Hamilton is having a town hall now for admitted students and families. Sounds a lot like the Amherst session the other day that @ChemAM discussed. President Whippman mentioned the NESCAC colleges are all communicating and meeting regularly. It sounds as if they are coming up with the contingency plans in consultation with each other, with some modifications given the various locations. Best case is school starts on campus in the fall with significant adjustments, worst case is remote learning extends to fall. Then there are a few scenarios in between. Lots of discussion about consulting with local medical facilities and health authorities, coronavirus testing availability, figuring out housing quarantine possibilities, etc. They seem to be doing a lot of research and planning. Glad to see them thinking about the details that @Itisatruth mentioned in another thread.
Also made clear that the criteria for taking a gap year has not changed. Coronavirus is not a sufficient reason. If students are applying for a gap year they need to have other plans in place that demonstrate an opportunity for exploration and growth as usual. No hypotheticals.
They are still looking at what will happen with tuition if students cannot return to campus in the fall. Obviously, no one will pay room and board, but no decisions have been made about tuition reductions.
"Nearly one third of 200 Chelsea residents who gave a drop of blood to researchers on the street this week tested positive for antibodies linked to COVID-19, a startling indication of how widespread infections have been in the densely populated city.
Sixty-four residents who had a finger pricked in Bellingham Square on Tuesday and Wednesday had antibodies that the immune system makes to fight off the coronavirus, according to Massachusetts General Hospital physicians who ran the pilot study" - Boston Globe
Fall semester will NOT be canceled, it will be either in-person or remote instruction
They can’t make decision which way yet until they have more information, will let us know as soon as they do.
Tuition and campus fees will NOT be reduced regardless of the instruction method.
Even if they could do in-person instruction in the fall, they realize that many students will have difficulty with travel and they will also offer remote instruction option
Campus housing will be open for students regardless, unless instructed by the city/state to shut down. If that happens, students will be offered prorated refunds.
@Nhatrang for newly admitted students, Cal sent a long letter which included “If classes are offered via remote instruction in the fall and you choose not to live on campus, we will offer on-campus housing and dining plan refunds.”
Ontario universities had to deal with that when Ontario scrapped grade 13 and a double cohort of high school students graduated in the same year (last of the grade 13’s and first of the grade 12 onlies). They adapted.
If the majority of HS class of 2020 takes a gap year at the school that they enrolled at and becomes class of 2025 instead of 2024, wouldn’t that affect the space that is available for HS class of 2021? Is that one of the reasons why many colleges are hesitant about allowing students to take a gap year with corona virus as their reason??
If the antibody test results are accurate, there is very little chance we will not be back on campus in fall, because this would mean the death rate is like 0.05% (less than the flu). Of course, that assumes there were no deaths caused by coronavirus attributed to other causes, which is probably not true, but I would guess that would double it or maybe even triple it at most, which still means it is only a little more fatal than the flu.
@ProfSD The “significant adjustments” may no longer be put in place if the thing with NY plays out.
@TheVulcan I’m confused; the USC study estimates that between 55 to 80 times as many people are infected as previously thought. Dividing 2% by 40 yields 0.05%.
In Wuhan, the likely deaths due to undiagnosed COVID-19 (based on excess cremation volume compared to normal) were probably an order of magnitude higher than deaths after COVID-19 diagnosis.
Also, death is not the only bad outcome from COVID-19. Need for hospitalization is also a bad thing, and long term effects like damage to lungs, heart, kidneys, and nervous system have also been reported.
@TheVulcan Oh sorry I confused number of confirmed deaths with number of confirmed infections. Given that it sounds like colleges are leaning towards reopening (or at least Amherst sounded like that to me) last night, I think at this point it is very unlikely that we will be off-campus in fall, especially considering the death rate is significantly lower than previously thought. And that’s before you even consider the great progress they are making on treatments. We may not even need social distancing measures by the time fall rolls around.