Agreed, Bowdoin was upfront. The problem is the risk involved. If many students opt for a gap semester/year, how many of them will be allowed back promptly, and how will the college decide which ones get to return? Athletes first, so they can compete in their sport? Full pay first, so college gets much needed money? It is likely most will want to return at the same time.
Whoa whoa. Bowdoin isn’t forbidding kids to come back when they want. That’s not what they said. Those who read it that way likely do not have kids at a small school. I read it like this - Bowdoin has 2000 students. About 1800 live on campus while around 200 study abroad each semester. So, they are likely already worried about how to house extra students since study abroad isn’t happening and may not happen in spring or maybe not fall either. I don’t know if they will re-admit students if they cannot house them. That’s very different than other schools where kids can live off campus. Plus, their enrollment model always has 1800 kids in classes on campus, not the full 2000 so maybe they just can’t add 200 kids back into classes that easily if no one goes abroad for the semester that a whole bunch of kids want to come back. It’s nothing like a big university that could have 30,000 or 35,000 kids and not have it affect class sizes or housing.
It may be honest but I’m not sure I’d say it’s “up front”. I would think that they could give a worst case timeline that any student who opts to take a leave could expect to return.
Agreed. I think the result might be more Bowdoin current students (not incoming Frosh) transferring than taking a leave, should Bowdoin go fully remote.
It’s looking like many very good schools will have transfer spots this summer, so there should be opportunity for students to change schools, should they desire that. Staying with this example, if 20 or 30 or whatever number of current students take leaves at Bowdoin, I think it’s highly likely Bowdoin would try to fill those spots with transfers.
An unstated factor with the Bowdoin communication is that I bet if any seniors take a leave, they would get priority when coming back.
@roycroftmom Agreed. This email was just sent out to the kids. I think all of the questions being posted here are legit and, if S19 considers taking time off, we will be asking all of these questions. My guess (total guess) is that most if not all kids will not have an issue going back when they want. If they absolutely had to have some wait, I bet they would bring the oldest back first. Again, total guess on that. It’s hard to convey how open Bowdoin has been about their policies here on CC. One would have to watch the town halls, know the people, and belong to the school to understand that they are honestly trying to do well by their students in the face of what will of course be a hard time for the College financially just like any other school.
@Rivet2000 HOw could they give a worst case timeline when they have no idea how many kids will take a leave? If it’s 50 kids, that’s one thing. If it’s 250, that’s another. With so few students overall, they would need to know that. That’s why they aren’t “promising” every student can come back for a certain semester. They (just like every other school) are working on this is real time and what students choose to do affects what they can do and vice versa.
UNC Chapel Hill expects to start 10 days early, end the semester at Thanksgiving.
Highlights: Reduced class sizes, additional evening classes added to compensate, setting up new community standards around wearing masks and other health measures, remote option for anyone who needs it . Details all to come. Mentions “ability to adapt if concerns arise.”
Didn’t see anything in the article about housing or dining specifics.
Summer classes online for no extra cost, maybe?
No students tested positive at the small LAC that one of my kids attends. I have another kid at a mid-sized university (>5,000 undergrads), and only 3 students on campus have tested positive; another 45 others reported testing positive at home, though it’s unclear when they became infected. No doubt at least some students were infected but were not tested because they were asymptomatic or had extremely mild symptoms; still, it’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of students at both schools will lack immunity when they return to campus.
Agree with this, but they could allow more kids to live off-campus, until the bolus of kids taking leaves works its way thru the system…then they wouldn’t have to limit re-admissions.
They could also incent (financially) more students to do study abroad in the coming years, once study abroad is an option again.
What Bowdoin didn’t address (at least in the statement @homerdog shared) is how those returning students would affect freshman admissions for the next few classes. If they are limited to 1800 students total and more of those than usual are coming back from time off/gap years, that leaves fewer spots for Freshman.
@homerdog They could give estimates for those ranges: if <50 take leaves expect this, if <100 then expect this, if >100 we go bankrupt so expect this. I understand that they are trying to do the best they can for their students, but if they can’t give worst case estimates they should be up front and say “we will do our best to fit you back in, but we cannot say when or if you can return”.
The problem that they (and all schools) need to address has been touched on in these threads. If a school back-fills students on leaves with transfer students (to keet the $$ flowing) then they, potentially, have an attendance bulge that will take a while to work out.
@Mwfan1921 right. The first thing I would likely ask if I choose to reach out is if they would re-admit students even if they don’t have housing for them.
Every school is going to have some sort of disclaimer statement, whether it’s housing or leave of absence and the likes. The less specific the better for the school, and the more uncertainty for the students, and that’s just the way it is going to be.
Except, I think Bowdoin did, indirectly. If leave-takers could come back at will then I expect it would affect the available numbers for incoming freshmen. And that would be unfair to the incoming freshman class. It seems to me – and I also don’t have a Bowdoin student – that the school is rightly trying to balance competing needs. It is allowing current students to take leaves with no conditions, which is more than it needs to do in my opinion. However, it also is looking out for future classes by not allowing current students’ needs to trump future students’ needs. Seems eminently fair and reasonable to me.
Everyone has to bear some pain in this situation, which some, perhaps, are not recognizing. (not directed at the quoted poster!)
@Nhatrang I’ve seen a couple of schools mentioned (I can’t remember which ones) that have basically said no covid related gaps/leaves will be approved. This way they should be able to manage attendance like in any other year and not have to deal with loosing $$ or managing an attendance bulge. I think those schools are actually the ones being the most honest. Students may need to take classes online only or hybrid, but the school is doing the best they can do for the future and hopefully the students support the schools for that.
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You are fortunate that you can afford to pay top dollar for a private education. Many families had to decide if USC at $59K vs UCLA at $13K is worth it.
USC dorms are mostly doubles and UC dorms are mostly triples. Most UCs have sent out emails saying that they cannot guarantee housing. At least one UC campus has said that there will be no triples next year. For housing, I think the UCs need to wait and see how many students choose remote learning while living at home so they can begin to tackle the housing density issue.
My oldest is a rising senior at UCD and living off campus. He was told yesterday that one roommate will not be returning because his parents can’t afford to pay rent anymore. This student will choose remote learning from home - not because he is sick but because his parents no longer have the financial luxury to pay for him to live at school.
Each UC campus is dealing with different issues. Berkeley starts in August in a very urban area with cooler weather and the campus has a very small footprint. Davis, which is only an hour away, begins in October, is hot and is the largest, most spread out campus.
But they can’t control students transferring if they don’t allow gaps/leaves. For schools that go remote only, they may lose students to schools that are not remote.
My point is the schools saying no gaps/leaves still have huge uncertainty about their enrollment this coming year. No matter the policy, colleges can’t ensure that students will behave in a certain way.
@RockySoil I’m sure it’s complicated and I don’t pretend to know how it will work but I’m thinking Bowdoin might take more transfers or maybe more freshman to make up for some of the kids taking a leave. If the numbers are small and there’s fewer than 50 (random choice of number) students taking a leave then maybe Bowdoin doesn’t “replace” all 50 kids. Maybe they can swing it financially to not do that and then maybe students even go back to study abroad in fall 2021. In that case, the kids who take leaves should be able to go back whenever they want. The bigger question is what if this is a disaster and a really large number of kids take a leave? How many students will they find to “replace” them and will they really try to replace all of them? If 200 kids take a leave, do they take 200 more kids somehow or just 50-100 more? Guessing they’ve run models, of course, but right now they have no idea what the fall out will be.
And I don’t see how any small LAC could plan any differently than this unless they just say they are limiting leaves and it’s just first come, first served.
There’s another option. Some schools in Asia put up plexiglass dividers on top of dining tables. Students can still talk to and see each other while dining together.