A new Web site, Virtual Orientation for Parents, helps parents prepare their teens for the first year of college at UD.

For the past few years, many incoming freshman have spent hours pecking away at their computers to learn new names and fascinating things about UD through a new program, Virtual Orientation.

In 2004, incoming freshman spent 19 million minutes, or 36 years, online talking to each other and learning new things about UD.

Not wanting to leave the parents out, a similar program was made available for UD parents, VOParents. This year parents of 1,162 students signed up and logged on more than 10,000 times.

'The site provides information that can benefit any parents,' said Julie Shade, Content and Operations Manager for UD. 'The parents' forums also allow parents to share their anxieties about sending a child to college.'

Rosemary Nigro of Missouri sent her first child, Justin, to UD three years ago and wishes that the program would have been up and running then. This year, when she prepared her son Brian for UD, she was given the opportunity to take advantage of VOParents.

'It's definitely a one-stop shop for information,' said Nigro, who was often logged in as a UD parent to help others.

With parents being able to get involved with the college process through VOParents, it keeps them from bugging their future Flyers about their next step.

On the site are steps which outline what the teen has or has not completed, which answers important questions parents may have.

'We try to draw the line between what parents and students can access,' Shade said. 'The site does not allow parents to do things their children need to do to get ready for school'.

Patti Paulus of Maryland had questions after her son Joshua decided to attend UD. VOParents was the easiest way to get answers.

'The VO for parents was very informative,' said Paulus. 'I took advantage of the site to make sure my son was on top of everything that he needed to do in order to be ready for the first day.'

Parents were in tune with this program and how helpful other parents were at the parent's dinner during orientation, Nigro held up a 'VO' sign. Many of the parents that had been conversing with each other through VO met each other in person.

VO was only meant to allow parents to be involved before school. Some of the parents have now created their own Yahoo chat room to continue answering other parents' questions.

'We have received dozens of requests to keep the site running,' said Shade. 'It's been extremely popular with a core set of parents.'

If the first year of the Web site is any indication, VOParents will continue to be a popular and useful tool for first-year parents.