College parents...fall semester?

[mom2rtk]

DD19 had about half and half for fall semester between in-person, online, hybrid. They had the big spike (189 reported cases) two weeks into school and a smaller bump in November, when all our state/their state were having their biggest numbers.

Since returning in January, the reported cases have been single digit. DD is 100% in person. I imagine a lot of the big gen eds are still online but she is mostly taking smaller classes.

The school is not doing regular testing but I do not believe it is running rampant with unreported cases either. None of her friends have had it, except one who had it while home at Christmas.

She is off campus but I don't think they had horrible restrictions for the dorms either. I'm very happy with how her experience has been.

DD's large 30k student campus currently has 12 cases. That's higher than it's been for a while too. I'm sure the actual numbers are under reported, but it's still a good indication when compared with numbers in the fall. Students are obligated to inform the university if the have a positive test, and even so, only about 10% of the population have been positive since this started in August.

 

[lifesavacation]

Dd(17) has been all online and remains online for her spring quarter at the local community college. She’s doing running start in WA as a high school student. Her last day of spring quarter is in June, and it’s a good thing she’s online because she starts her summer term at her 4 year college in Ohio in May. Her volleyball program is requesting she go for the 1st summer term so she can play a season of Beach. From what I hear, she’ll have in person classes for summer term. I’m going to try really hard to get her vaccinated before we drop her off in May.

 

[JimMIA]

DD's large 30k student campus currently has 12 cases. That's higher than it's been for a while too. I'm sure the actual numbers are under reported, but it's still a good indication when compared with numbers in the fall. Students are obligated to inform the university if the have a positive test, and even so, only about 10% of the population have been positive since this started in August.

DD's school is about 70K students on four in-person campuses. Most of the students are on the main campus, but they also have a medical campus, hospitality campus, and a downtown campus. They have had about 3,500 total reported positives (including faculty and staff) since the start of the pandemic. They're having some cases each week, including voluntary testing, mandatory random testing, and self-reporting of voluntary tests elsewhere.

DD came home for 9 days recently and tested 3 times during that period (all negative) -- once on campus before coming home and twice at home because she was worried about the lack of mask compliance on the bus coming home. Then as soon as she returned to campus, one of her roommates got a sore throat so they all re-tested (all negative).

 

[NAB]

My daughter has been doing only on line courses this semester. She got to do her clinical last semester but was canceled this time.

She is a nursing student and they had an outbreak on her floor so it was canceled . Not to happy she has to make it up in the spring/summer and condensed into 6 weeks . But this isn’t even a guarantee. That will put her behind , she is in her 3rd year of 4

Really misses the campus and her friends. She is alone in an apartment near campus.

Roll out of the vaccine in Canada is very slow. Hoping she will get hers before her clinical in the spring.

 

[JimMIA]

On the bright side, DD and her three roommates just arrived at Disney Springs for the evening. So if anyone sees 4 cute college girls there tonight, say hi! They'll be the cuties all masked up and socially distancing like crazy, but still having fun.

 

[OKbyme]

DD is finishing up her junior year. Most of the classes have been asynchronous. School handled things weirdly. Certain majors, freshmen, and some sophomores were allowed to live on campus and take some in person classes. Rising Juniors were initially told not to bother, then some were also allowed to live on campus. Many had already contracted for off campus housing, so lived near school even with most classes being online. Though she had cheap on campus housing lined up, very difficult to get, they cancelled it on her to accommodate the freshmen and specific majors. Clearly making it up as they went along.

School allowed for pass/fail option and DD used it for classes where she didn't obtain an A. She has GPA based scholarships, and some of the courses were handled very, very poorly.

Now with school expected to reopen in the fall, the scramble for housing is on. She secured off campus housing, $13000 a year; double what we had expected to pay, but it is what it is.

She has decided to pursue an accelerated Master's program for her major. She doesn't feel her education the past 3 semesters was all that great and isn't confident to be heading out into her profession next year. It will only add an extra year and maybe the economy will be in better shape by 2023 as well. I have already told her she will be living the poor grad student life that last year as it will be full pay.

 

[disneyworldsk]

i wish since they're living in 'congregate settings' aka dorm life they would bring vaccines to campuses to avoid superspreads and quarantines and illness.
very lucky ds is on campus and busy both fall and spring and graduating in May with a summer internship waiting for him online. very lucky he is there, some in person classes and some not, keeping super busy with projects and an online internship since fall. feeling very blessed for his continued health and happiness
TIP: I just (kind of late in the game) sent him via amazon a butt cushion for those hard dorm desk chairs. he says it makes a huge difference when sitting so long on the zooms.

 

[momz]

DD has been living on campus the whole year. She is a music major, while she had online classes last spring, it was not as quality of education as face-to-face, for music anyway.

Her school is very small and these students have avoided covid all this time....until a couple weeks ago. One student came down with it, then another and another. It's been like dominoes since then. Spring break is next week. I hope that it will be enough to halt the spread and the healthy students can return after spring break.

 

[mamamary]

My dd is in her senior year. All classes are online. She’s living in an off campus apt with 3 good friends. My dd continues in her sorority as she loves it but it’s nothing like it was before COVID. My dd also got a part time job at a hospital which she is very happy about. She got a very mild case of COVID over winter break so we’re not worrying about that aspect any more for the most part. Still haven’t heard yet if there will be any graduation ceremony. There hasn’t been the last 2 semesters- nothing even virtual.

 

[Kae]

My DD has all her labs in person and I think a math class. She lives off-campus and works at a Hospital with 2 12 hour shifts a week had both vaccines by the middle of January as did her roommate.
I will a million times over say I am so thankful for Mitch Daniels and that DD is at Purdue, he was the front runner helping all to get Colleges back to school.

 

[Colleen27]

Nothing has changed for DD. Not a single class in person since this week last year. No in person student activities - the university started out saying they were going to offer some outdoor, distanced small group activities to help keep students connected but then backed off of that and sent out a policy prohibiting student orgs from facilitating the same. They say they're bringing students back to campus for fall but they're also touting their hybrid and online course options which makes my more cynical side think that even if they're back in the dorms, it'll just be to pay rent to the university rather than to someone else while doing classes remotely (though there is a more innocent possible explanation - the university has a lot of international students who might not be able to come back physically this year). But hopefully at least labs and other classes that can't be taught effectively in a virtual format will be allowed to resume. California's metrics-based system is such a mess that I don't think anyone knows how to plan for anything; per state guidelines, they'd have to be down to <1 case per 100K to resume anything that even remotely looks like college life (and even that would be with limited capacity, distancing and masks).

DD is struggling more academically than she ever has, which isn't to say she's doing poorly but even mostly Bs instead of mostly As could undermine her grad school plans. She just has such a hard time with the online format, particularly with the two science classes she has where there is no real interaction. The profs post video lectures and assignments and answer emails or schedule one-on-one video sessions during virtual office hours, but there's no Zoom sessions for class discussion so all of that back-and-forth and the "I didn't think of that" moments when a classmate asks a question/makes a point is just lost. She's doing better in her Japanese courses but those both meet on Zoom and use a lot of small group breakout sessions for practice, so there's more feedback and it is more like a normal class. I've encouraged her to take the pass/fail option at least on o-chem, but she's worried about whether that might look worse than a B or B- on grad school applications.

 

[cabanafrau]

DD is in her senior year in her off campus apartment with classes online. For sure it hasn't been ideal, but she's determined to cross that finish line in style. Instead of being on the dean's list DD actually got a letter that she has actually qualified for the president's list, which she's really happy to be able to include on her application for student teaching and eventually on her resume when she starts applying for jobs.

One of the biggest challenges has been contending with professors struggling to adapt to the changes without giving in to the inclination to pile on inordinate amounts of work to "fill up the free time". Ironically this is happening while the professors themselves are teaching the students not to do this themselves when they are teaching in the future. (DD is an education major.) They've started opening discussions with their professors to point out where they've seriously crossed the line themselves despite voicing the opposite lesson to the students. It's actually helped in a few cases.

 

[mjkacmom]

My daughter has mostly asynchronous classes, she prefers them over zoom so she can schedule her day plus work. She’s been vaccinated and had covid. The university brought back 4000 in the dorms (singles), plus there are close to 10,000 off campus. Last week they had over 400 positive in 4 days, isolation dorms are full, testing once a week for those on campus. 17% in person classes, dining halls are now grab and go, no activities scheduled.

 

[mom2rtk]

My daughter has mostly asynchronous classes, she prefers them over zoom so she can schedule her day plus work. She’s been vaccinated and had covid. The university brought back 4000 in the dorms (singles), plus there are close to 10,000 off campus. Last week they had over 400 positive in 4 days, isolation dorms are full, testing once a week for those on campus. 17% in person classes, dining halls are now grab and go, no activities scheduled.

400 cases last week? That's crazy in the current climate. Granted, they don't have surveillance testing at my daughter's 30K student school, but they have all signed a pledge to self report if they come up positive. They are down to 7 active cases today.

 

[JimMIA]

Great News just announced! DD's U is going back to full in-person for Fall 2021!

They will still have sensible public health precautions in place -- masks mandatory, social distancing in many areas, testing, contact tracing, etc. But classes and campus activities will return to normal capacities.

https://www.ucf.edu/coronavirus/update-on-our-return-to-more-normal-operations/

 

[lilypgirl]

University of Alabama says full capacity, in-person classes returning in fall 2021 - al.com

 

[wishing4PA]

I've encouraged her to take the pass/fail option at least on o-chem, but she's worried about whether that might look worse than a B or B- on grad school applications.

I hope she has a good advisor who can share a more expert opinion on the situation, but a B in Organic sounds pretty good to me - especially given the circumstances.
Honestly, the circumstances being what they are, I have no idea how normal college or grad school application processes have been, or will be for the next couple of years. My DD is in HS, and I know her life and schooling hasn't been normal, so I hope that doesn't mess up the entire process.

 

[mefordis]

I'd encourage my kid to take a gap year for sure. No way is it worth it to do online learning and live in a face mask for a year at those prices.

OR

I'd choose a different college where they aren't doing all of that. My daughter is class of '22 and she plans on applying to colleges that are having classes in person, minimal to no masking.

 

[mom2rtk]

I'd encourage my kid to take a gap year for sure. No way is it worth it to do online learning and live in a face mask for a year at those prices.

OR

I'd choose a different college where they aren't doing all of that. My daughter is class of '22 and she plans on applying to colleges that are having classes in person, minimal to no masking.

Lots of kids have their scholarships tied up at specific schools where you can't do that.

 

[lilypgirl]

In person class isn’t the only thing going back to normal at Bama next year.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.es...-games-bryant-denny-stadium-fall?platform=amp