I assume this is WashU? What do you think is the reasoning to start later? Are they waiting to see how the pandemic pans out this summer? It seems like many colleges are starting early so that students can be at home by Thanksgiving. Really confusing to me how different colleges are handling this.
Yes, WashU. Hereâs what they saidâŚ
âthe university determined that a delayed start provided additional time to ready the campus, optimize best practices in health and safety, and slowly and intentionally transition students, faculty and staff back into residential living and learning. â
Yes they just sent them! You have to download each as a zipped file, so kind of a pain, but Iâm trying to go through them now.
I will say that in the past, my kidsâ grades were good predictors.
Thank you so much for the car magnet suggestion - perfect!
@amsunshine - My D had a drive through celebration a couple of weekends ago. I ordered flower garlands, grosgrain ribbon in school colors, mylar balloons in school colors, and gold inflatable letters for her car from Michaelâs and Party City and did curbside pick-up. The ribbon made great streamers - tied to the door handles and rear windshield wiper (hatchback). They still looked good even though it was raining! I saw some of the faculty use tulle or netting (4-5" wide on a spool like ribbon) in the same way, which looked fun. The gold letters we strung together and attached to the grill of her car, and the floral garland and balloons were on the roof. Iâd planned on writing on the windows, but it was too rainy to do it that day. I will tell you, though, that the window markers I bought from Party City were sad, so we went âold schoolâ on the front window of our house with liquid shoepolish. It goes on more easily and is easier to see â my son tried multiple layers of the window marker and you can still barely see the color. Shoepolish (and the markers) will damage the paint, though, so stick to the windows!
No lie â that was the most fun day weâve had in two months! 
Oh, my! You really went all out! Sounds like it was amazing. 
Iâm a little embarrassed to say I think we are just going to do the magnetic signs on both sides of the car and streamers/bows in her college colors on the rear view mirrors. Thatâs about all I can handle right now. I think it will be cute though!
I wasnât sure if you meant high school colors or college colors?
Are you referring to me? Definitely we are doing all decor in her college colors, not high school colors. (I was very excited to be able to order a burgundy and gold lei for her tooâŚshe will love it!)
Oh just in general, people have been talking about decorating in the school colors and I wasnât sure. Our âgraduationâ isnât until late June so Iâm not even sure what the plan is yet. Appreciating all the ideas shared here, though!
Are you all buying the tassels for the cap? Our school is selling them for $8 each. It is annoying that they add up to $40 if i buy all the english honor, the math honor, etc. i see i can buy from amazon for cheaper but maybe i shouldnt skimp. Btw, graduation will be a time slot the student takes a picture, receives diploma, and returns to the car.
D20âs school doesnât charge extra for things like that. But her school is small, so maybe itâs not as big of a deal as it would be in a bigger school? They donât get any extra cap tassels, which I thought was weird, but she did get an honors cord and she will be getting a medal for salutatorian. Thatâs it, though.
@amsunshine - I did go a little crazy. ? The ribbons and flower garland are still on her car (not that she has driven much since then). I didnât think weâd use everything because my D is on the understated side, but it was raining the entire day so the easy writing option was, uh, out the window. ? As I said, it was the most fun weâve had in two months, so it was definitely worth it!
I went with HS colors without even thinking about it. ?ââď¸
Is there anyone who didnât visit the college their student chose? Are you planning to go before move in date, or just wait? Now that things are opening up a bit Iâm wondering if people will do self guided tours, just to get the layout of a campus. Or perhaps the virtual tours are enough?
^^ Yep. D20 was not able to visit because her trips were planned for April but everything got cancelled. She will not visit prior to the fall start.
Our honor societies have cords not tassles. I think the price of the cords are included in the membership fees for the honor societies.
My S20âs small private SoCal school just released a video with each of the seniors announcing their college commitment. Out of approx 120 seniors, 100 participated. Most popular school by far was USC with 11, next were Yale, MIT, Stanford, UCLA and UCSB with 4 each. Ivies had a total of 13. Only 2 kids staying local (SDSU) and they are both recruited athletes. The big surprise compared to past years is no one going to Columbia or NYU and only 1 going to Berkeley. I do wonder if NYC being in the epicenter affected any of those decisions.
Berkeley took a hit at our SoCal school as well. It will interesting to see if UCLA drew fewer NorCal kids.
Why would Berkeley be more risky than UCLA? (Sorry, East Coast person here(
@suzyQ7 I am wondering if itâs more a distance thing? California is so long that itâs really like going out of state- if people are sticking closer to home, theyâre definitely not jumping up/down the coast. Anecdotally, my daughterâs best friend is from San Mateo and is committed to UCLA.
I wonder if UC Berkeleyâs announcement last month that they cannot guarantee freshman housing has scared off some students? I will say that I have heard from my Dâs LA high school that several kids were taken off of the waitlist who didnât really have stellar grades and test scores. The two girls I know off the waitlist are choosing Wake Forest and UC Santa Barbara instead.