I wake up every day and check my emails…praying and hoping that my school doesn’t reverse course. I['m surprised with Princeton because they were only bringing back 50% per semester. NJ also is doing great…better than many states.
Also, D just got a response from Amherst on a move-in question, and the person answering her question mentioned that they have not received any notice of any intentions to change plans; so as of now, they are proceeding with move-in as planned. Hopefully a good sign.
I totally agree. I think some schools will have success and others will have rampant spread. I think schools with a known “party culture” may have a harder time controlling it.
ps…I hope I get to at least try!
While we in the US are convinced there is no way to send the kids to school, across the Atlantic my SIL dropped her son off at college today. Also, they do not wear masks and to my knowledge there is no regular testing policy. They all have single rooms. To my knowledge, the teachers are not protesting and refusing to return to the classrooms…in short there is little hysteria.
The family returned a week ago from spending a week on Rhodes and had a great time. She did mention that tourism was way down and things looked a bit bleak there.
We went to see them a few years ago during Christmas and I remember DS mentioning that his cousins indicated it was somewhat socially not accepted to sit beside of someone on the buses and they said there had been discussions about only having one seat per side so no one would sit directly beside each other. Not sure that happened but their culture does seem a bit different than many others. Many in the media and on this site like to say that Sweden did everything wrong and then compare them to Norway, but I am not so sure that it is not as much to do with cultures than anything else.
@Luckyjade2024 I sincerely hope you and all the other students out there can get back to having your college experiences and have much success in your college endeavors. I believe you all can be a great generation for this world. Good luck to you all!
At this stage, both of my kids are fully prepared to take classes from home (or some remote location). Although both of their schools are acting like it is full steam ahead, I have been skeptical all along and we have had many family discussions about what may happen this fall (and spring) . Both are resolute in their decision to move forward with their education come what may. If either of them makes it to campus it will be considered a bonus. We are 17 and 19 days from move in so there is plenty of time to reverse course and I fully expect at least one of the two schools to do so.
From Princeton’s website, an explanation of their decision:
I take this as a confirmation that the state will not be moving into stage 3 by Sept. 1. I’m sure that Princeton has a direct line to Governor Murphy. I"m struck by the honesty of their reasoning (a "confining and unpleasant experience ").
@NJSue Any idea what’s up with other colleges in NJ?
In NJ:
Princeton, Rutgers, TCNJ, Rowan and Drew all fully remote.
From the Princeton announcement:
I know I said I wasn’t going to do this, BUT - all of the above was foreseeable weeks ago. What were they doing a summer?
So our public school board updated their plans for K-12.
K-8 students can choose between 100% remote or 100% every day in-person. Students in grades 4-8 attending in-person will be required to wear face coverings. Face coverings will be optional but encouraged for students in JK-3.
The plan for high school is a quadmester model with 2 courses at a time. Students can opt for 100% remote or hybrid. Students who opt for the hybrid plan will be split into 2 cohorts A and B and will attend in-person in the morning either M (Class 1)/Tues (Class 2) or Th (Class 1)/F (Class 2) and alternate Wednesdays (alternating Class 1 and 2).
Mornings will be a double period from 8:30-11:00 and then they will go home. For the cohort not attending in person in the morning they will have self-directed “Distance Learning” (though I suspect that for most students that will mean “sleep-in”). They will then have a 1 hour lunch/transportation break followed by 2 75 minute periods in the afternoon. The first period after lunch will be at-home “Distance Learning Support and Independent Study” for the same class as the morning (I’m not sure yet how that differs from the at-home period from the morning). The last period of the day will be a teacher led synchronous on-line class for the subject they didn’t have in the morning.
Kind of complicated but all-in-all I think it’s ok. Students will be required to wear face coverings at all times in the building and class sizes have been reduced to a maximum of 15. Total enrollment at DS’s school is around 1,200 but I’m not sure how many will opt for hybrid. In any case they will have fewer than 600 students in classes at a time spread across 2 floors (though the grade 7 & 8 students who will be attending every day all day are in a separate wing of the same building).
DS21 has chosen to attend following the hybrid model but I will drive him to school and pick him up rather than have him take the school bus. Our infection levels are low so I have my fingers crossed that this will work.
DS19 will be staying home for the first semester at least as all of his courses at his university are remote, a combination of synchronous and asynchronous. He does have an off-campus lease so if classes resume in-person for the winter semester he will move in then.
Elon released results of Covid testing prior to arrival. Not sure any of this matters but here it is:
As of this morning:
7,601 LabCorp COVID-19 test kits have been ordered by students, faculty, and staff. Almost 6,050 have received results from LabCorp.
Of the 6,050 LabCorp COVID pre-semester tests returned, 0.14% (.0014 or 9 cases) were positive and resulted in up to 14-days of isolation.
At least 300 more students have submitted alternative PCR tests, some from a positive case earlier this summer. Those submissions include six positive tests that resulted in up to 14-days of isolation.
Maybe just waiting and hoping things would get better?
Seems like the companies (likely along with the FDA) have made the call…the two Phase III vaccine studies that are underway in the US (Moderna and Pfizer) are 18+ only.
I expect at some point they will test it in under 18s, but don’t know when those trials might start. So unless those trials get underway, under 18s won’t be able to initially receive either of these vaccines, should they make it to market.
USC released their “COVID-19 code of conduct statement” (my quotes, not theirs), and it is similar to the Williams statement in parts, threatening expulsion for those who flout the guidelines …
I know one part of this answer - a fellow rising MIT first-year with my son, just got into Harvard off the waitlist (this week) and is going to H. (Wouldn’t be my choice 
)
@ElonMomMD Those results from the Elon pre arrival Covid testing are a bit of good news today!
@homerdog the president of my university sent out an email late this afternoon asking everyone to sign into a Zoom call on Monday for “an important announcement.” Because of the Princeton news, I’m fully expecting that we will be pivoting to full online instruction for fall instead of the combo of in-person, hybrid, and online currently on offer.
I think the college presidents in NJ got news from the state this week that we are not going to be entering stage 3 anytime soon, and that mandatory quarantines from the 31 states on the current list are not going to stop anytime soon. This is all speculation on my part. We’ll see.
NJ is the most densely populated state in the union and we just can’t isolate the way that other places might be able to.
@NJSue I feel like we all should have seen this. I certainly didn’t. But even early on there were states (Florida?) that tried to keep people from other states (NY?) from visiting. Why didn’t any of us think that quarantines and/or negative tests to enter a state would be a thing this fall? That’s one of the big reasons that schools in the NE are now having trouble getting kids back to school. Add on all of the state rules about gatherings, etc., and of course college was going to be sitting in your dorm room taking remote class. That’s how everyone in those states is living - working from home when they can, cooking and not eating in restaurants (certainly not inside), not going to the gym, etc. The rules weren’t going to be different for college campuses.