Vassar gave more move-in instructions this week, and the process will take place between Aug. 8th-27th. Students were given small arrival windows depending on their year in school and the state from which they are coming. All students need a Covid test within 7 days of arrival and then will have two more tests on campus within the first several days. We will be receiving more information about how students will quarantine, but if their pre-arrival test results are not back in time, students will be housed in a quarantine area upon arrival until they can get results from the test on campus.
Haverford has now said they have approximately 60 isolation/quarantine spaces on campus (5% of the student population), with private bathrooms for each room. No clue whatsoever how they’ve achieved that, since there are no rooms with private baths normally, but it also still doesn’t seem like enough tbh, with the number of states that students come from that now require 14 day quarantine upon arrival by the state of PA. My daughter’s friend who is helping with housing has also said they’re slightly short of their goal for a single room for each student, despite turning every common room into an additional single bedroom.
Newly enrolled international students whose colleges and universities are operating entirely online this fall won’t be allowed to enter the U.S. after all.
S21’s private school will be f2f 5 days a week. They pushed back the start so they could refine a few elements, which for high school include:
- Masks at all times indoors. The daily schedule has been redone so that every 2 periods there is an outdoor, socially-distanced mask-relief break. The classrooms have exterior doors, so no hallway movement for these breaks.
- Teachers moving most class periods, not students. Because it is a small school there are fewer curriculum choices. For S21 for example, he and the other Honors kids have 4-5 of their 7 classes in common. They will stay in one room and the teachers for those classes will go in and out. I can't imagine the complicated planning that is going into maximizing class groups and minimizing movement.
- Hallways and stairwells are being marked as one way. S pointed out that this might mean he has to walk all the way around a building to get to a class next door to the one he was just in. I told him it will be a nice break.
- The school used CARES money to purchase webcams for every classroom and microphones for every teacher. All classes will be livestreamed so that anyone who is sick or otherwise quarantined at home can keep up with class. And everyone has the option of doing all virtual.
- Google Classroom will be used more extensively than in the past to minimize handing out paper copies of anything.
I appreciate how hard they are trying. I still worry about our teachers in particular, most of whom are older. (They are often former public school teachers who still love teaching but take a big pay cut to work in a smaller environment.) We will see.
Cornell emailed alumni yesterday to inform us that all admissions meetings will be virtual this upcoming cycle and they are eliminating the narrative report altogether. It will just be a simple yes/no to if there was a meeting.
I’m actually surprised. I would have thought that going TO this cycle they would want more information, not less. The university said because there aren’t enough interviewers to reach out to all applicants that it isn’t equitable for some students to have a narrative report and not others, so they are doing away with them completely.
I’m officially “retiring” from CAAAN with this change. Been doing it for over 25 years now but I don’t see the point in continuing especially with this change and going back to work.
Our HS is remote first quarter and hoping to move to hybrid 2nd quarter. There’s a remote for the whole semester option too which will be a different track of teachers and students.
They are moving to block schedule so only 4 courses. Teachers pushed this switch b/c it’s something they’d been planning to eventually do and they feel like it will be much more manageable than juggling 7 classes. I agree.
It’s being set up a lot like college courses. Teachers have been working all summer to move their classes to Canvas platform. There will be two 90 minute sessions of synchronous teaching every week for each course. It works out to be 3 hours a day every day but Wed. Wed is a planning/flex day for teachers and students so no full class synchronous instruction.
Teachers will also schedule additional synchronous small group instruction every day for students who need it and have ‘office hours’ for students who want help. Students then use the balance of their time on group projects and independent work.
For my senior this schedule should work pretty well – I keep saying it’s just like getting a jump on college and since almost all his classes are AP, it really it. He’s got a very heavy science and math schedule this year and I have a feeling will be using a lot of resources outside of his classes to learn the AP content.
The big question is whether all the courses he has been expecting to take will be available and when – there’s challenges around scheduling and AP certified teachers b/c some of them my be moving to the online for the whole semester track. They are opening up course registration again the first week of August so we’ll see…
This was in the Evanston mayor’s weekly email, released today, regarding Northwestern:
“While the University’s plans are still under development, I can share with you that they will include (1) testing all students, on or off campus, when they return to Evanston for Northwestern programming or courses, (2) a separate NU dedicated, robust testing operation (meaning the testing capacity in Evanston will remain unaffected), (3) a dedicated NU contact tracing unit, and (4) a set-aside residence hall for COVID-19-positive students.”
Our 7 day positivity rate is now below 1%.
Canada is doing something similar
@gwnorth I wonder what percentage of American students at Canadian universities are dual citizens. They would not need a student visa or CAQ.
Most Canadian universities, except UBC and UToronto, have announced that they will be essentially remote for the fall.
Our District has announced that we will be remote until AT LEAST 9/7 and we will be moving to a block schedule. A little earlier start @ 8:30 instead of 9:00 and done at 1:50. M/W/F Classes 1,2,3,4 and T/Th 5,6,7 S22 has 6 academic classes and 1 varsity sport. Looks like varsity sports (if/when allowed) will be on campus for a flex period - later in the afternoon and not within the academic time frames.
This block scheduling will continue if/when we come back to f2f.
I am a parent of a rising senior at Arizona State (who will apparently offer online, in synch and in person courses) and a freshmen at Cal.
Neither school have been clear about how they will handle a medical withdrawal if my student gets COVID-19. The school refund policy isn’t disclosed at Cal, but ASU says they will provide up to 80% of tuition - but nothing for housing or academic fees.
What is everyone else experience. I am not sure if I am supposed to avoid links - but there is a good news clip from CBS Dallas on how tuition insurance works. The interview claimed that GradGuard’s tuion insurance is providing refunds for students who withdraw due to becoming ill with COVID-19.
Has anyone else had problems finding refund policies or had experience with tuition insurance?
@1966Parent – we have tuition insurance through my D’s college, and I found the policy’s language by clicking through to the underwriter. There’s no mention of exclusion for withdrawal due to COVID illness. It did, however, say that a college moving to online instruction was not a ‘covered’ reason for withdrawal and tuition refund.
I also noticed the premium is a little higher this semester than previously which I’m guessing is b/c of the pandemic. Anyway, my advice is read the policy to see if there are any exclusions for COVID b4 purchasing.
Thanks for sharing. I understand that schools won’t provide tuition refunds if they change the teaching method, but I would expect that they will provide a refund for housing if they require my student to move out.
@1966Parent - Forks Up! I have a rising JR at ASU. Two of my son’s 4 F2F classes are now ASU Sync, mostly online. Both were larger lecture classes in CS. I expect they had trouble figuring out the distancing model for those. We will see how it goes.
@1966Parent , one of my kids’ schools offers tuition assistance, one doesn’t. Both have their medical withdrawal policies and refund info on their websites. I actually declined the tuition insurance this year for the first time…figuring since classes are online anyway, the chance of my D being so sick that she cannot stay afloat in her classes is slim. I also think that profs might be a little more understanding this year.
One of my college kids is off campus, and one on, but for the on campus one, the school has published what happens if a student tests positive and/or needs quarantined due to contact. Neither are a situation where the student is kicked out of his/her housing, and both seem to be written as temporary situations, during which the student can continue their schooling online, not leave school for the semester type situations. I guess all this is to say that I don’t think that catching COVID will lead to a medical withdrawal for many/most students. Also I think that housing refund info will be different this year than any other year, and may be best determined by contacting the school directly.
Highly unlikely that if your college student gets CV-19 that they would need to withdraw from college. Even if the college isolates the ill student, they would be able to transition to online learning for the two weeks of quarantine and then be allowed to resume normal activities.
With that said, it seems that most colleges would refund a prorated amount of the tuition and R&B fees for a medical emergency requiring withdrawal from the college.
I think McGill is making a mistake having students back to campus (though many other Canadian universities are also opening residences even if classes will be online. I think DS19’s school is one of the few that is restricting residence). Quebec lifted it’s lock down restrictions earlier than other provinces and has had the highest infection rate in the country. When you consider that the legal drinking age is 18, that bars and restaurants are open, and that McGill says that they will be offering some in-person activities, I think an outbreak among their student population is inevitable.
The daughter of the NY resident that was quoted in the article will probably be better off staying home.
Don’t most McGill students live off campus all around the city? The school won’t really have much to say about students returning as city residents.
I expect they will have a close to normal urban experience there.
@roycroftmom I believe they offer guaranteed residence for first year students. While it’s true that they can’t prevent students returning to off-campus housing, actively inviting additional students to come and live in residence doesn’t seem like a good plan nor does offering students “on-campus in-person” experiences. Off campus students who are not local might be more inclined to stay home if they didn’t think they’d be missing out on on-campus activities.
There is a difference in heath and safety concern between a handful of students renting an off campus home together with a garden their own bedrooms and the typical cramped student dorm set up though. I remember vividly the 12 floor tower block I lived in as a freshman. Covid-19 would have torn through it like wildfire.