Williams has released their numbers. They did not put a cap on gap year requests. “Of first-years, 15.4 percent plan to take a gap year, while 11.1 percent of the entire student body, including first-years, plans to take some kind of leave.” This article has more specific numbers by class including remote vs on-campus enrollment.
@milgymfam well we know three kids in S19’s grade who transferred out of Bowdoin this year.
15.4 percent is a lot. 8% of Bowdoin freshmen took a gap so Williams had twice as many.
Hard to see how a deferral of 15.4% of the freshmen class won’t impact next year’s class.
I think they want the same total amount of kids each year. If the gap year kids all come back, they are still short the same amount of kids as in a normal year, because remember, their sophomore class is too small compared to a normal year.
Transfer students may benefit more than usual as well.
There may be fewer study abroad kids in the next few years. The LACs usually have fewer juniors, so having those kids on campus will fill out the upper classes for the next 2 years.
Didn’t the Crimson report that 17% of Harvard students were deferring for a year? They are all guaranteed reentry in fall 2021.
Parents are pretty insistent that the kids who already attend the school should be prioritized for returning in the fall above those who are just applying and not yet part of the college’s family.
Besides, most of the applicants would not have been admitted anyway, and they can make other plans more easily than existing students can defer for 2 years.
Princeton was very clear that gap year requests would impact future admissions rates, hence requiring a lottery for students requesting gap years as to when they can return. I don’t know where they set the limit, but they said the college president made the decision in consultation with the admissions office.
@roycroftmom Whoa! A literal lottery? Like, if you pick a good number, you can return when you want? Yikes!
No, a lottery as in, if your name is drawn for return in 2021, you are in that cohort, if it is drawn for return in 2022, you are in that cohort. It is the most equitable and avoids the fraught decision of which students would get to return first. For example, athletes already claimed they should have preference for a quick return due to NCAA regs. No doubt others feel the same way.
Not coincidentally, the lottery is expected to also discourage some from taking a gap year.
Princeton hasnt announced the number who requested gap years yet, but between every one living on campus and professors needed to supervise junior and senior independent work, there isn’t much room for allowing gap years.
@roycroftmom Right. All true. Bowdoin also told kids they couldn’t promise if they could return when they wanted and, when I inquired about how they would decide who gets to come back. they said they had not decided that yet. So it was a leap of faith to defer. Requests to defer were due last Sunday. On Thursday, they sent an email to all students who deferred and told them that, after looking at the numbers, all can return when they want. They had a deadline and you had to tell them by that date. It’s not an option anymore. I don’t know how much that info affected students’ decisions to defer but I’m sure it affected it at least a little bit. Not knowing if you can return is an issue for all, especially the older students.
I appreciate all of your comments and insight! I forgot that some schools allow transfers in during sophomore year, so there could potentially be more open spaces next year for eligible students. 2 year gap seems like a long time, I could see that discouraging families/students from choosing deferrals.
All of this being said, just praying that this virus is under control so that we won’t be back here on this thread 12 months from now 
With so many of best and brightest in the world working on it, and a little bit of luck and Providence, I am very hopeful!
@homerdog We don’t yet have details about the move from the hotel to the dorms but I would assume that because the school is providing this service then they’ll provide a means for them to move everything to campus. They’ve indicated that students should pack what the student plus one other person can carry and what each student could take home if everyone needs to leave at Thanksgiving, so we’ll plan to ship some items or she can buy them locally after quarantine ends.
We’re trying to convince her to stay with family in Massachusetts for the two weeks but she hasn’t seen them since she was a little girl so she says she feels more comfortable being able to be independent in her own room. She plans to take her home ballet studio’s online classes to stay active each day but I still wish they had approval to go outside a little while each day for fresh air. If we drive then we could knock a few days off the quarantine time because it’s counted from when she leaves TX but it’s still a really long time to be stuck in a room.
She’s such a rule follower so she doesn’t want to try to get around the requirements. She wants to be on campus and hopes everyone else takes the rules seriously so that the campus experience can be preserved.
My D feels the same way. If she were on campus she would 100% follow the rules/regulations, but doing so would mean little time spent with her bf. Because of that, and the fact that the on campus experience will be so limited, she is also likely to stay home and do online classes.
At D’s school they can have no visitors to their dorm, so her bf could not visit her and vice versa. The campus is small. There are not many places to hang out together.
“They also essentially backed out of their earlier promise of in-person instruction except in very limited circumstances (DS’s classmate is a rising freshman there so it came up in my feed).”
Given what’s going on in GA with the governor suing mayor(s), I really feel for students attending colleges there. A governor being told by a president what to do is not good, and that’s an understatement. Sorry to vent, but what a mess.
If these babies are all sick vs community screened, then I am not sure what you even mean, they are positive because they are sick enough to be tested? 85 babies in that one population in significant.
This is an interesting article: https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-galloway-colleges-must-cut-costs-to-survive-covid-2020-7?fbclid=IwAR1xLiDo7nooY-lekNjLvYO3XAdpn1XWfZuWgp1hJgNcJq7KtV0UXG1INnc
Quarantine regulations aren’t suggestions or rules. They’re state laws designed to try to prevent the spread of Covid. Many states have them, and people who break those laws can be fined. In some states they face jail time too. Trying to circumvent the law isn’t a good idea.
If your family in MA has a room for her with a separate entrance, her own bathroom, and cooking area that would work. Otherwise, it’s probably safer for everyone for her to just quarantine at Skidmore.