<p>Lets assume COA is $60,000. A generous assumption of length of school year would be 280 days.
So each day is $218.
Do you care if you ( or your kid) throws away $218?
Perhaps someone who doesn’t find $10-$20 to be worth noting, also doesn’t think a couple hundred is enough to sniff at, but I certainly would balk at throwing it away carelessly.</p>
<p>( for those that feel their time is more important than the time of faculty)</p>
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<p>True, but even many of those families like mine and those of most HS classmates understand that sometimes, one’s academics or job takes precedence over such holidays. </p>
<p>And complaining about it or accusing the Prof/supervisor/company of “having power trips” when scheduling exams or important job-related functions during that week won’t get you very far or earn you much, if any respect from your boss/peers if word gets back to them you’ve done so. I bet your D1 has already realized this considering I doubt she’s oblivious enough to complain to her boss/peers at her work about having to stay on for Thanksgiving in her first year on the job.</p>
<p>Asking a Prof to take the Thanksgiving week off at my LAC may be accommodated by the Profs, but the impression you’ll leave with most is that you don’t prioritize academics very highly and that is likely to come back to haunt you during grade/LOR request time. </p>
<p>Some also make it a policy to NOT provide makeup notes or help to remedy the material lost on missed classes during Thanksgiving week if it was done for non-emergency purposes like traveling for family gathering/vacations. In that case, you’d better hope you made some good friends who are also great students and reliable notetakers. </p>
<p>I’m having a hard time understanding why anyone would choose to attend a school far off, then expect professors to slack up on the workload or give days off so he/she can go home for a week at Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving is a very important holiday in my family, the one long weekend when the whole extended family gets together. I get it that people want to be at home on Thanksgiving, and I know that only two or three days off will not give students much time to get home and back from a long distance away. However, if it is a priority to spend as much time as possible at home over Thanksgiving, then choose a college close to home.</p>
<p>Families need to evaluate their expectations towards family time * before* the student chooses a school.
If you expect to easily attend parent weekends, sporting events or help out with moving unexpectedly, consider a local or at most regional school.
Same if they have family events they cant miss or be part of , like a grandparent dying, an ill pet or a cousins wedding.</p>
<p>As we’ve seen the past few years " weather happens". Even if the flights coincide with time off from school, doesn’t mean they will be able to get there & back in time allotted.
Your time is not more important than anyone elses. </p>
<p>When 70% of students from the university are from out of state, I would think it would be considerate to allow students more time to travel home, especially when the school decides to close down its dorms for the break.</p>
<p>I never went home for T’giving, nor did DD2 who got off on Wed evening on the west coast (80% OOS including many internationals). DD1 came a couple of times but her school was only 90 mins away. Sometimes that’s the price of being an adult.</p>
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<p>Then it would make sense for this to be a university-wide policy. </p>
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<p>I try to plan ahead when I can, and so we looked at the school year calendar which is available online generally, 
to get an idea of subsequent year scheduling.</p>
<p>I think it is considerate to own up to your own priorities and not try to make others accountable for them.
Needing extra consideration for an unforeseen illness or accident is MUCH different than a predictable event.</p>
<p>I do think schools should leave the dorms open.
My daughters school did, even for longer breaks.
Where are the international students supposed to go?
While my kids both attended schools within 200 miles, I’m also reminded of a time when it took one of them 16 hrs to get home because of snow.(she was riding the train)</p>
<p>are there schools that close the dorms for T’giving? I haven’t run across any. Even schools that give a week off usually keep the dorms open.</p>
<p>When older d was a freshman, younger d was lead in the high school show the weekend before. Older d came home for show, flew back to school (only NY- Boston and flights were less expensive than they are now) and came home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday when campus closed at 12 noon. I think for our family and for the d’s, being home for Thanksgiving was very important along with Passover but it did not always work out that they could come home such as semester abroad or performance commitments, but every family and every student has to do what’s best for their own situation and you cannot assume that this far in advance, it will be “okay” with all faculty for those classes to plan to skip. It just doesn’t work that way. I worked as an adjunct faculty long time ago and I taught a one credit class one night a week for a certain number of weeks. Part of my position involved bringing industry professionals as guest speakers and I once was berated by someone that I had scheduled as she couldn’t possibly understand how I could possibly be holding my once a week class on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving at a school where the majority of students were commuters.</p>
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<p>I did a quick google search “do dorms close during thanksgiving break.” And, surprisingly to me, it seems a lot of them do. Most of the schools I looked at further had designated “break halls” for students to live in during the break if they did not leave campus. One school described the break living situation as “barracks housing.” Which I know would make my daughter start scurrying around to find some way, any way, to get home. </p>
<p>My son has an open invitation to bring anyone home for breaks. I don’t think it would be hard to find a friend to visit with if travelling home was impractical.</p>
<p>I believe I was misunderstood upthread. I would NOT have my kid ask to take an exam early–although some students do this. (I am a teacher, and while I, personally, am flexible with special situations, I do not want MY kid to ask for exceptions or make extra work for another teacher/prof).
However, air tickets have to be purchased early before exact schedules are known. Sometimes exam sections for classes are not at the same time as the class. (I found that kid’s school has regular exam sections outside of class time–NOT finals-- in the evening–even on Friday evenings.) I think it is reasonable for a student/parent to purchase tickets that fit with the student’s class schedule. I did this before knowing about the evening exam. Yes, I had to pay extra to get a different ticket–it was cheaper to cancel first one and purchase another. Actually, I think the prof would have been sympathetic to the situation–there are not many OOS students at S’s school.
Thanksgiving is not a big deal to our family. We do not get together with relatives. </p>
<p>My kids have never flown home for thanksgiving in the years since they left our home after HS. They always celebrated with family friends or friends they’ve met since they left for college. Some profs/instructors are NOT flexible and will heavily penalize absences from school, especially if it’s not due to a medical or essential reason. Plane tickets do not generally fall within the exceptions, I believe.
Once your D registers for classes, she will have a better idea of when she can take off. Our D was able to fly to a friend’s for Thanksgiving from Tuesday to Tuesday without missing any classes. Wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t waited to ask her instructors/profs.</p>
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<p>This was my red flag, too. The student in question hasn’t even started college yet, hasn’t signed up for classes (I assume), doesn’t even know what her schedule will look like (again, I assume) - and already it’s a “given” that she can skip said classes. It’s the underlying assumptions that are a little worrisome.</p>
<p>In my experience and those of my D - yes, important things take place that week before Thanksgiving. You can’t assume, sight unseen, that those days are skip-able.</p>
<p>and from the original post: “I’m thinking most people will be leaving the Friday before”</p>
<p>If <em>that</em> were the case, why would the school be in session? So that the professor can stand in front of an empty room? The academic calendar is there for a reason.</p>
<p>My D stayed on campus her first year and went to a friends’s 1 state away this year. They went back to school on Saturday because they had papers and things to get done.</p>
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<p>Uh, no. My family travels to distant relatives at a very inconvenient time because I don’t cancel classes for Thanksgiving. We’re the irritated looking ones in the car next to yours on the Jersey Turnpike on Wednesday evening. ;)</p>
<p>I agree with the comments that in the best circumstances, this is part of the consideration of attending this college at this distance from home. Both my kids are at schools a flight away from home (and for D2, there are not direct options) You can see academic calendars online, but might not know the individual schedules that far in advance. Both of their schools have classes the day before Thanksgiving. D1’s school is just as elite with as widespread a student body as at Cornell. She also only had a partial week of classes after Thanksgiving and then finals. I remember many short breaks having lots of work (which I did or didn’t make progress on) </p>
<p>Both understood that if they attended these schools that trips home at Thanksgiving would not be automatic. As it happens, they both have had late afternoon classes. Neither has come home for Thanksgiving. They were able to spend the last two years with each other via a bus trip.</p>
<p>Next year D1 will be at a state flagship but will have a week off. Since we are no longer paying her expenses, she is talking about flying home, but not sure if she will. If D2 had more time off we would consider it. </p>
<p>I am a big fan of the schools that end the fall term before Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>My son’s grad school ended the fall term the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He was expected to be there if he had a school commitment. He flew home on that Wednesday. </p>
<p>I will say, When we flew DD for that family wedding across the country, it was at midterm time. Of course DD had no hand in picking the wedding date if her cousin…and because of the distance, she had to travel on Friday. She had two professors who allowed her to take the midterm exams prior to leaving. She also had a project due that Friday. She turned it in on Thursday. </p>
<p>But we did not plan this prior to classes starting! </p>