The Day Alex Left for College

"The Day Alex Left for College" is the second episode of the seventh season and the 146th episode overall of the American sitcom "Modern Family". It aired on September 30, 2015 on American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The episode is directed by Jeffrey Walker and written by Danny Zuker.
Plot.
Alex (Ariel Winter) is ready to start her first day as a student as she leaves home to be in Caltech and Haley (Sarah Hyland) goes with her. Here, Alex meets her new roommate Maisie who replaces her original roommate and does not get along with her as she finds her clumsy. Haley explains to her that they were roommate during eight years and had hard time to adjust with her new life, which makes Alex reconsider her decision.
Elsewhere, Phil (Ty Burrell) asks Luke (Nolan Gould) to follow him since he has to sell a house which is actually unsaleable. However, Luke appears to be uninterested by the house as he would rather hang out with his friends. Despite the fact that he needs his son to help him to finish the sale, Phil finally agrees to let him go but on the road, they find duck eggs and Luke asks his dad to help him to build a village for the future Ducks.
Claire (Julie Bowen) and the Delgado-Pritchetts have to go to Lilly's (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) first soccer game but they don't want to. Gloria (Sofía Vergara) suggests that Jay (Ed O'Neill) could be injured and shoots him in the left foot. When they arrive, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) who still struggles with his job search, has become the coach and initially believes them until Joe (Jeremy Maguire) spills the beans. Meanwhile, Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) rents the apartment upstairs and helps Mitchell to be a good coach when the referee asks him to leave. Mitchell temporarily loses his position as a coach, but manages to get it back and Lilly wins her game.
At the end of this episode, the family concludes a pact in which they will choose to skip an event by year, much to Manny's (Rico Rodriguez) disappointment as nobody wants to see his theater performance.
Reception.
Broadcasting.
The episode was watched by 8.72 million people, down 0.74 from the previous episode.
Reviews.
The episode received positive reviews. Joshua Alston of "The A.V. Club" praised the episode, despite recycled plots, awarding it a B grade. He found that as the episode goes on, "the funnier and more charming it gets, and the final act brings the episode to a satisfying and elegant conclusion." Liz Estey of "TV Fanatic" gave the episode a 4/5, calling Haley and Alex's moments "incredibly poignant", praising the episode for doing "a wonderful job of showing Phil's resistance and eventual acceptance of Luke's new independence", and calling Mitchell and Cam's rapport "very fun to watch". Zachary Anderson of "Out Loud Culture" gave the episode 8.5/10, calling it "refreshing" because of the way it handled Alex going off to college and called it "an excellent transition into a new era for the clan", though he believed that Cam and Mitch's storyline "felt too isolated".
Hunter Vogt of "The TV Ratings Guide" praised the episode, pointing to funny moments such as the contrast between Claire and Phil being emotional while Alex is not, and when Mitch and Cam called everyone's phones. However, he believed that Phil and Luke's storyline "was not interesting" and that the third act "wasn't as strong as the first two thirds of the episode." Lisa Fernandez of "Next Projection" thought that it was a "lovely episode" that was an improvement over the previous week's episode, and gave it a score of 6.5/10. She said "what works really works", and praises the Dunphy storylines, but goes on to criticize the storyline that employs Gloria, Jay, Cam, and Mitch, calling it a "hectic mess" that is "pointless in the extreme" and "could have used a rewrite. A good, full rewrite."