Sims in another world not doing tasks

[Robodragon1]

So, I have recently gotten the pack for the colleges/universities and sent one of my sim's kids (first son) to college. After a while of playing, where the son was at, I then switched over to where the parents were at (in a different world) and found out that they were late for work and the other kids were late for school.

Is there a way to have the sims do what they need to do when I'm not in that world? For example, if I'm watching the son in college, is there a way for the game to automatically have the sims in the other world do what they need to do, like go to work/school, as if I was watching them?

[PugLove888]

@Robodragon1, while Sims in the same household can go places while other Sims stay home, the system is not perfect.  Usually you can only direct a Sim to do certain categories of things while playing another family member off-lot. There should be a little icon in the upper part of their thumbnail picture that you can click on and you will have a choice of options, like "care for needs" or "work on skills".   However, even if you pick this, you can't choose which needs will be worked on , nor can you pick which skills will be worked on. 

And when you have one of your Sims in University, it is best just to play the University student until they graduate for the same reason you witnessed in your game.  University doesn't really work well with rotational play, so when sending a Sim to Uni, it will be best to not play rotationally until your student can graduate and move back home!   I do not know if they will change this in the future or not. 

[Robodragon1]

@PugLove888 Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, I knew about the icon on the upper right part of the thumbnail and have changed it a few times in the past. I guess I was hoping that there was a way for the sims that are at the house would do what they are, for a lack of a better way of saying it, scheduled to do while I'm working on the kid at the University and visa-versa.

Also, is there a way to keep sims from magically appearing in the world? For example, I had the son go to the university class (and I made sure that I receive the notification that he went to class). I hop over to the other world for a bit with the original family. Then I hop back to the university to do another thing and found out that the son is out of class and is somehow in the world I was just at. This really ruins his chances of succeeding at the school. Do you know of any ways to fix this?

[PugLove888]

@Robodragon1, well, it is like I said in my last post, Discover University isn't really designed to be played rotationally.  Even  if you have students  go to University right when they finish being a teen and are planning on having them return to their parent's house upon graduation, they will still be considered their own household while at University.  And playing rotationally is jumping back and forth between households in a single Save Game file.  I don't normally play this way anyway, so it isn't so much a problem for me. (I usually have each family in their own save game file so I can keep track of them better).

  For university students that I want to move back in with their parents, I just ignore their family back home and concentrate on the university student until they graduate and then move them back in with their family afterwards.  That way if the family that stayed back home is in disarray when the student graduates, you only have to fix things once, instead of each time you jump back and forth.   The way I see it is that when you are at school you should concentrate on school.  You got the Discover University EP to play with Sims at university, so leave the other parts of the game for before and after graduation!