melissa Melewsky, whose oldest son will be attending the University of Pittsburgh as a freshman this fall, says that parenting her four kids during COVID allowed her to see a glimpse into their lives that she otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see.

“COVID gave me a better window into my son’s academic world,” she says. “Obviously, before, I wasn’t sitting in the classroom with him when he was in high school. But during COVID, I could hear the interaction between students and teachers, and it helped me understand how he learns, and how he learns best.”

Monitoring from a Distance

Now, as her son prepares to head off to school on his own, she’s grateful for the chance to keep a (distant) eye on his progress.

“I think because we have such an open line of communication through texting, I’m going to be sending him a daily, ‘How are you doing?,’ text to make sure everything is OK,” she says. “And a call every few days because you just want to hear the sound of your child’s voice.”

Smith, who works with parents on a daily basis, says that once the initial growing pains of dropping your kids off at school wear off, most parents naturally disengage in a healthy way.

“Trust us, we really have your students’ best needs in mind,” Smith says. “We want to work with you to utilize that influence that you have as parents, while also giving them their own space to grow.”

Emily Catalano is a writer and founder of Highly Social Media, a social media and influencer marketing agency. She also runs the website Good Food Pittsburgh.