That is inaccurate and, respectfully, naive. Yes, visitors to “events” like homecoming and family weekend have to check in. There are plenty of overnight guests staying in college housing that do not have to check in or show anything. They just come and go. They are expected to wear masks if they are unvaccinated but there is no procedure or policy of registration or checking for “just because” visits.
https://www.colgate.edu/colgate-together/university-policies-during-covid-19/pandemic-travel-policy/campus-guests-during
Whatever Colgate and Bowdoin are currently doing, it’s working. Colgate currently has 2 active cases from a population of ~3000 undergrads, and I think Bowdoin got back down to 0 for the week. These kids are not posing any sort of significant threat to themselves, each other, or their neighborhood.
Small numbers of visitors will not change this, as the students are being frequently tested, so in the off-chance that a visitor brings covid to campus, it will be found and crushed before a real outbreak takes hold.
ETA I see in HomerDogs post below that Colgate actually isn’t doing surveillance testing. But nonetheless, they still have precious few “active” cases on their dashboard, so to a certain extent their system appears to be working there (very few symptomatic cases at least). But I myself think Bowdoin’s approach is smarter—the surveillance testing is extremely effective at almost no inconvenience to the students and currently a very small financial cost.
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I’m not talking about Colgate. I should have said I’m only talking about Bowdoin in some respects. Bowdoin is testing kids twice a week. Colgate has looked the other way. I’m on the fence about that. I’m not a fan of surveillance testing vaccinated kids but I do want students to have access to a test if they have symptoms and Colgate isn’t doing that. That’s not a good look.
I did see that a dad tried to get into Colgate’s dining hall and was told no. Campus visitors not allowed in campus buildings (at least where there is someone to check).
I see now they have “no” cases which I know has to be inaccurate since they don’t test. I’m not thrilled they are looking the other way but I will say that our D at Colgate is definitely having a fairly normal experience and I’m happy about that.
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What social life do you expect students to have that’s completely bubbled from the surrounding community? Cinemas, bars, nightclubs, concerts, sports games etc all involve non students. Even private house parties usually include non student work colleagues, family or friends.
I’m not sure who you are asking …if it’s me I would say I want kids to be able to do all of that stuff. All of the rest of us are allowed to as long as we follow local guidelines. Shouldn’t be different for college students. I know it’s hard to generalize but I guess I’m talking only about states that are following CDC guidelines.
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I was responding in general to the idea that students shouldn’t have to be under any Covid mitigation strategies like wearing masks or socially distance if the student body is fully vaxed. My point was that that other students won’t be the only people they interact with. The college has to take into account of workers in the Covid ICU of the local hospital who might drop in to campus to visit a sibling.
My D’s suitemate from the UK, where they give out free rapid tests, managed to accumulate a suitcase’s worth over the summer - over 100 tests! When cases were spiking on campus and you couldn’t just go get tested, those kits were passed out like Halloween candy to their pod of 12. Student’s family just sent another stockpile.
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Our Colgate D also has some tests. I sent her some last week. It’s a good idea for those kids to have tests available to them.
I think the point is, this is the new normal and we will adjust. Most colleges will require masking but otherwise kids can have a normal experience, and there will be some covid outbreaks here and there but the vaxxed (and possibly boosted) will not get seriously ill. There will be surges and lulls in most places and people will adjust their activities accordingly if they wish.
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This forum is so good at highlighting the range of college experiences available. For so many traditional college students, I actually do believe 97%+ of their close contacts are only with other students. College parties, college sporting events, the people they sit with at the local college bar (virtually all students in those places), the people seated near them at a movie, the people they go out to eat with, etc. Obviously people don’t catch covid from someone seated on the other side of a stadium from them—even in public venues your risk primarily comes from those seated immediately near you, which will be your friends. I think it is pretty common for a lot of college students to really only socialize with other students, in locations that are either exclusively filled with students or very nearly only filled with students. Even though a lot of students may work or volunteer in their surrounding communities, those circumstances often involve masking and distance, so odds of catching covid now in workplaces are not high. For these students if they are fully vaxxed and subject to frequent surveillance testing, they indeed have a really excellent (albeit imperfect) bubble. And then in rare cases that something gets into one of the bubble’s tiny holes, the surveillance testing will catch it quickly and stop an outbreak.
However, at certain campuses located in exciting cities (where students may be more likely to go to more cultural events with the general public), or for non-traditional/older students who are not completely enmeshed with campus life, they will have more interaction with people outside their campus, and their bubble will be far less impervious. More mitigation strategies will be needed in these situations. But for the 1st type of campus, it looks like vaccination paired with frequent testing (plus masks in classrooms) works extremely well.
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While that may be true at isolated residential colleges where everyone lives in campus housing, many or most college students commute from where they lived before college, so they interact with more varied social contacts (e.g. family, off campus job, etc.). Also, residential students at many colleges commonly live off campus in the local community, increasing their contact with non students.
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There are also many campuses where most students live off campus. While these students probably socialize primarily with other students, they are out in the surrounding community every day shopping, taking public transportation, etc. There is no semblance of a bubble on these campuses.
My son goes to this type of school. There is no testing of asymptomatic vaccinated students. Life is pretty normal except for the requirement to wear masks inside university owned buildings. Classes are all in person and buildings like the gym and library are no longer capacity controlled like they were last year. Football games are at full capacity. Tailgating is happening and big house parties are back. He’s having some issues adjusting back to in person classes and tests, but otherwise things seem to be going pretty good.
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I’m going to have to disagree somewhat. While I believe that what you say is true for some students at some schools (my group #2), my personal experience and that of many traditional students I am familiar with leads me to still believe that there is a massive group of students almost exclusively having close contacts only with their peer students. That was the case for me, even living in a house off-campus (with 8 fellow students) in a medium-sized city, I see it with my kids and their friends at many colleges. All the parties I went to, tailgating done, socialized eating was all done just with other students. But overall, that was the point of my first sentence—that reading these posts everyone can learn about how there are differences at various colleges. It can be easy for me to forget that there are schools that don’t require vaccination, and perhaps some of you aren’t aware of how much many traditional college students stick to themselves, whether they live on or off campus.
To the point above, I do not consider shopping to be close contact. Almost nobody is turning up catching covid from the supermarket. There is distance, a momentary passing of each other in the avocado section, frequent or required masking in large parts of the country, etc. So those off-campus students are still primarily only spending “quality time” with other students. As I mentioned above, most workplaces in states that take covid semi-seriously, have mitigation in place to drastically reduce/eliminate spread on site.
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We just got back from visiting our D who is a grad student at UPenn. Obviously Penn is a completely different campus from Bowdoin, in the middle of a dense urban area and full of grad and professional students who live off campus and tons of visitors. Everyone did gateway testing at the start of the Fall semester. Vaccinated students have to do screening testing (saliva) twice a month. Penn Cares Testing Program | Coronavirus. They have a phone app, the Penn Open Pass and you have to do a daily symptom check. If you fail the symptom check or don’t come in for your scheduled screening test, you get a Red Pass.
Last night and this morning D was coughing a lot, which she thinks is allergies due to going on a 9 mile run yesterday. She did a rapid test at home that was negative, but she truthfully reported the cough on her daily symptom check. So today she has a Red Pass and can’t go to class. She reported to the Penn testing center and was given one of those deep swab tests and is supposed to get a result in about 12 hours, and is directed to isolate pending the result. It’s unfortunate timing because she only has classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so she’s missing a lot of class and also can’t meet up with her cohort to work on the problem set. But of course she understands why it has to be this way.
The grad students in her program have cubicles together and they are not allowed to eat at their desks. They are supposed to go to designated “eating zones” during designated “eating hours.” This particular rule is a bit questionable as applied to her group, because usually there are just a couple of them present in the cubicle area but if they go to the “eating zone” then it’s much more crowded. Also the timing of the “eating time” doesn’t work well with her class schedule.
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It’s interesting how different colleges deal with students returning to campus differently. At one end of spectrum, there’re colleges that do practically nothing. At the other end of the spectrum, there’re colleges that require vaccinations with practically no exemption, both pre-arrival and arrival PVR tests, twice-weekly tests for everyone, genuine N95 masks (which are supplied to everyone free of charge) everywhere except in one’s dorm, or when eating or not with a crowd outside.
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I do not consider shopping to be close contact. Almost nobody is turning up catching covid from the supermarket.
Actually, according to the UKs track and trace system supermarkets are likely to be high risk areas for spread. They where the places that people who tested positive for covid most commonly visited prior to testing positive, just ahead of schools.
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The only helpful part of this thread is what schools are actually doing. The continued debate on what is or isn’t draconia or should or shouldn’t be done to protect others is tedious - and honestly considering the dramatic differences between the 4000+ universities in the US irrelevant. You’re never going to find protocols that make sense for a well endowed 3000 student rural, residential campus that is mostly vaccinated and a 50,000 cash strapped public school with a large commuter population, particularly in a region that is anti-vax and anti-mask.
At this point it’s very obvious that administrations, regions and states have extremely varied risk tolerance for positive cases. It would behoove any applying student to see how your potential school’s policies match with your own expectations. As there are HUGE differences. And I know a ton of students who have been disappointed at both extremes.
The one who is not coming home for the holidays as they are going to a school that is essentially ignoring covid - no testing, no masks, in person classes and no vax mandate. Their parent is high risk and doesn’t want to risk having a break through case and bringing it home. The miserable student who had no idea that their freshman year was going to be so restricted despite a high vax rate where many of the residential, in person components are missing and they’re paying $80,000 a year.
I feel for the students who made their choices pre-covid as many didn’t have the luxury of knowing just how varied the experiences would be - now if anyone doesn’t realize that this is not a short term blip, but rather a large chunk of your college experience and should factor it into your decision - I seriously urge you to think differently.
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Many students work off campus.
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The surprising discovery isn’t that colleges with vastly different populations in different states behave differently, but that similar colleges located within walking distance of each other have different protocols. I find this thread very useful.
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I agree completely, that was my point that the most useful part of this thread is what schools are actually doing as administrations have very different risk tolerance and budgets even within the same state/region. It’s when people get bogged down in yet another debate about masks outdoors or the ideal amount of testing etc etc etc or risk to young people vs surrounding community that it gets tiresome particularly as there seems to be very little realization that their personal anecdotes about their particular situation or their child’s is not universal.
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