We don’t know Bowdoin’s plan yet. The plan has always been to have sophs, juniors and seniors back back for spring. We will know in Nov. Sounds like kids will have a chance to take a look at classes before they decide if they enroll or defer and registration and housing won’t be done until Dec.
It may come down to the availability of singles or coop housing. Williams had ample single room capacity to handle all classes, so they invited all classes back for the entire year and they currently have enough single room capacity to handle all students that have asked to return for the year, so no issue for the Spring. Wesleyan had ample coop housing as well in the mix.
@homerdog @me29034 I agree. While I believe that virtually all residential colleges, Amherst and Bowdoin included, will have all students back in Fall 2021 (especially with the projected timeline for a vaccine), if I were a high school senior applying to colleges, and I saw that most the NESCACs had all students back and were successful at controlling the virus but Amherst opted not to bring all students back for Spring 2021, I would be worried about not being able to come to campus for all eight semesters of my college career.
Maybe those two schools are not too concerned since they have enough deferments from this year that will make up the shortfall (if any) for next year.
@homerdog Colleges in the Five College Consortium were heavily pressured by the local communities not to reopen at all. Although Amherst received much less pressure than UMass, due to the sheer number of students at the latter, Amherst still received much pressure, and locals were not satisfied at all with the decision to bring part of the student body back; Amherst received just as much pressure to not reopen at all after announcing the plan as they likely would have if they invited all students back. I really don’t think this is driven by pressure from the local town.
Also, while I was primarily referring to students on-campus feeling cheated because it was implied that some restrictions on campus life would be lifted when the semester went well, I will say that with regard to plans for spring, many students who are on-campus for fall that don’t know whether they will be invited back for spring feel deceived because it was heavily implied when Amherst released their fall plans that whether they invited all students back for spring was heavily dependent on how this semester went both at Amherst and at similar schools that invited all their students back. However, this semester, both for Amherst and NESCACs that invited all their students back, could not have gone any better, yet it seems that Amherst has decided not to invite all students back for spring. I am all for caution, but this is just excessive.
@Faithabove Also, Amherst and Bowdoin are both (admissions-wise) competitive enough that they will never have trouble filling their graduating classes, regardless of their COVID response. Though, that goes for most of the other NESCACs too.
If strict health and safety protocols are relaxed then risks increase. To remain affective they have to be ongoing. Now is not the time to have a packed party at the rose garden without masks.
Bowdoin and Amherst only need to announce or hint that freshman will be on campus in the fall before ED.
Here is a new article written by Denison’s president explaining the school’s approach in keeping the campus open: https://thehill.com/opinion/education/519420-it-is-possible-to-reopen-campuses-safely-heres-how-we-did-it-at-denison
TLDR; I think I saw somewhere in this thread that the virus is not being spread in classrooms, rather It occurs outside the school. Does anyone have a source for that?
(I’m writing a letter to the school board after my high school S22 was quarantined for two weeks because a girl in his class tested positive. They both wore masks (required) and she was sitting behind him. He has been diligent about mask wearing, comes home every day for lunch, and has skipped countless social events to avoid illness. I’ve seen kids getting into cars together with no masks, I’ve seen the student section at the football games with limited mask wearing… And he’s the one that needs to quarantine?! Now he has to miss his jazz audition (key component of his college resume, as a music major) and the PSAT.
Apparently, the board is contemplating loosening the 6’ for more than 15 minutes quarantine if both individuals were wearing masks, so I’m trying to plead our case.)
Virus is spread in enclosed rooms, especially those with poor ventilation…the risk is higher than outdoors. This is the risk of going to in-person school where the policy is to quarantine the whole class for one positive.
A local school had a situation where a kid got a false positive on a rapid test, and then a negative on a PCR test. Policy is the first positive can never go away, and entire class (and kid’s sports team) had to quarantine even though no one was infected.
Agree and exactly. @me29034 . Hamilton and Wesleyan’s success will be an irritation in the nescac admission pecking order.
It’s all so crazy that this is being decided by our local school board! We do have one doctor and one doctor’s spouse on it but it’s just insane that they are making choices for the 1000 families in the district.
I personally know a few families that took them off their list and this was one factor.
Amherst and Bowdoin could just offer a reduced price for online only or partial tuition. The attractiveness of that for some potential students, only a minority of the population don’t have to consider cost, will compensate for anyone that is put off by not having a residential experience. There is such a spectrum of needs and expectations of total college “ customers” that they don’t need to limit themselves to a specific subsection.
Bowdoin is not considering a discount on tuition. It’s been discussed ad nauseam. Here is what we have from the College in terms of what could happen for spring and classes.
“Most classes will continue to be taught online. There are two reasons for this. The first is about classroom space. This summer, we performed an engineering study of all of our spaces on campus to learn which ones provide the appropriate combination of outside airflow, filtration, and spacing of seats to be safe. As a result, some of our spaces were taken offline for teaching (e.g., Massachusetts Hall and Hubbard Hall). The spaces that can be used have limited seating in order to satisfy the need for safe distancing. As a result, we have limited safe classroom capacity on campus. Second, we want to continue to ensure that we provide an excellent Bowdoin education to every student wherever they are, and we want to make sure we can provide this without missing a beat, should the virus force us to shut down as we did last spring. The number of in-person classes offered will depend on several factors, including which students and how many students are on campus, the availability of faculty for in-person teaching, and curricular coherence. For example, some faculty may want to offer independent study projects or a selection of other in-person classes for seniors or for other small groups of students who can be accommodated safely indoors.”
As for who will be on campus, we won’t know for a while. I heard about the Amherst town hall and it got me thinking that, if Amherst doesn’t have everyone back, then maybe Bowdoin would go that route too but we do not know that yet.
“We do not yet know which students will be on campus in the spring. I know this is information that many of you want to know, but the decision will have to wait until closer to Thanksgiving when we have a clearer picture of how our systems and protocols are working this fall, and until we know more about how the virus and the disease it causes may spread when the weather changes and we are all back indoors.”
And I think that’s a fair assessment. Schools in the NE testing a lot have done well but the weather hasn’t changed yet add I’m sure they are all waiting on that to make final decisions for spring
NESCAC is beginning discussions about spring sports in mid-November. No timeline yet as to when that decision will be made.
and what of winter NESCAC sport @homerdog I am not reading anything yet either. It will also hurt Amherst and Bowdoin with athlete recruiting imho.
@waverlywizzard NESCAC presidents meeting in Nov to discuss athletics. There’s no competition this semester. Practices happening where they can at Bowdoin for student athletes on campus. Runners running, rowers rowing, etc.
No, I am well aware of the NESCAC fall decision, but thanks. Practices for are organized planned to be socially distant , plus lift. I was wondering about winter as it affects one of mine.
@murray93 How terribly frustrating for your son. He has worked hard to do the right thing (and to prepare for his audition and psat) and then this happens, out of his control. I hope you find a way to convince them - maybe not to stop the quarantine but to at least let him participate in those 2 important activities. Maybe you could show them multiple negative tests before those events (if you have access to testing?). Regarding the evidence of lack of classroom transfer, I think it does exist - for example, CU Boulder has talked about how they aren’t having classroom transmission - but that depends so much on density and the specific ventalition of your school and even that classroom that I am not sure outside research would help. I understand wanting to try, though!! Other research that might help could be transmission levels when 2 people are both wearing masks - like this one? https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e2.htm. Good luck, please keep us posted, we are rooting for him.