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No eating in dining hall means the college doesn’t want students to eat together because of its physical distancing requirement. I don’t see how the college would allow students to gather in a dorm to eat together.
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No guest in dorm means a student can’t visit others’ dorms. Other visitors are likely covered by other more stringent rules (e.g. all campus visitors have to be pre-approved).
My alma mater is not planning on transitioning to singles, from what i’ve heard, though things could change (<9K undergrads and also has the 3 year on campus living requirement). I understand that it has asked students who have health issues to disclose them and may try to spread them out (international students not returning will open up some rooms).
It never occurred to me that all students who want to come back to campus would be put in singles. Yes, I think D can submit a block of up to 6 names and they will try to accomodate putting some/all of those together in the same off campus hotel/apartment. If that works out, that would be a big help, but it seems clear it will be on a best effort basis. Odd that her school is giving priority to the juniors and seniors including those who were going abroad to have singles on campus. I would have thought they would try to keep the younger students on the campus.
@sylvan8798 Not meant to be minimizing, just saying that I thought the person was largely referring to four-year colleges, and even counting them, that still doesn’t mean that most college students commute from home.
Gosh, @ChemAM, cite much?
https://thebestschools.org/best-community-colleges-united-states/
Yes, but on CC we’re talking about privileged children of the solid middle class and they’ve been conditioned to have different expectations. And quite a few of those responsible for that kind of conditioning are very vocal on this thread.
I’ll add: I’m firmly convinced college kids back on campus will be just fine. They will adapt - with grumbling in some cases - but they will still find ways of having fun and will receive a good education from their very good schools. Their parents are the problem here. Not the undergrads.
We’re talking about the same school:). Those hotels and apartments are not for upperclassmen who ‘don’t want to live on campus’…it’s for all the upperclassmen who will be displaced by freshmen being moved to west campus along with giving juniors and seniors seniority to live in singles on campus…so basically the Sophomores. Sophomores don’t even have an option to secure their own housing off campus. They will be stuck with whatever off campus location Duke decides. Be glad you have a first year student.
@circuitrider Almost half attend community college, but that means a slight majority of students are attending four-years, and most of those aren’t commuting from a parents home, so I would not use the term “most” to say how many are commuting from parents home; I would say 1/2.
Plus one. For my MIT’er. Ha 
But seriously, the number will definitely go up for kids who have the opportunity to live at home instead of in an unpredictable or highly-changed campus environment. It might even happen that kids bunk up with local relatives instead of staying in dorms.
I came back to this forum to discuss COVID-19 related issues, but this thread reminds me why I had backed off from College Confidential. Years ago, when I first joined, I appreciated the respectful exchange of ideas and opinions from a diverse group of intelligent, friendly parents. Then it turned into a “gotcha” environment, and now also a different opinion from one’s own is judged as a problem and given pretty intolerant labels. Good people are just touching different parts of the elephant!
“Most” is correct. Nearly all of community college students live at home. Of the four-year Unis, ~20% live at home. So, in back of the envelope numbers, that’s 50% + (20% of 50%), or 60% of total.
(sorry, MIT’er.)
In California, the predominantly commuter California State University system enrolls about twice as many undergraduates as the predominantly residential University of California system. The community colleges enroll more than both combined. Most of the more residential private colleges are not that big compared to the state schools.
@bluebayou I would not call “60%” most. I would use at least 75%, probably 80%, before saying most. Of course, that means I was wrong when I said most college students in general don’t commute from their parents’ home.
Where I live (far from California) an enormous proportion of students from our two-county area commute to the four-year state directional (including many of the NHS-type kids). It’s economic, plus many just don’t see a reason to leave. Combined with the many students flocking to the three area community colleges (that are feeders into the directional) I’m sure this makes up the vast majority of kids in our area. Some of these will be dorming, sure, but they’d switch back home if needed. Many who want to move out of parent homes will share an apartment while working and studying part-time. It’s the culture here. I’d venture that It might hit that 75 percentile (or more) of students continuing their education.
@ChemAM, I suspect that your community (which you see as middle class) might be more accurately described as upper-middle, or at least the white-collar upper half of the middle-middle (if that makes sense). I don’t mean that as a slur…I grew up that way as a child of an engineer and a teacher…nothing I thought of as affluent at the time…but a heck of a lot more comfortable than what I came to realize as an adult was more the norm in many communities.
@ChemAm, the majority of people think “most” means “the majority.” I know, I know, my intuitions are the same as yours, “most” should mean the large majority, like 75%. But that is not how the word is used.
I sure don’t want my freshman dd eating alone.
Totally agree, 50.1% here equals ‘most’. That’s how ‘most’ is used in market research in the business world as well.
Suffice it to say that commuters don’t get much attention on this thread, but they won’t be having the college experience they want either this next year or two or X, either. For example, many probably don’t have a dedicated quiet study space at home, or other types of support that some at residential colleges take for granted.
@inthegarden >30% of students at my high school are on free or reduced lunch, per US News and World Report. The median income for our ZIP Code is <$50,000. I’m not sure of the exact statistics for my high school’s student body, but I really don’t think it’s upper-middle class.
I agree that “most” would mean anything over 50%, but looks like ChemAm is correct here. According to this source (below), only 27.5% of students live off campus with their parents. I think a lot of community college students are older and not living with their parents—they live off campus without parents. I also think it’s fair in this forum to pay a little more attention to four year college situations since it seems rare to have posters here inquiring about community colleges. In my state, community colleges are absolutely fantastic for starting off your education—they recently became tuition-free! Such fantastic news, and a great option for students. But since so few people on this forum seem overly interested, it seems a little silly to me to constantly harp on that topic and repetitively remind people about community college—i think we all know about it. Just my two cents, of course. Harp away if you must!
https://robertkelchen.com/2018/05/28/a-look-at-college-students-living-arrangements/
I have to chuckle at all the hand-wringing about students socializing. On an average trip across any campus quad on a nice day all I see are students staring at their phones. In the elevators, students staring at their phones. In the classroom before lecture starts (and sometimes during) students staring at their phones. I sometimes wonder how they’ll ever find mates.
@sylvan8798 Wow. Not saying that is not true at your school (or even at most schools), but as an Amherst student, that has not been my experience at all. There are a handful of students walking with headphones across campus at any given time, but most people walking across campus are either headed to class alone or chatting with a friend. In the library, people are either talking (conversation at typical indoor volume is allowed on the main floor) or studying, often with their friends. In our dining hall, most people have their devices put away, and are talking with their friends. On any nice day, you can always see some people playing frisbee and/or spikeball on the freshmen quad. Although most buildings have elevators, they are hardly ever used here, because most academic buildings only have two floors, and most residential dorms only have four or so, meaning there isn’t enough time to even get on your phone. Virtually nobody here ever looks at their phones during a lecture.
Here at Amherst, technology hasn’t interfered with social interaction at all.