@HamSBDad - Any sense whether these are full-pay parents? I can’t believe anyone lucky enough to get into a NESCAC college on a full or even a partial scholarship would be so concerned about creature comforts during a pandemic. Or, more to the point, anyone who has actually experienced what it is like to lose your sense of smell and taste for a week…
Here is what I’ve noted:
- It doesn't seem to matter what size the school is, public vs private, or geographic location.
- The biggest problem is off campus living. If a school has that it's behind the 8 ball. Look at the rise in cases around U of Southern California. The campus is closed but the parties continue.
- Greek houses seem to be a big problem. Next year we will be reluctant to send money to a school with a plan for on campus education while the greek houses are open.
- The spike seems to hit the fan about 3 weeks after move in.
- We haven't seen a system that works. yet. I'm watching Purdue the closest.
- Students trying to keep their fellow students in line doesn't work. Sounds great, but the ones following the rules don't hang with the ones who don't care about the rules.
- We haven't seen a school really go after the partiers yet. Sure there have been some threats and a few examples, but none of that works. It will be interesting to see what happens when a college goes to zero tolerance.
@xyz123a In some ways I think it’s easier for freshmen to adjust to the new reality than upperclassmen. My D and her friends have no expectations because they haven’t been there before. This is all completely new, so they are not used to anything. She thought Orientation was great, even though it wasn’t the usual overnight orientation trips. They designed outdoor activities for the students over several days, and smaller discussion sessions and meals with their pods/floors. This wasn’t even close to the experience of going away with a small group for several days, but she still enjoyed it and made a lot of new friends. D and her friends haven’t had any trouble adjusting to the campus restrictions at all. She is so happy to be there. She said she continually hears from the RAs and OLs how “life was before Covid,” and about the “good 'ole days” they miss. And at D’s college, freshmen are not allowed to have cars. So if anyone is leaving, you can guess which students are going off campus.
@HamSBDad I’m on that FB page as well. The constant discussion about finding groceries is pathetic.
My S (freshman) is loving it so far as well. Making lots of friends, enjoying his classes, playing lots of outdoor games (mask required), hiking the mountain across the street. He’s having a great time!
I understand your point.
My point is that it’s not productive to chastise people who signed leases whether during the pandemic or not, and couldn’t foresee where things would be in the fall. Now many of these people can’t get out of the leases and certainly aren’t in the position to take those monetary hits, or maybe they don’t have anywhere else to live. Not all students can live at home, and take classes on zoom in a nice, quiet environment conducive to learning.
For the record, I appreciate your posts and seems like you and I tend to see things similarly far more often that not.
I would personally like to see this thread more focused on where to go from here and deal with that, rather than focus on things that have happened in the past.
My D19’s school is the same, and she had an on-campus single. She spent weeks weighing the decision to go back to campus or stay home. I have to admit that I encouraged her to return. She loves her school and was growing so much as a student/person. I thought they might be more relaxed than they said about some of the restrictions . . . But D would never violate the honor code, so she imagined what it would be like to follow all the rules, especially wearing masks almost always, and no friends in each other’s rooms/dorms. She knew she would have so much more freedom at home (to visit her boyfriend, work-out, cook, go on outdoor trips, meet friends at the beach etc.).
She decided to stay home. So far, it’s working out better than I thought and we love having her around (lucky we have the space etc.). Glad to save money on room and board.
I hope they figure out which measures work and can implement frequent rapid testing for the whole school community in the spring. Then maybe D could go back to a campus with fewer restrictions, and more sports/activities. I’m glad her school was so clear and detailed about how different campus life would be this fall. That allowed her to ignore my wishful thinking and make the right decision for her.
My freshman D is enjoying herself as well. She has a sweet roommate and they are getting along great. They are enjoying meeting new people – outside, distanced and masked. She seems to be enjoying her classes and doing the adulting things like making sure all her laundry is done, etc. Hoping her school can keep it together, but also, I’m realistic that trying to herd all these cats is not going to be easy. :-/
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Agreed. Let’s move on please.
@AlwaysMoving , I think we are seeing schools go after the partiers. My sample size is incredibly small, but my son’s school (Elon) has suspended seven students in the first week, and I live near Ohio State and they have suspended or removed over 200, and classes just started Wednesday.
While I realize that of course, not everything will be caught or enforced, I’m glad to see schools are actually sticking to their covid rules/agreements. Will the threat of being suspended work as a deterrent? Guess we’ll find out in the next couple of weeks.
FSU’s campus police shut down a frat party Sunday night and arrested 11 of the frat members hosting the party on charges of providing alcohol to minors. It’s something, at least.
My son signed his apartment lease for fall back in December.
He worked in a grocery store from late March until mid July ( through the worst of Arizona’s Covid spike) filling other people’s online orders so they could stay home. His dad is a retail pharmacist-no working remotely at our house. We were relieved when our governor allowed localities to institute mask orders in mid June.
S has a scholarship to keep with enrollment consecutive semesters required. We can’t afford the school without it. He is a music major. It’s hard to learn remotely for some aspects of that and he does have some in person and some remote classes this semester. The college has made accommodations for those who want to be entirely remote even in music but my son prefers in person.
His school, like many large state schools, is doing testing of those with symptoms and also offering free testing to those without symptoms but did not require testing before move in and only random testing at move in. After two weeks since move in and a week of classes their limited dashboard is reporting under 20 cases. They require masks on campus and people are wearing them.
There’s reasons kids are going back to school in spite of everything,
Maybe check Duke. I checked early in the week and they were in good shape (I think). Since no one has talked about them here, I think they may be doing well since people flock her to post about fails and bad behavior, mostly.
Its still early on in my D’s college experience (Day 3) - so far she’s loving it and 1 case caught by the first day screening of all freshman. Agree that upperclassmen are more disappointed - my D is happy to be there, rules, mask, etc… happy as can be meeting new people in her new space. Enjoying alot of time outdoors.
South Carolina appears to be having issues.
The University of South Carolina now says it has 557 active cases of the coronavirus on campus, according to the latest data released late Friday afternoon.
Good friends of ours son is at SC, so we’ve been following closely. Man alive their numbers aren’t good - way worse than when UNC called it -it’ll be interesting to see if they can continue.
Absolutely. Although my D20 would have been disappointed, we would have kept her home if we felt we had a legitimate choice to do so. Her scholarship has terms that require her to live on or near campus, and those terms were not waived. (It’s the state of Florida that provides the scholarship, not the school).
Duke posted an update 10 days ago (a few days after classes began) with a lot of specifics about how it was monitoring conduct and compliance with the Duke compact, what consequences had been issued for those not complying with expectations thus far, and that the safety of the whole community was at stake. I think the possibility of the school sending everyone packing if there was an outbreak like UNC had was also a powerful deterrent to students who until then may not have been fully compliant with social distancing, etc. But I think they gave the specifics (#s of students facing disciplinary action, etc.) to make it real and hit home the point that they are not messing around. ND did the same today announcing 87 students are facing hearings for violations of Covid safety policies. The message to the students is pretty clear - Grow up or go home.
I don’t agree with this. Depending on location there may be different state/regional orders (I know NY is a lot stricter than NC). Public vs private is also different. Private schools with large endowments are able to afford more testings compared to public schools. When a school is able to do testing on arrival and 2-3 times a week to all students it makes a difference. I am not seeing too many public schools able to afford that kind of testing. Private schools are also able have their own way of enforcing their rules - 1) not allow students to register if refuse to do testing, 2) sending students home if honor code is violated (going to large parties, not wearing mask, etc). Public schools tend to subject to its state’s politic.
I had an idea this afternoon–instead of suspension or one of those boring, predictable punishments for breaking the rules on masks, large gatherings, leaving quarantine to go shopping, etc., the kids who break those rules, as well as the parents who encourage them to do so, get to collect the wastewater samples at their schools for testing.
Just trying to be creative. 
P.S. And, as an added surprise, they will be encourage to NOT wear masks or any kind of protective gear while doing so. Fun, a learning experience, AND community service all in one!
I agree, but I think the difference is the testing protocol instead of whether it’s public or private.
Also, I’m still waiting to see a college bring all the students back and manage it with testing or any other method. Purdue has the best chance of the larger schools, and I think an isolated LAC could do it too.
https://www.rit.edu/ready/dashboard RIT seems to be able to be doing well so far. keeping fingers crossed.