Colleges are really in a tough spot. They have to plan around all the uncertainties not only due to the coronaviruses but also governmental constraints, not to mention their own financial constraints. Every school has to social distance, to test, and to isolate infected, but each faces a different level of challenge based on its own circumstances. So I expect colleges to come out with plans that are similar in principle but highly localized in practice.
@socaldad2002 i agree with that. And Bowdoin did not say as much but I get the feeling the decision makers also feel the same way. Would going back to campus in this way be worth it? All of the students are clamoring to get back but they won’t be happy under this scenario so is it better to not even offer it? Maybe. But students will have to be convinced that they will not like campus this way and it’s better to stay home for now.
@Mwfan1921 Schools will have to work within the framework of their state’s restrictions. Gov DeWine of Ohio was on one of the Sunday shows today. OH is beginning to open up gradually. Gov DeWine said he has been working with representatives from each industry to discuss best practices and what restrictions need to be in place. I would expect the same thing will happen with Universities. So, yes, they’ll need to work within the state restrictions, but they will have some input into the restrictions as they are being considered.
I pay close attention to OH because my D19 goes to Ohio State, and because I think Gov DeWine did a good job of getting out ahead of this thing.
@homerdog. What is your perfect scenario for your son to go back to Bowdoin? 100 % normal is not the answer. I am curious what your needs are in a perfect world (again can’t choose 100%normal since we all know that is not realistic).
Then I have a follow up question once you answer if you choose to play this game ?.
Jumping into this discussion… my D20 is an incoming Reed student so I’ve been keeping an eye on their website for updates. They recently announced that they won’t make a final decision about Fall 2020 until the end of June. I think my student mentioned getting an email saying that requests for gap years need to be in by mid-June, although I think that letter came out a couple of weeks ago. At this point she’s planning to go ahead and start this fall even if it’s online since there’s nothing else to do with any free time/ gap year time.
@socaldad2002 i don’t have a perfect answer to that but I would say most important is class in person. Period. Not online. Then, cafeteria open with kids there not taking things to go. Temps and contact tracing are fine. Maybe masks are ok. I’d like him to be able to have the living situation he wants which is a triple. They haven’t done housing yet but he and two friends are trying for a triple but it’s big. It has a living room/small kitchen and two bedrooms - one single bedroom and one double. He doesn’t want to live all by himself. Maybe that triple is big enough for social distancing.
And I don’t want anyone quarantined who came into contact with an infected student. S19 was sick enough for two days that he didn’t leave his room and hated it. I mentioned that, if kids get sick, they might have to stay inside for 14 days and he said no way. That’s probably the biggest problem but we have no idea who many kids will get sick so it’s not easy to make a decision based on that. What if they go back and not that many kids get sick?
Recall that a “contact” here is not just someone who passed by another student on the way to the library. The definition of a contact is “someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 48 hours before illness onset until the time the patient is isolated.”
I’m confident that colleges will say something like, “We expect our students to abide by our public health measures. If you are not willing to do that, do not enroll in our college.”
@“Cardinal Fang” so it would have to be someone you’re not social distancing from? See, that’s the part I don’t get. Are kids six feet away from each other or not?
That is not what most would call a triple; most would call it a two bedroom suite with one single and one double.
Many social distancing advisories are with respect to people outside of your household, since it can be impractical for many to social distance others in their household. Of course, the first few weeks of moving into college housing would not be social distancing in this sense, but after that, the suite occupants would be like a household for this purpose. That does mean no visitors from outside the suite, and no visiting others’ rooms or suites, and keeping the recommended distance away from all other people when outside the suite.
I don’t think they’ll be able to keep the kids that get it inside for 14 days, let alone the ones exposed. High rise dorms? cafeterias feeding thousands? larger schools have no chance of significantly reducing density. These kids will not social distance. Go back to campus and not have parties? Not gonna happen, parties are still happening with kids left on campus now, forget about a couple more months in when everyone’s friends are back. Some of the kids are following the rules, but all they need is to be in their ‘small class’ with someone ill, and it hardly matters.
If we remember the UT Cabo trip, with 49 of 211 getting covid, seems like a bunch will get sick.
@ucbalumnus so in your definition of social distancing, a student would only be quarantined if one of t he or roommates was infected? Don’t need a whole contact tracing plan then. Or I guess you have it just to warn the kids who were in class with the infected student to maybe take their temps more often and be on the lookout for symptoms?
Students attending any university in Hawaii who do not already live on the same island as the university could have issues with the 14-day quarantine for both out-of-state and inter-island travelers:
https://hidot.hawaii.gov/coronavirus/
@homerdog Cardinal Fang was saying it would be someone who was within six feet of a person for AT LEAST FIFTEEN MINUTES. Not someone who was within six feet for like three seconds.
I personally think going to college under these restrictions would be easily worth it; even though it would be a watered-down version of the college experience, you would still get to definitely see your friends, and I (along with many other students) have felt very lonely since we have been sent home. Also (though this may improve somewhat with infrastructure improvements) online classes suck.
What if colleges have dorm move in day 2 weeks before classes start and have a mandatory 14 day quarantine. The students have to stay in their dorm and only interact with others in their building. No outside visitors.
Looking back to when I was 18. I think that I would have loved a 14 day cough bender cough shut in with all my brand new friends.
I don’t know how any college administrator could run a college in that situation and not expect large outbreaks. We already know that close living/working situations like that cause outbreaks.
And sports… how on earth could a college allow intercollegiate sports? Just in case you manage to keep outbreaks out of your campus, you have sports ambassadors to spread them between campuses? That would be crazy.
I’ll just pretend this was directed at my question. Lol…
So let’s say that school starts out this way
I will throw in a few online things for good measure. Then like 2 weeks in, everything goes online. What are you going to do with your student? Hypothetically speaking, of course. I think this is the more realistic question.
Can’t imagine not one school choosing a hybrid. It would be good practice for them to have everything up to snuff.
I would think maybe for the fall, they would give students the choice. Go to class or stay online
Maybe this would self weed out the classes. I bet ya that upperclassmen might stay online for more classes then freshman would. My son kinda likes the online experience for some classes. Something to be said to sleeping in till noon and then turning on your class while in bed… Haha…
But He just finished up and he’s home. Going to be a senior. So I asked him if he will go back to finish up if everything is online. He said he will see… Not a surprising answer if you know him since he likes to see all his options. What if he got a internship or co-op for the fall? But he is going back. He’s looking at living possibilities now.
No matter what. It’s going to be different and will be interesting to see how families adjust. Everyone I have talked to that has a freshman is sending them.
I think my rising sophomore feels the same. Yesterday she announced out of the blue she’d drop out before doing another semester online (but this was in the middle of studying for a difficult exam so it’s hard to take a lot of what she was saying too seriously). But, she is pretty miserable at home. Her classes themselves are fine but there is a lot of informal group studying at her school. They have a res college set up and kids in her college who are all in the class might text and decide to meet up after a meal to work on problems together. Or they study a lot in the dorm common area and will end up working together on problems. It’s hard to be so isolated. In addition, she has never really enjoyed communicating electronically so she is feeling lonely and more and more disconnected from her school friends. They do group chats, netflix parties, play games together, etc, but she says it’s not at all the same. I think she’d much rather go back with restrictions than not go back at all.
If the student’s purpose to be back on campus is to socialize, s/he is likely to be disappointed. There will be restrictions for social and physical interactions in place this fall, if students are allowed back on campus.
I don’t think her only motivation is to socialize, but not not be alone would be nice. We’ve talked a lot about how things may look when/if she goes back, and while I can’t say those changes are what she wants, she understands they may be reality and understands why. To her, that would still be preferable to being alone with me and her father 24/7. Maybe the fact that she’s an only child doesn’t help!