Like someone said 5 pages ago - the colleges currently don’t know SQUAT. They are planning for multiple scenarios and hoping for the best (on campus) but even with on campus they are planning on DIFFERENT. This is what they are focused on. Especially in MASS - the governor is being secretive and cagey about the state plans for the next 8 weeks. Big Reveal on Monday! Some colleges can afford to throw up their hands and say - taking the easy way - going online, since they can afford and are very risk averse (and they are counting on the parents to still fork over the 70K). Others, not so much.
Many schools have compressed schedules as part of their regular day to day. Stanford and WPI are on quarters. I can’t speak to the details. My son is at Union. They are on trimesters and take 3 classes per term and each term is 10 weeks. It works well for him as he is only concentrating on 3 classes but in an intense way. He is a Physics major, Math minor. It works. But might be hard for regular semester colleges to turn on a dime and compress classes.
@suzyQ7 When you say Williams is “storied and cannot afford to be practical”, what do you mean?
Would ten weeks of contact with a professor your student did not know beforehand be equally problematic and troublesome?
For those here who would rather not embrace such an instructional approach for fall, which elements are more troubling? Is it the truncated period of time, the newness of association with the professor (and, presumably, with many of the other students), the newness of the student to the university experience, or, perhaps, the importance of the course to the major?
My kid is in her final (3rd) quarter of her senior year of college, and has acclimated to the online format. (Being just a 10-week period normally, this is not a particularly truncated schedule, though.) The students were given a few days to choose which class, among their options, they would elect to stick with (kind of like a ‘shopping’ week, or ‘exploration’).
She did give some weight to teaching style and ‘feel’ of the respective professors’ energy and delivery at this juncture, but those elements can also be at play, and impact the in-classroom experience, and cannot override the need for a course. Being a senior, she also is completely aware of and understanding of the surprise this new environment finds everyone in.
She, as well as the other students I must presume, has come to recognize the occasional tic any given professor may have, and I imagine the professors have come to glean who shows up on time, and who makes every effort to engage and contribute discussion. It has challenged her to form relationships with professors and classmates in a new way, but those relationships have happened.
To (partially) address one of my own questions from above, which element of online instruction would be most troubling…for me it would be the newness of the student to the university experience. That would seem such a strange, unfortunate experience to me for a freshman student. But I do think students, being young, can adapt and do well at this time, in such formats, but for just a brief period of time.
Williams and Northeastern are different institutions that offer different educational products. Northeastern heavily emphasizes co-ops/experiential education, which, if businesses and public institutions are not opened up, will be extremely difficult to offer. Williams is its own little world; more “ivory tower,” I guess.
Absolutely, then there is the faculty to deal with as well as the union if there is one. Teaching a course on double-time is a whole nother ballgame. At places where it is common, or for those who have taught the same course on a Summer session, it would be easier to prepare. For the rest of us . . .
No one will be paying 70K for online classes. 70K ballpark includes room and board.
For full pay families it is more like 55K.
For our particular “doughnut hole” family our direct cost for MIT (with room and board but without books, travel, and personal expenses) is 43K after a 27K need-based scholarship.
If MIT follows this Spring’s precedent and does not reduce finaid, then without having to pay room and board we’d be looking at 27K in direct costs. Now, if they further go ahead and waive student contribution for online semesters (wishful thinking perhaps, we’ll see), then it’s 22K/yr.
For middle-middle class families it would be even less. Free, for some.
With great thanks to @TheVulcan who sent me some links, I found this one to be helpful about MIT:
https://covid19.mit.edu/updates/may-5-town-hall-faq
As you can see, it’s a very multi-layered and thoughtful approach. I get the impression that MIT is as eager as anyone else to get the educational show on the road. However, being chock full of brilliant, science-focused people, MIT is ready to solve the problem including all of the variables.
Exactly. Williams has been the #1 ranked liberal arts college for years (decades?) and has a 3 billion dollar endowment for 2k students. Northeastern is a large research university (top 40ish) with 1 billion endowment (wow, that went up the past few years!) For 18k undergraduate students. Totally different financial profiles.
I doubt Williams would lose a single student if they go online next year (if they did, there would be 20 kids on the wait list anxious for the spot), but northeastern probably would. And Northeastern (and BU, and many others) has alot of international students that they probably lost already.
@Waiting2exhale my D is one of the kids who doesn’t want a 10 week semester, and this was one of the important factors when she was making her college list. Her reason is that it’s just too easy to fall behind if you don’t understand a concept and need to meet with the prof or TA for help.
I started getting such requests from Northeastern about 10 years after I graduated, likewise from Penn Wharton where I got my MBA. My son has received such requests from McGill. We were both active in local alumni chapters.
My understanding is that shortly after the students left campus in March, there was an outbreak of Covid in the community. My son is still trying to get an antibody test, but I will be shocked if he doesn’t test positive when he is finally able to be tested. I would not be surprised to discover that this virus burned through the campus this winter.
If fall can be in person, then there will be no summer semester. I think the school is trying to accommodate those students who don’t want to have a semester online.
Many of the dorms are singles. I think they would have wiggle room if they assigned more doubles.
I agree. I work in an administrative role at another college that is semester based, Unionized faculty. Winter session and Summer class are already compressed. But a lot of work for everyone else to prep.
@shuttlebus Oh, I get it. I thought you meant they were trying to reduce density by spreading it out over three semesters. Thanks!
I’m not doubting you but probably another positive about attending a private college. USC is known for having a great alumni network too.
I would weigh in on saying that compressed quarters are harder than regular semesters. I felt this way both comparing Caltech (grad) to MIT, and also when I tried to take a winter-session class at MIT itself, compared to regular MIT. Caltech is on quarters and MIT is on semesters (which tend to the long side for college semesters).
For me, just as I was starting to get into the rhythm, it was time for a huge exam. And it was very hard to stay “on” for the class through longer lectures and longer HW per day in the same subject.
I feel that I was successful in all of the above classes, but it was easier for me to live a balanced life and/or get more out of the content, in the semester model. I can imagine that there are students who are in a place in their life or academics or executive function, where those differences would push them over a breaking point.
Not a great idea.
@circuitrider Yeah… I would say even though I think they need to bring students back (the ones who want to), they should still put as many students into singles as they can.