@fnpony I wonder if wearing a mask will be a new social norm if someone has a cough/sneeze, even if allergy related and if people will have learned to be more germ conscious.
Where I live the county school teachers are beginning to be vaccinated this month.
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It has been for a long time in Japan. People who have a cold virus wear masks out of consideration of others, to prevent others from catching their colds. Hard to see a day when this would become an American value.
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I think this post gets pretty close to the “spreading COVID misinformation” category.
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Wow. They are already to school teachers where you live? I know one person who has been vaccinated. One. And that person works in a hospital. Lots of talk among friends and neighbors about whats going on and why no one is getting vaccinated. No one can even find out anything. My mother is 86 and has compromised health. No word on when she will be vaccinated. My husband is 66 with severe heart disease. No vaccine info for him. He’s called his doctor and they say they don’t know anything yet. Yep, the doctors have no information. Sorry for the rant, but the way this is going here, by the time they get to people under 65 who are healthy it will be 2022. This is MA, by the way, where many many people go to college. I can’t imagine college here being normal by the fall.
I sure hope so. I have one kid ready to strike out on his own and another that is ready to start her college journey. I sure hope that fall 2021 is better for both of them, and everyone else too!
I think students will begin to have in person classes at most colleges and universities in Fall 2021 in my opinion.
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I teach college, and although they rolled back a bit for the spring, I think they’ll have at least 50% in-person in the fall with full dorm capacity. I think they are realistically looking at making us teach based on student numbers and NOT on number of classes. For example, I have to teach 4 classes, but if they cut enrollment, they might ask me to teach 6 classes, only 3 course-preps max, but I would have to be in-person for half of my work week. Maybe they would have more teaching assistants for example.
I for one would love to wear a mask from November through February every academic year. There are some pretty horrible folks, co-workers and students alike, who would come to school sick, even very sick, coughing and clearly feverish, and would shake your hand or get close to you. Would it be that we will be beyond that for at least a few years!!!
I think there may be a lot more online-only degree options. Think of the potential for corporate America to pay for their workers to get degrees online instead of in-person. My aunt traveled an hour each way twice per week to get a BS degree paid for by her work. It took her over ten years!
I think I’m in the minority, but I believe colleges will be fairly back to normal in the fall.
The vaccine campaign is dramatically ramping up. The first week had around 800,000 vaccinations for the entire week, but yesterday had 900,000 for just the day. Each week has seen rapid acceleration; clearly there has been a learning curve. I expect next week the rates will be dramatically higher still. I think early on hospitals were being very precious about rollout; only giving to a fraction of workers per day in case they called in sick the next day, etc. A lot of reasons for slow pace, but clearly the pressure is on to move faster and we can already see dramatic improvement. I saw Pfizer CEO on cnbc the other day, and they continue to find ways to improve manufacturing. Their initial estimate of 1.3 billion doses in 2021 has now been increased to 2 billion. J&J is expected to release their Phase 3 data within 2 weeks, and the early data is promising. So the US already has 400 million doses secured from Moderna and Pfizer by June, and can add >100 million doses (single dose) from J&J starting in March. We have approximately 250 million eligible adults in the US, so if hopefully at least 200 million of them agree to get vaccinated, it should be available to all who want it long before school starts.
It appears that most doctors are recommending it for even their patients on chemo; I haven’t read about any groups of 16+ year old people who are recommended not to get it (except possibly more caution for pregnant people) although people with severe allergies should be watched. This is important because if basically every adult is safely eligible, once everyone has been offered the vaccine, I don’t really see a need to continue with extra measures. (Of course, now that everyone has masks handy, if they have a cold, or whatever, masks will hopefully make an appearance).
So that’s a long answer to say, I believe dorms will be full in the fall, classes in person, and I do believe there will be sports spectators. Maybe there will temperature checks or other lingering things, but I think there will be parties again, etc. That’s my prediction. Looking forward to getting there and seeing what it’s really like in the fall!!
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I thought the vaccines were approved only for 18 and over.
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Pfizer’s vaccine is approved for 16+, Moderna 18+
I stand corrected 
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After being accepted to Cal Poly Pomona, I took D21 for a drive by Pomona, and also UC Riverside and UC Irvine since we took the trip.
All the campuses are so shut down. I’ve never seen such depressingly empty college campuses. I know both UC’s and CSU’s have stated they want to be open in Fall 2021 - but based on what I saw during these visits it seems like they may still be closed, and all learning would be online.
I honestly don’t understand how these students will get an education this way. D21 is a mechanical engineering student, how to you learn things and build things online?
Does anyone know anything more specific about opening plans for the fall? This is becoming the most important and most mysterious part of our decision making for the fall.
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My D19 is a mechanical/aerospace engineering major at UCD. The quality of her classes and labs is really incredible to me. They mailed her an Arduino for one class and we’ve procured some lab supplies on our own. There have been a lot of synchronous labs and classes. It’s definitely not perfect, but it is working and the school and professors really seem to be giving it their best shot. She tells me that she is learning everything she needs to continue progressing in classes.
It will get back to normal at some point next year. I have a S21 as well, so I understand your concern about starting out this way. The one thing our 21’s have going for them is that they will be in lower division classes for any potentially remote quarters/semesters.
I hope my D19’s experience at least helps ease your mind a little. It’s so hard.
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DD was telling me one of her friends was at a virtual dinner with one of the heads of student health services at her LAC and someone asked if school was going to be back to normal in the fall after vaccines were more widespread. The answer was pretty discouraging for those in attendance because they envision social distancing, masks, limits on group sizes for in person gatherings including classes, and that “the new normal” was going to replace “normal” for the foreseeable future. Pretty discouraging, if you ask me.
Both of my kids school have sent out communication that classes for Fall 2021 should all be in person. I am sure they will require masks if that is the norm in the country, but remote learning will not be offered for the vast majority of students.
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Want to name that college?
Wake has released dates for Parents Weekend. Hopefully they tweaking their current system to keep the kids on campus and safe.
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Thanks for the info, its good to know. My D21 is very set on going to school in the fall. She has one out of state school on her list that went to school in person this year, if the CSU’s and UC’s can’t be clear about what is happening I think she may weight this factor and go to the OOS school, where she has been admitted and has enough merit aid its a little less than CSU’s anyhow.
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Going back to “normal in-person instruction” is likely contingent on vaccine general availability occurring in time. Once there is vaccine general availability, COVID-19 risk becomes more of a personal choice that you can make (choosing to get the vaccine or not) rather than an involuntary risk imposed on you by others (often unknowingly), so the incentive for colleges to stay remote or otherwise impose social distance and mask restrictions for COVID-19 reasons mostly goes away.
So watch the progress on vaccine availability. If there are still shortages going into the summer, be worried about whether colleges can go back to “normal”. But if summer comes and everyone who wants a vaccine can easily get one, colleges will probably be back to “normal” in the fall.
It is possible that colleges concerned about students, faculty, and staff who are medically unable to get any of the vaccines are considering requiring everyone to get vaccinated to reduce the risk for those who are medically unable to get any of the vaccines.
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