I agree. They are all signaling to the market (students/parents) about fall intentions. It’s funny how it’s a game of chicken to see who announces something first, and then there are a flood of announcements.
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Did you see how Alabama announced fully open and full fans for football? That’s a little too much for me! We saw last year how many people don’t keep their masks on during football games, etc.
Of course, 'Bama also probably has as close to herd immunity as can be based on their case numbers down there.
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Sort of like test optional …
Oh and then a flood of announcements going the other way that they have to close! Not a good look for many schools.
Miami University President informed students that in fall 2021 “for Oxford Undergraduates , we anticipate providing most instruction face-to-face and do not foresee a fully remote option.”
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They must be a football school !
Yes, exactly. Some big players make the first move, and then the rest follow.
Congrats on a decision made. Boulder is in a truly lovely setting, she will enjoy!
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Sounds like they intend to return to in person and lift caps on capacity. They also expect to have masks and washing hands/extra cleaning. So pretty normal for the Fall. I really hope it happens!
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Would you or anyone else want to name a school where the freshmen thought they had enough activities and met enough people? I don’t think there were any schools like that except the ones that basically ignored Covid.
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Why would that happen in a world with universal vaccine availability as is projected for next fall? We don’t put universities on virtual status because of the risk of polio or measles. We just vaccinate everyone and move on with life.
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The question that should be asked is - if a vaccine is widely available by July, will campus be operating as normal? At that point, everyone could be vaccinated and it’s up to each person to do their part. Considering Biden said vaccines for everyone by May, I cannot see why a school would be doing anything like they are doing now.
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Some of the small liberal arts colleges here in the Pacific Northwest basically created their own Covid bubbles on campus and then did mostly in-person learning as usual. Like, for example, Reed College. As far as I know, dorms and in-person classes were pretty normal. But the campus was completely closed to outside visitors and they had pretty rigid testing and quarantine protocols.
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Sorry, @srparent, but I think this post is over the line.
Who are you to judge anyone else’s decision relative to a non ED acceptance?
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Right. But they probably had a lot of the rules that places like Williams and Bowdoin has and those freshmen were pretty unhappy. No orientation trips. Couldn’t visit other dorms for a while. All clubs virtual. Not close to the freshman experience they would have had in 2019
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Until they figure out whether the vaccinated can still transmit the disease, I suspect that masks might be with us for awhile but that other measures might be relaxed. The data from Israel suggests that those vaccinated are not spreading the disease. We should have more data as the months go by. I am hoping that the J&J is deployed to college campuses before the end of the Spring semester. One and done, no need to schedule across state lines for round two.
I agree with @camasite. Some of the more isolated LACs in the NE also were able to create bubbles after an initial 14 day testing and waiting period. And then there was a reasonable amount of socializing permitted (with group size limits, masks, distancing, and the like). I am thinking that schools that offered easy access to outdoor recreation also fared better than most. Kids can go hiking safely, for example.
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Ok. Still not the same and I would not send D to any of those closed campuses as a freshman. It’s one thing for the older kids as they have friends but still stinks because it’s hard to meet new people. For freshmen on those LAC closed campuses, they really had a lesser experience.
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Absolutely 
.
Well, of course, it’s not the same. But there’s a difference between a school that has only single occupancy rooms, grab & go dining, all online classes, and all clubs on line vs. a school that allows socializing across residence halls, has some F2F clubs and other social activities, some dining hall access, and options for hybrid or F2F learning.
For example one LAC that my kid is favoring allows students to visit one another in their rooms if the positivity rate is low. Another says absolutely no visitors, regardless of COVID rate on campus. While I expect things to be much better by August/September, I’d lean towards the school that currently offers greater options for socializing depending on the overall health profile of the school.
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Every single school my daughter applied to has written back multiple times via emails and paper letters reminding us/her that she has to accept her admissions offer by May 1st.
But not a single school has said “please let us know ASAP if you plan to decline our offer of admissions” They do not even mention a process for declining an offer of admission.
If the schools actually cared about keeping track of this sort of thing then you would think they would make a point of actually requesting the information from us and giving us the means to easily do so.
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