How would an employer know the classes were taken online? I don’t see anything on my kids’ transcripts that differentiates online from in person classes even though they are offered in either format and they have always kept our home address even if they were in a dorm or apartment.
Employers are looking for talent coming out of school not who long they were in school (same for grad programs). Gap years are not an issue, many kids take them. The majority of our son’s friends/study group did, especially the non-US students.
At this point on time, if I was the parent of a rising freshman I would strongly lean gap year if possible. If I was the the parent of a rising freshman that was interested in CS/math I would 100% say take a gap year because there is so much great online content available that would only make them stronger academically after the gap.
If I was the parent of a rising STEM senior or grad student (I am), I would strongly recommend online.
@BuckeyeMWDSG I don’t think an employer would know whether a class was taken on-line or not. My concern about on-line was that if some of the kids in the class took it on-line from home, and others took it F2F on campus and had more resources available on campus, the kids taking it on-line are at a disadvantage.
I think every plan has pros & cons. I think it’s important to lay them all out and see what works best for you.
Colleges have done extensive surveys and paid consultants big sums to understand their customers, and they know that the most important thing is the outside the classroom experience. Our kids want to go back to hang with their friends, chat up that cute boy/girl, party, etc. I know a lot of parents on this thread are thinking “not my kid!”, but that’s very unlikely.
They will take online classes and be fine with it as long as the social and independent living happen.
homerdog wrote:
Why do people continue to write that students are “mainly paying for the name on the diploma” for elite schools. I’m sorry. That is just not the case. Please stop.
It’s not irrational to consider the value added from a prestigious name. If it didn’t matter, we wouldn’t be seeing so many people angsting about where they kids were accepted. It’s a large part of why parents and students choose to attend college X rather than college Y. Let’s just be honest about it.
However, in the real world of choosing a college one needs to consider many factors not addressed above including cost, student/faculty ratios, “best” major programs, research and internship opportunities, academic peers in the student body, guaranteed housing, $$ spent per student, major employers for on-campus recruiting, average salary upon graduation, school spirit, campus food, location, etc.
The bottom line is that how you frame the question to prospective college students will give you different outcomes.
I went for a jog around my neighborhood this morning and passed the elementary my kids attended and the HS they attend. At the elementary school there were crews adding exterior doors to all of the classrooms by replacing a window for a door. At the HS there were 8 HVAC trucks out front. I think it’s safe to say that if you don’t see construction and prep at your local K-12 schools now there probably isn’t much of a plan for F2F instruction in August.
Responding to @wisteria100 - This was not in the email but included on the website with regard to housing under the Williams plan:
What is your plan for residence halls?
Our plan is for each on-campus student to have their own bedroom (a single dorm room). This may change if the numbers of students returning to campus is higher than the number of available rooms. The number of students sharing a bathroom will vary by residence hall. There will be daily cleaning of bathrooms, and sanitation products will be provided to students. We plan to limit access to common rooms and rearrange furniture in gathering spaces for safety.
https://www.williams.edu/coronavirus/students-families-faq/?fwp_faq_categories=housing
I filled out a survey from the HS, most of the questions were around remote learning, a few with the options of in-person. The in-person options basically were 1) attending half day 2) every other week or 3) every other day.
For sure it seems that there will not be a normal fall semester. Either remote learning or reduce the class size by half.
My feedback to them regarding remote learning was that to not invent the wheel, but leverage online materials out there (buy them or try to get them for free) from Khan Academy, CTY, Princeton, The art of problem solving, etc and etc instead of creating their own online materials (basically they were pretty bad at creating their own, just leverage the experts’s). Let the experts do the teaching (videos and materials). They should focus their time and energy on managing the students to do their homework, assignments and testings. Zoom meeting to engage with the students if they have questions and make sure the students are engaged, etc.
Our school did horrible job in the spring, anyone with a pulse got a pass. Assignments and Testing were pretty much optional without saying. Frankly it was pathetic.
Totally agree with this. Just proposing the question.
This was already discussed. Same with medical but we are still told to have people sign a waiver. Crazy world.
Our districts are planning on K-5/K-8 to be back FTF. The plans don’t need outside doors (and in many climates, that’s not how schools were designed and aren’t practical) as students will stay in the same classrooms all day. I’ve heard of one way hallways, using extra rooms (gym, art rooms) to set up extra classrooms and making each class size smaller, but there is no way a district with 40 elementary schools can retrofit each classroom to have a separate entrance for each classroom. Many of the schools are 2 or 3 stories so unless they are putting a ladder and an exit slide, they can’t put an outside entry into each classroom.
We have one high school that has 3400 students and 4 or 5 buildings. It has a huge library, big music rooms, 3-4 gyms, art rooms, foreign language labs. I don’t know how they will organize where students can roam during the day. No idea what they will do about the pools, the multiple cafeterias, music practice rooms or other areas that can’t be cleaned between students.
This was published in the Washington Post this morning - Sweet Briar College, the women’s college which almost closed a couple of years ago, is marketing itself as a safe place to go to school in the time of Covid. They have only 350ish students on 3200 acres. An excerpt:
"Meredith Woo, the president of Sweet Briar, contends that the biggest challenge for fall opening for any college is not testing or medical facilities — it’s keeping students apart. And Sweet Briar, a small women’s college, is a place that has never had stadiums packed with fans for football games, 700-person econ classes, or parties spilling out of fraternity houses.
“We are one of the only colleges that can maintain social distancing,” she said. “We can be as safe as home — if not safer than home.”
Convincing students and parents that that’s true will be essential for Sweet Briar and other schools like it. For small private colleges, dependent on tuition revenue from new and returning students, the pandemic is an existential crisis. And Sweet Briar, like many women’s colleges and rural schools, has struggled to attract enough students for years.
But suddenly its isolation and under-enrollment looks like an asset: With more than 3,200 acres and just a few hundred students, classes can easily be limited to small groups. Meals can be eaten in shifts, with students seated at opposite sides of large tables. And with dorm space to spare, no one needs a roommate.
“We paraphrased Virginia Woolf,” and her metaphor for women’s creativity and independence, Woo said. “We said to our students they can all have a room of their own.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/28/sweet-briar-college-fall-coronavirus/
“Family contributions for students receiving financial aid will also be reduced by 15%. The Student Activities Fee has been eliminated for all students. Students who study remotely will not pay room and board for the time they’re not on campus.”
A fair deal.
There was a comment about some small Christian school in Mississippi compared to larger schools. At the time I was thinking that being a small school off the beaten path might not be a bad thing this fall. I guess Sweet Briar has the same idea. Smart marketing. I think they figured out the math with social distancing. It doesn’t work on a large campus.
Different students are looking for different things.
We didn’t find the few conversations we had with college reps in any way helpful. But then I also do not talk to sales reps when shopping for a car.
The information we most need (median ACT range and NPC calculator) is freely available on the internet.
YMMV
Very, very happy that Williams is welcoming all students back to campus!!!
We also are very appreciative of the tuition discount. It was the fair thing to do, under the circumstances.
So far, it sounds like they are doing this “right,” from our perspective as a family.
Kids need to be living in a dorm with friends and attending live classes and doing extracurricular activities. Williams kids will be able to have all of this (unless there is change of plans due to worsening virus conditions). And it sounds like the college’s steps to keep the kids safe are very well-considered, reasonable, and thorough— maybe a little more restrictive than our family would consider ideal, but certainly no one can accuse them of being careless about safety.
Actually, no, it’s not so rosy
“Your financial aid will be prorated based on the revised cost of attendance, which includes tuition only. Additionally, your family contribution will be reduced by 15%, and your summer earnings contribution and work study expectation will be replaced entirely with grant funding from the college. You will also receive a $4,000 personal allowance per semester to cover expenses you’ll incur while studying remotely.”
So they are reducing financial aid for many of those studying remotely, because their room and board allowance is about 8K per semester.
All in all, between a discount, and 4K allowance, and a work study waiver, the net price will be similar to what it would be with unchanged finaid for most, but not as good as the best case deal that would include unchanged finaid with a work study waiver. That is what Bowdoin has done, I believe.
I feel badly for fall athletes at Williams.