@TVBingeWatcher2 - with your student’s high stats, she could look at next level down (very good) schools and possibly get a lot of merit aids. There are a lot of posters on this forum with good knowledge about FA and merit aids. Good luck to your daughter.
Wesleyan leads off this NYT series on education during the pandemic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/wesleyan-philosophy-coronavirus-schools-briefing.html
Different people will define “safe environment” differently.
I don’t think you can compare HS with college. D is at a public college with an endowment in the billions. She’s nearly 2/3 of the way through her semester, with 80% of her classes in person. Positivity rate around 2 1/2%, robust testing, strictly enforced rules, etc…
I am not sure if by 0.012 you meant 0.012% (too low) or 1.2% (too high), but either way you gotta watch those zeroes. Their actual positive rate is 0.12%, or 0.0012.
Not great, not terrible, to quote Dyatlov from HBO’s Chernobyl.
Just kidding, it’s pretty good, actually.
For comparison, MIT’s is 0.05%, Vanderbilt’s is 0.67%, and Purdue’s is a whopping 2.5%.
Of course, comparing positive rates directly is pretty meaningless as schools that test more often will have lower positive rates for the same per capita case rates.
There are more schools than just U Chicago and Vandy that don’t require NCP financial info on CSS Profile.
Here is CollegeBoard’s reference tool where one can sort by CSS Profile schools and then choose those that d not require NCP info. https://profile.collegeboard.org/profile/ppi/participatingInstitutions.aspx
As always, one does have to double check that info on each school’s website, as Bucknell is listed as not requiring NCP info, but they actually do.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Nothing wrong with the post. The issue is that is spurred off-topic conversations about non-custodial parents and CSS, which would be better served in its own thread.
Spot-on, old fort. And its just not the well-endowed schools – but I get your point about applying for next year – but it really is a private-public thing. The University of California finally got around to requiring a measles vaccine in2017. Two years later, they still had an outbreak on campus due to lax/non enforcement. (Partly incompetence and partly not wanting negatively impact those without a vaccine, many of whom are poor.)
Might be more important to look at what state/region a school is in and their responses to the pandemic rather than lumping public vs private.
A family’s risk aversion is also very individual. I’m perfectly fine with Purdue’s positivity rate. It’s been fairly steady between 2.5 - 3% since classes resumed in August. The suburban part of the county where we live is up to 6.7%. IMO D is safer at school where compliance is very high.
It seems like for large publics with lots of kids on campus around 2.0 is the norm. Can’t compare to a very small lac with only freshman on campus etc. Yep, Kids safer in general on campus then at home.
^Yes, the University of Maine system is doing well.
“The Advisory Board and the University System also monitor the positivity rate of the University System’s own testing overall. The fall 2020 entry screening positivity rate across more than 14,800 tests conducted by the University of Maine System from the arrival of students through mid-September was approximately 0.09%. Since that time until now, the positivity rate across all Phase 3 fall testing to date is approximately 0.11% or 6 positive tests of more than 5,600 results. The positivity rate of only the just-completed round 3 of Phase 3 testing was 0.06% (1 positive test of more than 1,800 results). The positivity rate of the randomly selected portion of that testing was 0% as there were no positive results in the random sample.”
UIUC’s positivity rate has been trending down since the beginning of the semester (7 day rolling positivity rate at 0.12% rn), and they are around 10k tests per day:
https://splunk-public.machinedata.illinois.edu/en-US/app/uofi_shield_public_APP/home
Constant universal and mandatory testing requires a lot of money, and only rich schools with limited and controllable student populations can do it. Everyone else will have to take their chances. Most schools can’t afford to test, or to isolate their populations, to the degree that they can confidently say “it’s safe” to be on campus. I work at one of these non-rich, non-elite institutions and it’s a reason why I don’t want to teach in-person.
I just calculated midterm grade “estimates” for each student, and I noticed that the grades in undergrad classes, which are usually on a bell curve, are on a u-shaped curve. Students are either doing very well learning remotely, or they are doing abysmally. There is no middle ground.
We still have not heard anything about spring. NJ’s rates do not look good right now. Some students who started out in in-person classes want to switch to remote, but the deal with the union is that faculty are not required to teach in both modalities per student request. Students and faculty can choose one or the other at the beginning of the semester, and have to stick with it.
Apparently Boston public schools have just suspended in-person instruction starting tomorrow.
And some doing well remotely are doing abysmally mentally. Out of my kids, I worry the most about the one making the best grades. She really needs a break.
I totally understand how costly and difficult it is for colleges to keep this up. Seems like every option is sub-par in some way.
I wonder if the Boston-area universities will follow suit? I think their testing has been good but who knows how long that will last.
Also, there are vocal anti-vaccine activists with money to have to fight off.
AFAIK the only kids receiving in person instruction at these schools were super high needs – homeless, ELL, certain disabilities with specific needs and maybe a couple others – everyone else has remained online. Plans were to go back later this month, starting with K-3, but there were delays announced for that last week.
The Boston area universities that have been in person have stayed that way throughout, so I wouldn’t expect any changes there.
True, but irrelevant as once the UC mandated the vaccines, they had already fought that policy battle. The fact that the campus Administrators were purposely lax about enforcement is on them.
I’m sitting here right now looking at Mr. Middle Ground. Fang Jr. is OK with remote learning, but in-person would be better.
Totally agree. Some classes are great remote and others, not so much. Just seems like there is a huge increase of homework /assignments this year.