Tips for Plebe Parents
Check out the NYC Naval Academy Parents Club website for What To Look Forward To .
During the Superintendent’s Welcome Presentation during Plebe Parent Weekend (PPW), a video of Plebe Summer activities will be shown. You can play Where’s Waldo but don’t blink, you might miss your Plebe. This video will generally be available on YouTube after PPW and a link to the video will be posted in the NYC Naval Academy Parents Club Video Gallery. You can also find links to previous year’s I-Days, Plebe Summers, spirit videos such as Naptown Funk, Star Wars at Navy and many others.
Moms will have their first taste of the MidStore either on I-Day or Plebe Parent Weekend. That will be when Dads come to the realization that a second or third source of income will be required for the 110% of the GNP which will be spent at the MidStore.
Buy dated (ie. Class of 2026) merchandise as early in the year as possible. The MidStore will hopefully order enough of the dated merchandise to last for Plebe year but once they run out, you’re out of luck. There is also a possibility that at the end of the academic year, slow moving dated merchandise will be marked down so they won’t need to carry inventory into the next year.
Photo ops – Take photos at specific locations such as photos by Tecumseh, the Sub Memorial, in front of/entering Bancroft, Bill the Goat, etc , during various stages of their 4 years at the Academy. I have photos from Plebe, Youngster, 2nd Class and Firstie years of my son in front of Tecumseh and Bancroft in Plebe Summer whitewash, Summer Whites, Service Dress Blues, PT gear after Herndon Climb and Choker Whites after Commissioning. These photos plus those you find in the Alumni Association Photo Program, Facebook, USNA Flickr feeds, etc, can be used for putting together a photo book that you will treasure but they will never look at.
Get tickets through your Plebe around late September / early October for the Halloween Concert. The show is spectacular.
Plan on using the NYC Naval Academy Parents Club Mid Express for getting your Plebe home and back during the Thanksgiving Leave. The club charters a coach bus to transport our Mids home from a pickup point outside Gate 1 to NY Penn Station at the beginning of Thanksgiving Leave and back at the end of Thanksgiving Leave. Pricing for the Mid Express will be available early October.
When your Plebe comes home for Thanksgiving and/or Winter Leave, have them apply for a passport if they don’t already have one. There is always the possibility of summer training next year which is outside of the US and you don’t want panicked calls from your Plebe next March asking for their birth certificate, social security card or anything else required for obtaining a passport. Among the summer training and spring enrichment opportunities, my son did a Youngster sub cruise from the Bahamas to Groton, CT, had internships in Paris and Germany, educational visit to Auschwitz.
Have your Plebe look into applying for a credit card, start building a credit history and learning to use credit wisely.
