The expectation is that “full need” schools will not reduce financial aid for the online semesters. Some have already announced their plans, and that seems to be the case.
Are you referring to some specific post of mine? I’m a bit consfused why you ask.
What I think I wrote recently is that we would prefer for him to spend the fall semester at home, and that all indications are that that is what MIT’s plan is for freshmen (though we will know for sure 2nd week of July).
In any case, as I wrote in post #37 in this thread back in March,
“He is bummed over likely missing out on being on campus at least part of his freshman year, but so long as MIT can extend their proverbial firehose over the internet, there is still nowhere else he’d rather be (including Vandy on full tuition merit).”
^But, that’s an awfully expensive “firehose”. Are you saying the content of an online course from MIT is that different from one covering the same subject matter at University of State X?
I was just wondering because you said a short tie ago that you were considering the same path with DD who is still in h/s.
Read closer. What I said was "Smart kids will continue to find ways to distinguish themselves ". Conventional things like ISEF Finals and MathCounts may not be around for a while, but, again, smart kids will find a way to distinguish themselves.
Standardized test scores may be of some use even if they are dated and there are other metrics colleges can use.
In the end, you’ve got to compete with what you’ve got.
So more good news out of Illinois
For some reason I can’t copy /paste the link but…
Chicago State University is giving free tuition including books etc but you have to do a 5 week program this summer first. You get a computer also. This might just be for the first year though. But it might help someone out.
This is really a loaded topic that is probably beyond the scope of this thread.
On the one hand, my mentor “in the old country” (who convinced me to stay in a less selective university under his tutelage) oft repeated Plutarch’s maxim that it is not the places that grace men, but men places, and I have brought my kids up that way.
On the other hand, DS’s research mentor, a distinguished faculty at our state flagship, told us in no uncertain terms that son should attend one of the very top institutions in his field. Yes, the courses may be nominally similar, but the level of rigor and the peer group are not.
We are not comparing a diminished MIT to some ideal version of state flagship (or Vandy). In an environment where all institutions are struggling against the wind, we are putting our faith into son’s top choice (at a significant financial sacrifice).
Hopefully there are better days ahead and full on-campus return in the future.
For now, we are playing a long game, and our kids are no strangers to self-learning.
But if our younger turns out to not be as fortunate in this college admissions game as his brother, he will use one of the three full-tuition merit scholarships to our state flagship he won while in middle school to, I trust, make the best of his experience there.
This fall, schools will be doing better, IMO, with online learning. However, some schools will just be better at it than others. And, yes, I do believe that some schools online content will be better than others. Not all schools content is created equal. Even if they are delivered in the same online environment.
The problem is that some colleges are going not just test optional, but test blind (Caltech of all places). With test optional admissions a 7th grade near-perfect ACT would still allow one to make a statement. With test blind, it’s basically thrown out.
Yes, smart kids can distinguish themselves in other ways, but the point remains: removing objective nationwide measurements does not benefit those that do well on them.
I understand this may sound harsh and even controversial to some. But I come from a different part of the world, and, believe it or not, the American college admissions system is an exception so wild as to be almost incomprehensible to those used to more “metric-driven” systems.
We have to understand the rules and play by them. We don’t have to love them. And we sure can change them.
Again, I fear we may be derailing the thread. The simple point I am trying to make is next year’s college admissions will be even less predictable. Good news for some. But not for kids like mine. I will just have to hope this blows over with not too much permanent shift towards even more “holistic” system before our DS24 sends his applications.
I am sure a student that brilliant doesn’t need a certain college degree to prove their worth or brilliance. It will be obvious to all. And the sky being the limit. U of your state 4.0 and perfect whatever grad boards down the line will suffice.
“Toronto Hospital for Sick Kids recommends (which I assume Ontario used as the basis for their decision to not require masks in school this fall)”
That decision seemed to take a factors into account and make a decision, which is really how it should happen. You don’t want the scientists to be the only ones at the table, even though of course they may have the largest vote, they shouldn’t have the only vote. The Toronto report said there are a lot of benefits to younger kids to be in school, many of them emotional and the risk was small enough that they thought masks weren’t needed.
I understand what you are saying but large state schools also have large on campus dorms, Rutgers has about 15,000 kids for example in a regular year living on campus, may be they cut that down this year, there are no triples IIRC so even if they cut that down to 10,000 kids it is a lot
@circuitrider I can answer the Uconn one, I was on a call with their board of trustees and they were talking about cash on hand and maybe running out of it, it that occurred they have a 40 million for lack of a better word line of credit with the state of Connecticut and if they burned through that for what ever reason it would just be raised, there is no way in the real world Uconn could go bankrupt unless that state of CT wanted it to and I am not even sure if that would be enough. State schools are not going anywhere, I should say state university system, maybe an individual campus could be in trouble but that is more a political issue than a cash issue.
Ontario has not yet in fact announced guidelines for K-12 school in the fall. The Sick Kids recommendation is merely one piece of the puzzle that will be considered before decisions are made. The teachers’ unions here are very powerful and they will no doubt have much to say on the matter. The latest update we received indicated
@Vulcan - You are seemly tone deaf to most folks, we get it you have very smart kids and it may not work out as well as you would like , that is life. You seem less inclined to share much empathy for people. I think you have some very valid ideas and options but sometimes the perception is you come off as a elite.