@Meddy i guess I was thinking about 2020s taking gap years when college is online at home. In that case, they don’t have the option to “go” to college and get out of the house. From what I’ve heard from AOs on webcasts, lots of kids will deposit and say they are coming but likely ask for gap years or semesters after the college announces class will be online from home. This year, there won’t be a day they lock in a class and expect lots of melt over the summer.
If they prefer to take a gap year, there should be some meaningful alternatives to do during the year right? I’m wondering what such opportunities will be there in the fall. In that case registering for the class and learning thro online seems productive, isn’t it?
I think if my d were a senior, I would encourage her to start college in fall even if it were online for awhile. My son is enrolled at an in-state public 3 hours away and is home online now. He plans to take a class or two online this summer and if classes are online in the fall plans to continue. I think colleges/universities will want to reopen as soon as they safely can.
@Suave123 everyone keeps saying that - why would kids take a break when they will likely be no travel allowed or jobs to be had. They would take a break because (1) $35k is too much to pay for online at home for one semester and (2) some kids want the whole eight semester experience on campus. If you take a gap year, even if there’s not that much to DO, you’re not breaking the bank for something you don’t want and you preserve the chance to have four full years on campus.
If my S were a senior he would not take a gap yr. His goal is medical school and he may need the gap yr after undergrad.
@Aguadecoco I have seen a lot of pre med kids concerned, though, because online classes with labs aren’t great. A friend of ours down the street has a daughter who is a college sophomore, premed, and will likely take time off if her college is online in the fall.
@homerdog that is a concern. I wonder how schools are handling the labs this semester?
Not to beat a dead horse, but I just don’t see colleges letting a large percent of their students take a semester off or gap year. With endowments and charitable contributions likely going way down this year, they cannot afford to lose a significant amount of tuition from students leaving college for awhile.
It sucks to pay top dollar for tuition to have our kids do online instruction but I really don’t think the students will have many, if any, options.
I recently asked my D20 if she or any of her large group of friends are considering a gap year and she said “none are considering it”.
@homerdog One of the reps on today’s online seminar said that some med schools stated that they aren’t going to accept p/f grades. I just think this is completely ridiculous because it’s the school’s choice to do p/f grading, not the kid’s choice!
@socaldad2002 I was just thinking about asking you what you think!
I’ve heard webcasts now with AOs from Davidson, UCLA, UVA, and Trinity and they all say that they will be generous with giving gap years. I think it’s not a huge deal for them because they can go to their waitlist and find kids who want to start this fall no matter what and then they’ve got a built in start for their next class starting in 2021. That’s why it’s concerning for us with high schools kids graduating in 2021 since it’s possible the number of spots available to them with be fewer.
@Aguadecoco Kids are watching labs. They are sitting at home and watching someone to a lab via video. Not the same. I’m not sure how they are graded on it. Maybe they have to answer questions afterwards. But they are not doing the work themselves.
I didn’t participate in the webinar…was this the CC one? Do you remember which med school said that?
I have an S20 who is going to Arizona and he has no plan to take a gap year. If they start online, he’ll just start online. Yes, it would suck. They’ve already moved orientation online so he is going to miss out on that.
We were going to take D21 to visit Utah and Utah State this week, so we will try again in the summer or fall. And we were going to visit Northern Arizona, which is her top choice at the moment, on the same trip as S’ orientation (the first week of June) so that’s postponed as well.
I’m a little concerned about the SAT since she is missing that now. Even if the schools go test optional, the merit aid is partially based on test scores. I’m assuming she’ll be able to take it over the summer but who knows. And maybe the schools will adjust their qualifications for aid.
Where did you see the students would have an opportunity to improve their grades in that link? Our HS is looking at grading policies now so if I can point them to other schools that have established something that works to the student benefit I’d like to share it with our BOE.
@homerdog @mm5678 Can you share what state you are in? Any info I can share with the BOE which reflects what other schools across the country are doing will help.
Thanks everyone! Stay well.
@H0llyw00d we are in Illinois. Grades as of March 18th are the lowest kids can get but can be increased with the assignments and online assessments going forward. I’m not sure if that’s for the whole state or our district. Right now, it’s officially no school through April 30 but school ends May 18th so I’m sure we aren’t going back. We are 1:1 with school assigned chrome books.
Re: gap years for 2020 kids. I got the impression from watching the seminar that the admissions officers participating were not a fan of students trying for gap years just because the didn’t want to start with a semester online. That if the kid wouldn’t have asked for a gap year otherwise, then that was not a good enough reason. Meaningful activities need to be planned in order to have a gap year, and nearly all such meaningful activities that people do during gap years will be impossible under circumstances that would force a college to start the year online.
In our SoCal district, we just got word from our principal that they intend to definitely start online learning on April 20. School itself will remain closed indefinitely. This is good news to me – hopefully teaching and learning will continue at least from April 20 through the end of the year, despite about 5 weeks off of schooling. :neutral:
@amsunshine why on earth was there no school for five weeks??
By April 20, it will be 5 weeks of no school. To be fair, two of those weeks are spring break though (their school has a wonky schedule). The reason we’ve been given is they’ve had to figure out how to accommodate special ed students. Luckily, my daughters at least have dual enrollment classes too and those have made the switch to online smoothly.
@amsunshine Will the kids have to go to school longer into the springtime then? W are in Illinois and the kids have to be in school for a certain number of days so our district couldn’t just miss three weeks of instruction. I feel so bad for the kids at your school. Three weeks of lost instruction is a lot. I didn’t know that was happening anywhere.
@homerdog For what it’s worth, I would expect your state board of ed to make some adjustments/accommodations for school day requirements for this school year.
The virtual learning happening around here is skimpy, not using zoom as far as I know, but there’s at least something going on, turning in assignments in Canvas etc. I have very mixed feelings on the grading options the schools have before them. We don’t have changes to that yet.