Agreed. I attended both (UGA undergrad, Carolina MBA), and they are starkly different. UGA is a college town, defined campus. Carolina is a university dropped into the state capital. Walking down the street in Columbia, you can’t always differentiate what is a USC building and what is not. Athens is definitely something special.
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I would think everyone has until May 1 to accept their offer and many will keep their options open until they evaluate all offers. RD decisions will most likely not be delayed. UoSC will release RD by the end of March, hopefully sooner, but you’ll need to plan for the latest.
Problem is all of my daughters schools are sending the email that states they will be in person in the fall. I do have concerns that this is just a sales tactic to get them to commit
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If you’re able to get on the FB parent pages for any of the schools, it’s helpful to hear from parents of current students about how things are really going on campus for the current semester. Some schools have been working progressively to return to more of a level of normalcy, while others are still pretty locked down. I feel like I can trust the press releases more if the school has already started putting procedures in place versus schools that are still requiring kids to stay by themselves in dorm rooms.
What is most concerning to me are the tales from many schools of kids having to teach themselves by watching pre-recorded lectures. Not spending money on that no matter what the USNWR rating is.
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I think they said they’d release by mid-March. Hoping that is still true. The wait is killing us. Maybe since they released merit they’re closer to releasing RD?
I think all these schools are planning for in person because they have to say that or parents will respond like you are. The reality of what truly will happen isn’t known. The schools are optimistic I’m sure but it’s more marketing than anything. Once they have you they will adjust as needed. Most schools have stated they are going back but honestly I would not put too much stock into that. I’m sure they will if they can. But if the situation warrants otherwise at the time they won’t.
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U of SC is the top Honors College in the country. Just ask them :). It’s all over their literature and website.
That said Honors seems to be more an experience than job getter. My son is in an Honors College. Not a single job application has a space for it nor has any job interviewer delved deeper when my son mentioned it. I think it’s importance is more to the student and the experience they desire.
Both UMD and U of SC are excellent and different schools. If you were to go by pedigree in most majors, UMD is at a much higher level. It’s just that if you are OOS like us it’s too pricey. We are in. But cannot consider it.
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I think they are being very careful about what they promise this time - especially after seeing all the parent backlash and bad press that UNC-CH experienced after pulling the plug 2 weeks in (after ensuring parents that they had a plan in place to manage Covid).
Again, there are colleges that are currently allowing regular dorming, open dining halls, have at least some in-person classes, and have begun to allow spectators back at sporting events (with masking requirements still in place). Then there are colleges who have students living in single dorm rooms (with many students who never came back to campus), take out only in dining halls and 100% remote learning. I’m more confident about the former group of colleges, when they announce a commitment to be back in person in the fall, than I am about the latter group of colleges who for the most part, have not issued any statement at all.
You’re right though, any college can pull the rug out - but I’ve got to believe that none of them want to go through the PR nightmare that UNC went through, so they must be thinking carefully before making the commitment.
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I totally agree with you. I posted this on another thread.
D21 has a COVID factor in her decision model that is calculated as:
What you say you plan to do for Fall 2021 x discount factor for what you actually did Fall-Spring 2020-21.
UNC gets a large discount factor, UofSC no discount factor.
Currently have one at UNC. We’re not as gullible as Charlie Brown.
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YUP!
This is a weird year. Kids applied to a ton of schools for this reason. My DD21 applied to 15 schools compared to my DD2019 who only applied to 7. You can only go to one school, so allllll these emails that are coming in I take with a grain of salt. My dd19 school also said in June they were going back last year. She is still virtual.
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UNC was fooled by the students. The colleges that have opened up, the states that are opening up, in my opinion, are taking a huge gamble. Truth is, if everyone did what they needed for 3 weeks, we’d rid of most of this. But people won’t.
We don’t know what August will bring. The #s are getting better as the weather is warmer but we know when we let down the guard it roars back. We’ll have more vaccinated. If you look at the stock market, you’d think we’re past it.
I’m just saying, we’re all going to hope for the best but no matter what your school has done this year, you have to be prepared for another year like this. At least emotionally.
We are still dealing with kids and many don’t make the right choice. Even if most do, the few mess it up for all.
I’m choosing to be more hopeful about the fall. We now have 3 different vaccines available, and anyone who wants it should be able to have it by the end of May (or so they say). There’s also a new antiviral therapeutic being tested that has shown to reduce the viral load to zero with little to no side effects. The landscape for fall 2021 is setting up to be very different than last year. Frankly, in my opinion, if schools can’t return to close to pre-covid operations by fall it’s because they don’t want to, and/or are too incompetent to do so.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it 
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D also received her Capstone invite last night and her scholarship went up a tier from $40,000 to $62,000. The increase, coupled with our campus visit last week has catapulted UofSC up several rungs on her short list.
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It’s much more likely that Fall 2021 will be in-person with masks still required in any public (common) places. The vaccines will dramatically reduce hospitalizations, which is the underlying reason for all the protocols in place. There will still be positive cases, but if we mitigate hospitalizations (and deaths), we can return to more normalcy. Professors and staff will all be vaccinated and the risks of in-person learning will be very low. I believe Fall 2021 will be ok.
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Yup even though it’s only a 3k increase per year we would have been happy with that. Instead mines only went up $709
Any updates on RD?
My son is OOS and found out Feb 17 as RD, however we were not advised of any merit, free aid or the government loans.
So, it’s difficult to get excited without knowing the whole offer.
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My D applied EA and got deferred in December, hasn’t heard back since 
hoping as they start to release merit and capstone they’ll hurry up with the rest of the decisions!!
The whole process is unpredictable. My son is waiting on some deferrals from EA to RD. He is expecting decisions March 12-26. It’s a long waiting process, and kids are getting anxious as more and more decisions are being released in waves.
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U of SC taking so long to send decisions has completely turned off my DD. It was her first choice, by a mile. Then we visited schools last month and she liked U of Tampa (where she was accepted back in December) a lot more than she thought she would. We also visited SC and Clemson on that trip (she was waitlisted at Clemson). She liked them both a lot but not having an acceptance in hand does muddy the waters. She got tired of waiting for SC, so we put a deposit down for Tampa last night. She is very excited and I’m thrilled for her.
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