@redfraggle D20 signs up for orientation tomorrow, so we’re right there with you. She’s already visited her school three times and will be going again in April for cheerleading tryouts. She has a lot of work to do before that learning how to ‘stunt’, but her sports are done and she’s been slacking off on homework ever since first semester ended. She’s always liked school, but she’s really enjoying her senior year a lot!
@redfraggle This is phenomenal. A happy kid is exactly what we all hope for in this process! Well done!
I know there are many threads on the coronavirus, which I am avoiding. I want to know from senior parents-- what are you planning to do if your child had overseas plans for summer? Our kids are supposed to go to Italy, UK, and France with a school group in early June. Their tour group sent out an email early last week saying no plans have been changed yet. But I’m having a hard time understanding how they cannot be? My real conflict is that one of the kids has an autoimmune condition and is on strong meds that supposedly weaken her immune system. Although she hasn’t struggled with it yet, this could be an issue. I hate to restrict her on this, and I’m hoping the tour company will take care of that decision for me. Then again, how much can change before June? And for the worse or better?
@Momofmanytoo - tough situation and difficult to guess how this is going to be in June. But as of now Italy is under the advisory (to avoid all non-essential travel): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
This combined with autoimmune condition - I would avoid or change plans to some other nice place. Hope the travel company takes the correct decision.
@Momofmanytoo what part of Italy are they scheduled to visit? Right now some parts are “worse” than others as you may know. But which are worse and which are better could change by June. It’s true that the CDC has the level 3 warning to avoid all non-essential travel, but now the State Dept. has a level 4 warning for Lombardy (includes Milan) and Veneto (includes Venice) which is Do Not Travel. We have plans to visit Italy in June also (including a city in Lombardy on Lake Como) but we are watching closely and preparing to cancel if need be. I would think consulting the immunocompromised child’s doctor would be best to get advice.
I have a D17 who has had to change her summer study abroad destination from ShangHai to Greece. Hoping that’s still a ‘go’. She wants to get away.
We cancelled D20 Spring Break trip to Spain, within the 30 day window to get most of money back. There is just too much uncertainty right now.
@Momofmanytoo (like your name…I am, too.) We canceled our spring break travel plans, but we are planning on rescheduling for summer. (I was worried about being stuck in some sort of quarantine situation at that location. Quarantined anywhere other than home…ugh, the idea is straightjacket worthy!!) We figure by summer, 1 of 2 things will be happening–it will be everywhere in the US making it as impossible to avoid as the flu, strep, or colds or 2–it will have peaked and have started to decrease pretty much everywhere it currently is. (China’s numbers are decreasing.)
Our college jr just found out she was selected for CLS (if you aren’t familiar with it, it is study abroad funded by the State Dept. It is incredibly competitive and the application process is similar to a college app (essays, recommenders, etc)) I am really hoping the program is not cancelled bc my dd will be beyond crushed if it is.
Fingers crossed for all our kids!!
We looked at cancelling our spring break plans, but it will cost as much to cancel as to go. We’re looking at options now and hoping something changes in the meantime. Not traveling internationally, just coast to coast, but like @Mom2aphysicsgeek don’t want to get quarantined anywhere but home. Never concerned me before, but now I can’t quit thinking about the massive amount of germs being transferred in airports.
Interesting to see how all these “late” admittances play out. S20 was pleasantly surprised to be admitted to UF last week. It was the last school on the schedule and probably the one he never thought of based on the fact that he had some admittances from October/ November and perhaps his very long shot and 'reach" school. But with some of the BIG 10 schools not playing nice with Merit money and with the “BS” game of “you will hear by the end of March early April”, he seems to have given up the idea of attending any of them.
Now with all the scary news about the Corona Virus and how it could affect our everyday lives, I wonder how all of us will start to view our choices, especially those thinking of sending our kids to some of these OOS schools. I am even wondering if some of the yields at some of these schools will be affected. I would not be surprised to see more kids getting off waitlists or deferred lists due to many not committing, especially International Students.
We are very early at this stage of the Corona Virus. but I have a feeling that we will continue to see more negative news in the day and months ahead. As it is, with the news of UF becoming a very good possibility and a very good option, we were going to take cheap flights into Orlando in order to attend one of those Admitted Student days. Glad I did not book it cause the last thing I want to do right now is getting on a flight and dealing with lots of strangers at a crowded airport. We are now going to get in the car and go. Perhaps. I am overthinking it, but I hate airports anyway.
We were also waiting on UF. Signed up for the admitted student day on March 27 and decided to buy airline tickets with insurance in case we need to cancel.
She know that the summer plans to Europe will probably change. Glad we got travel insurance for that one too.
@momzilla2D Yeah, for us the decision to postpone was easy bc we booked through Southwest. All we lost were our early boarding fees and college dd’s ticket from her school to the Southwest hub city. In the scheme of things, that was minimal. Thankfully, everything else we booked with the ability to cancel 48 hrs beforehand. All of that was done before Christmas. I hadn’t booked event tickets yet and had been watching their availability and the virus at the same time.
So., so glad we canceled. Layovers in Seattle, landing in Sacramento, hotels along the coast. Nothing like flying from our area with nothing and straight into the center of it all. Our ds lives near there, but I’m more concerned about dh (50s with hypertension doesnt seem like a good profile for this virus.)
@ildro We bought travel insurance too, but didn’t get the “cancel for any reason” type. And since we booked after the “magic date” of January 22nd, our travel insurance covers almost nothing related to the coronavirus.
I do hope your travel insurance is better than ours, but to anyone counting on your travel insurance, you may want to look more closely to make sure it’s effective.
@Ildro Congratulations! Very exciting for sure. We are heading down there for the March 13 event. I will make sure to post and hopefully you will have not issues or concerns getting down there. I have not been to UF in about 35 years and I do not remember one thing other than a McDonalds off a highway. Age is very unforgiving, but I guess it would not matter when all these schools are probably much different from even 10 years ago.
One of the reasons I 
Southwest. (+2 bags free)
I’m in the same boat, contemplating spring break. Although, we have direct flights to FLL, which doesn’t seem to be a high risk area “right now”. Since we booked with Southwest, I’m waiting until the week before to make a decision. Our hotel is cancellable until 3/28. And I’m actually wondering… even if we decide to go anyway, maybe we can rebook something cheaper, given the amount of people who are probably backing out?
We have trip insurance for the kids’ summer European tour. It’s with EF. I’ve skimmed through the policy and it’s not looking too great. I think our money will be tied up even if we do decide to cancel or the tour company postpones. This wouldn’t be quite as painful if we did not have 3 full pay kids in college next year. Here’s to hoping for full refunds if the trip is cancelled, and not just a forced reschedule. :neutral:
So glad that we did the top three admitted students events in early February! Unless that last school comes through with an admittance and very generous scholarship (quite unlikely) we have no need to be anywhere for spring break. I am wary of booking any flights for summer vacation and have booked lodging within driving distance as the fall back plan. I can cancel until early May so plenty of time to watch and see how this develops. A driving vacation sounds good to me this year.
@momzilla2D and @Momofmanytoo sounds like I have the same travel insurance as both of you. We are booked for Rome and Paris at end of July. Our VRBO in Rome and our hotel in Paris can be canceled but our flights were non-refundable and non-changeable (hence why I purchased the trip insurance for the flights). But it is not “cancel for any reason” insurance which I didn’t realize as Expedia is misleading in the way it presents the insurance. It’s through Travel Guard who states on their coronavirus FAQ page that we cannot cancel because we are scared to go or even if the CDC says not to go. Even if the airline cancels our flight, they won’t reimburse us, although we could then probably get money back from the airlines themselves.
So we are in wait and see mode and just hoping that late July will be OK to go, and maybe it will be a little less crowded than we expected.
Oh goodness. We’re also concerned about overseas trip for DS 20. He’d planned to tour 4 European countries including Italy (CDC level 3 now) this summer. Worse thing, if we lose the money we paid, is he was paying for half the trip and would be devastated. It’ll suck but his health and safety are way more important. The tour agency just pretty much said that they’re monitoring the situation. Ugh!
Yep, D20 doing a senior trip to Europe in June with 200 other students. It’s wait and see…