The focus will be on reduced outside interaction with the campus, limiting off campus movement by the students severely, social distancing, masks, plexiglass barriers and contact tracing with apps and quick iso in the dorm room.
It won’t be about preventing surface spread between the students themselves. The rooms will be cleaned twice a day and students will wipe down as they see fit. Which will be a lot.
@EmptyNestSoon2 I think the point of a gap year is to do something you wouldn’t be able to do at college. Nearly everything you suggest - getting in shape, craft projects, YouTube videos, language learning, writing a script, etc etc can all be done while in college, while taking classes (or as part of the classes and/or as part of extracurriculars). I am guessing this is why many (most?) colleges want to approve requests as opposed to allowing them no matter what…if the proposed activity can take place while at school, then there is no reason to approve the gap year.
I agree students need to be adaptable. To me, this means adapting to everything the college can provide for a student during this time. Life is not ideal. Those who can learn to roll with the punches will be better off in the long run, in my opinion. That of course does not apply to a student who now may need to take a gap year in order to care for recovering relatives or to get a job to support the family because their parents lost their income, etc. Those are different scenarios, and I can see colleges granting more gap years than normal because of those specific kinds of situations. Understandable. Or a situation where a college sophomore or junior really needs to be on campus for a class that cannot be taught virtually (for example, my D21 is a certified Wilderness First Responder…that kind of course really needs to be taught in-person, as one does not learn to carry out an injured person with twenty other people virtually). But just because an incoming student wants an “ideal” first year? That creates problems for the class of 2021, both for admissions or, if a college admits more students than usual for fall of 2021 to compensate, the college class of 2025 when there are far more people than normal looking for those first jobs after graduation.
It is not “rolling with the punches”. It’s making the choice to not spend $30k on a semester of online classes. We already paid that for a semester that was cut short and put online. It’s not about being flexible. I don’t know why @JanieWalker keeps saying that. It’s also about a decision that was made in April 2019 -a decision that involved a lot of hand wringing to pay full price for a private school when S19 had other less expensive options. He chose his school because of what was offered ON the campus. His other options’ academics were extremely similar. We are paying the difference for him to be in the location he chose with the opportunities that being on the campus provided that other schools did not.
Homeschoolers whose kids spend a lot of time online must like online classes. Good for them. Not everyone wants that and it doesn’t make them inflexible or “less than” those who “roll with the punches”.
These are good ideas for some people, not ‘everyone’. Generally, these ideas apply to those relatively privileged with money, time, and/or secure, safe housing. Just a few selected points:
1)Many students have housing insecurity. These numbers don’t even include those who have ‘secure’ housing, but aren’t safe there.
https://www.curbed.com/2020/3/17/21181809/housing-campus-college-student-homeless
2)Nearly 40% of adults are in at-risk categories for covid-19, and many college age students live with at least one vulnerable individual. And this 40% only included obese individuals with BMI of 40+, which has since been changed to include all obese people (BMI 30+). It’s not appropriate that these students leave the house daily and risk bringing covid-19 home.
3)Some students don’t have reliable wi-fi at home
Wait, what? Lol, this was good for a laugh, but there is no way in Hades the professors are cleaning the classrooms between classes.
Not this year. I think the idea of some students to take a year off is to not “waste” one full college year taking classes online in their parents house while still paying full tuition. The game has changed this year, kids are not thinking about taking a gap year to do some amazing research, travel through Europe staying in youth hostels, etc. They are taking a gap year so they don’t have to experience the crazy roller coaster ride that will be the 2020/2021 college “experiment”.
The best you could hope for during the coming gap year is maybe volunteering (either online or in-person), taking a “fun” online class at a local college, doing your own research project, learning to play a musical instrument, writing poetry, short story, finding a part-time job to save a little money during this crisis, help with a family business, etc.
The bottom line is that we need to temper gap year expectations this year…it will be far from business as usual.
@EmptyNestSoon2 Thanks for that great post about Gap Year possibilities. Making lemons into lemonade is a great life skill and one that this crisis amplifies.
Of course (and others may have already made this point- I haven’t been reading this thread every day), taking the gap year to avoid online classes has an opportunity cost. If students don’t or can’t get a job during their gap year, they are giving up a year’s worth of salary relative to their peers who don’t take a gap year. In that sense, spending the $30k for online classes and entering the job market ahead of the gap year kids can make sense, especially for students who will be entering high-paying fields.
Both of my kids said last night that if their schools don’t have them back on campus in the fall, they will be taking gap years. They miss the in-person component and feel that the price we are paying is not justified for the online experience.
My son, who will be a senior, said at least half of his main friend group is planning the same. His school has announced that they will be making a decision by July 1st and kids will have until the middle of July to decide on whether they will be taking gap year. I don’t know if my daughter’s school will give the option for a gap year.
Now, when push comes to shove, and if their schools are online, who knows if they will change their minds. My son can continue with his internship over a gap year. My daughter does not have that option at this point.
I do agree with this, and potentially the class of 2025 will be larger than average which could make it relatively harder to get a job and put downward pressure on salaries. All speculation of course, but something to consider nonetheless.
I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t really think taking one year off in a 40 year career is a big deal. For example, I went to a community college for a year, took a year off and came back to CC and transferred to a UC. I’m doing just fine financially and I needed that year off to re-charge my batteries and get serious about my life. Many people, especially mothers, will take some time off and raise their kids and come back to work. My wife did this twice with our kids and she is also doing well with her career. When you look at the numbers, most college kids in the U.S. don’t even graduate in 4 years anyways. Are they are doomed for low paying jobs?
Lastly, as I have said previously, working full-time for 20, 30, or 40+ years is overrated…enjoy your youth while you are young. It’s not all about the money…
My flexible comment was a direct response to a specific thing another poster stated (about flexibility).
Yes, it is about being flexible, in my opinion. As I have responded to you before, this is not a situation where the college has something you want and is just not giving it to you/your son for no reason. Each college is doing the best they can given these awful and complicated circumstances. I do not think many colleges can afford to offer discounts for a fall online semester. I know parents want that, but given the circumstances that might not be feasible. Which means parents and students all need to be flexible. Those who don’t want to pay x for an online semester - in spite of a college doing everything it can during a global pandemic and not really being able to offer a discount - can choose to pay less and transfer to a different and less expensive college. I know you don’t agree, but you are not “right.” And guess what - neither am I. You have your opinion. Good for you. I have mine. Each time you attack my opinion and persepctive on different threads, I am going to give you the same response. Free free to put me on ignore. Actually, I will follow my own advice now and use the ignore feature for you.
Also - do not make assumptions about homeschoolers, or of a kid of any person who simply doesn’t agree with you. My homeschooler spends a lot of time doing in-person classes on college campuses (or at least she did until COVID forced those classes to go online). Most homeschooled teens I know do. D21 loves the in-person courses. She has also done residential college course programs over summers. Most of her days are spent with others, working with others (except now of course). Definitely prefers in-person to online. But she is fine with online if that’s the only option - quality and well-thought-out online courses, not ones that were quickly thrown together (that is not an insult to those professors who had to quickly convert their classes under very stressful situations and with little notice – kudos to them for doing everything they could and very quickly at that). When an in-person class at your level is not available though, you go with what is available, and in many cases during the high school years that means a quality online course. I am certain colleges will provide quality online experiences for their students come fall. They have the summer to improve and create. They are doing everything they possibly can. They are going to need students to be understanding - flexible - and accept that nothing this fall is going to be ideal, not for anyone, in spite of colleges doing absolutely everything they can. I feel very bad for those college administrators. What an awful situation to be in.
Adios…again. And again, good luck to you and your son.
I’m with @socaldad2002 on this one. How much could a 1 year delay really matter across a 40 year career? What I have read though is that graduating into a recession can have a long term impact on career earnings and let’s face it the economy is not going to be getting back to where it was pre-Covid for a number of years.
@homerdog I haven’t read the whole thread, but I agree that you need to be a good consumer and get what you pay for. You made a decision for your kid based on factors which have changed. You don’t need to pay for things which are no longer relevant. I do find it annoying on CC when folks jump into someone’s opinion and try to shout it down.
We had decided to buy a new car this Summer. Not going to happen. It might not even happen at all. Things change.
Being flexible at the expense of someone else is overrated, IMHO. Being adaptable as your factors change makes perfect sense. We are running our businesses very differenly since Covid 19. Our kids get this, our employees get this. We take in the data we have and make the best decisions we can knowing things might change.
We also weighed our educational options. ( We have two kids in BS and it’s beaucoup bucks). My kids hate online learning. Always have. They are going along with it because that is what is available. They don’t/won’t pretend it’s like an in-person experience. That’s doesn’t make sense. For someone to tell me that I should just go with the flow or whatever and pay the fee without thought is silly. Personal decision making is just that, personal and the factors which matter to one family won’t matter to another family.
I wish you the best of luck deciding what is best for your son.
All this is assuming though that the colleges let the kids take gap years/semesters. Princeton has said that they will “allow” a “gap year,” but they will not guarantee that students will be able to return after taking said gap year. That’s not a gap year, that’s a withdrawal from the college.
I just find it hard to believe all the colleges would allow unrestricted gap years if they were online, as many students would rather take time off than continue remote learning; I recognize there is some voluntary response bias here, but in a survey Amherst sent out to its students, over 80% indicated they would rather take time off then continue remote learning. No way colleges would allow more than 80% of the student body to take gap years! In that event, it would probably make more financial sense for the college to furlough all their faculty and staff for the year and just stop classes for the year altogether than pay all faculty and staff the same amount of money with less than 20% of tuition (and no room and board) coming in.
I thought what they said was they couldn’t guarantee an immediate return? As in the school might make them wait a punitive (not their word) extra semester or two? And yup, taking a gap year is obviously predicated on them being allowed by any given school in particular. I find the whole discussion interesting as an outsider- my kid was already planning a gap year with no big plans before the world fell apart, and had been talking to schools about it since September. In her situation- not applicable to others at all- one school even required a gap year first should she wish to attend there.
My older kid is now wrestling with if she wants a temporary leave rather than another semester/year online. She’s not even planning to tackle the decision until her school announces their fall plan though. All we do here is speculation and you can’t base decisions off of it, of course.
@milgymfam They did use the word “immediately”, but they did not specify the timeframe in which students could return after taking time off. It sounds to me like you would have to reapply in order to rejoin; in other words, a withdrawal from the college. Usually students will get accepted to rejoin after a withdrawal, but you are throwing yourself at the mercy of the committee that decides whether you can return. I basically think what they’re doing is trying to deny true gap years while claiming they are allowing “gap years” to maintain as much of their public image as possible.
Dont let it. What you don’t know is like my medical office or the school had these CDC protocols already. There is very few things that are really different if they were following all of this before. We are paying more attention to door handles, light switches that we had before, so it’s a good thing. But the schools already had CDC and Osha guidelines to follow. You are just seeing them in the spotlight now. It’s all good.
Suppose the CDC interim guidance from March to institutions of higher education remains about the same for fall?
See the decision trees
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-ihe-response.html
Big question will be whether or not there is community spread , ( as well as status of state orders).
Regardless, for those living on campus, “Any on-campus resident who may have been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 should follow instructions provided by local public health officials, including possible temporary relocation to alternate housing for self-quarantine and monitoring for symptoms.”
“If cases of COVID-19 have been identified among residents of on-campus community housing, work with local public health officials to take additional precautions. Individuals with COVID-19 may need to be moved to temporary housing locations. These individuals will need to self-isolate and monitor for worsening symptoms according to the guidance of local health officials. Close contacts of the individuals with COVID-19 may also need temporary housing so that they can self-quarantine and monitor for symptoms. Consult with local health officials to determine when, how, and where to move ill residents. Information on providing home care to individuals with COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization is available on CDC’s website.” etc.
These will probably be updated with testing and contact tracing recommendations, as we increase our capabilities in each of those areas.
With that said, I expect schools may vary in their ability to quarantine and/or isolate students. Easy at Bowdoin. Likely more difficult at NYU.