It was NYU. The video was embarrassing. And she did not explain the lack of refunds in the video. She just danced and sang along to Losing My Religion.

Agreed. For many college students removed abruptly from their dorms, they feel like they were cut off from family because that community had become family for many. It's unnatural to be back with parents, and especially those parents who are claiming authority over these young adults (I've heard some stories that make me cringe). My college senior moved in with her adult sister in another state, which is a somewhat better situation as far as respecting her independence. But I know she is still grieving. Not whining; she understands the reality of the circumstances. But sad and frustrated, nonetheless.

I do agree there. I think the bigger issue will be interruption of treatment due to the crisis.

It helps to an extent, certainly, but consistent quality treatment is what is required, much like with any illness. Resources were hard to come by before this disaster, and will likely be more strained afterward. One of my daughters moved to a new city and has been on waiting lists for a year to get a new therapist. Fortunately she is quite stable at this point, but obviously there are new stressors now.

I don't know that it is infantilizing so much as being realistic. I'm definitely seeing people sliding further down into the hole. My daughter is doing quite well. She's reached a place of independence and functional behavior that is so gratifying to see. But she will be the first to tell you that it wouldn't have happened for her if we had not hovered for a few years there, much like one might do for an infant. I guess we will see how this all plays out. Too soon to tell, but I am rather pessimistic.

At my daughter's East Coast school, an hour from NYC, with known positive cases and 100% of the undergraduates living on campus, they cleared the dorms of all but those who could not return home (primarily international students.) They were required to clear their rooms before leaving. Not only were students dispersing across the country, in many cases family members were coming to the school to retrieve belongings, and then returning home. I'm certain that this was not the only school where this occurred. Cuomo even commented that this was unlikely to be a wise decision in retrospect.

You may or may not remember that my daughter survived a suicide attempt (was on a ventilator herself at that point) and I have multiple family members with mental illness. Mental health is a passion of mine these days. I do see many people with known mental health issues who are not doing so well currently. It's less about the economic situation specifically, and more about the rapid rate of drastic change and constant media coverage. I'm not sure that this will lead to more suicides necessarily, but there are certainly higher levels of dysfunction now, at least in my larger circle. I am not so optimistic about the state of mental health care when we come out of this crisis. The resources were already severely limited and I can't see that the stressed economy is going to do anything but worsen the availability of care.

Our refund showed up in the account today. One can have it held as a credit for next semester, but as our daughter is a senior, she will request direct deposit back to our bank.

I homeschooled my older two through high school, and now I have a 10th grade "crisis schooler". This is our second major interruption of high school, actually, as we had a significant earthquake last year. I offer advice on homeschooling all the time, but this current situation is not homeschooling for most people. The kids have assignments from their teachers and Zoom meetings. The parents are not the teachers here. I've seen some shared posts from (usually young) homeschoolers offering inspirational-type advice, but it seems a little silly to me, albeit well-meaning. A teacher friend did talk about how she was homeschooling her own two teens plus a full classroom of homebound kids, so there definitely are people using the term for what is going on now. As far as my Crisis Schooler, I'm letting her handle it for the most part. I get a lot of e mails from teachers but she is getting the same e mails and seems to be reading and acting on them. Our district is slow to get going, but distance learning is supposed to start next week. If she needs something, I will do what I can, but plan to be mostly uninvolved. I *did* tell her to do some PSAT/SAT prep now while she has downtime, and have encouraged daily physical exercise. She's rediscovered art, which I am thrilled about, and hope that she does a lot of that during this time. My college student is a couple thousand miles away doing her distance ed at her sister's home. There were a few parents on the college's parent page asking for homeschool advice for their college student. I don't even know what to say about that. 😉

I would be interested in an antibody test. I feel confident that the virus was in our area starting in January. Several friends and acquaintances quite ill with something that was not flu. When my daughter was in the pediatric clinic in Feb (she had flu B), the pediatrician told me that he had seen many kids with high fevers caused by an unspecified virus. Who knows, but I am not so sure the cases being revealed in our area now are the first. It would certainly help to inform policy if we knew some herd immunity was well underway.

We are getting 9/16 of the room and board back from my daughter’s school. They are also giving a $150 move out allowance to anyone on financial aid to help with unexpected expenses

My daughter was hopeful she would get to stay on campus when Princeton made the decision to finish out the year with online classes. She is senior completing a thesis that requires work in the lab. It did not play out that way though. She is pretty shocked at the abrupt end to her college experience. There are worse tragedies, of course, but I do feel badly for her. She's had some challenging health issues over the past 10 months and it seemed like things were coming together. Her school has some significant traditions that go along with senior spring and graduation, and it's a loss for sure.

She's not going to accept, so there is no reason to go through with the interviews.

Grad school acceptance for my oldest former homeschooler :-) University of New Mexico Speech-Langage Pathology MS program. She is a University of Washington grad with a degree in an unrelated field. Originally thought she would work in the non-profit sector, but became disillusioned and changed directions. This is great news for her!

If they are both realistic financially, I'd visit, for sure.

Our local school district cancelled all school-affiliated domestic travel for March and April on Monday. My daughter was supposed to leave for Florida for a band trip the day after the announcement, on Tuesday. Talk about last minute. The district does not fund these trips; 100% parent and student funded. Insurance does not cover the cancellation because there was no mandate backing the district's decision. Businesses are responding in various ways. The airline issued a credit to be used in the next year and waived change fees. Disney refused to refund, as they were part of a special band program, but they can use their included park ticket, though only this week. Hotel is refunding, but bus will not. My daughter is fine, as another parent decided to take a group of them on a vacation using the tickets and they are down there now. Not every student could do that though. And of course they are all missing the planned educational aspects of the trip.

I do think it changes brains.

I went there on my last trip too. Pretty cool. FWIW, I always stay in NJ and train in. Newark would not be a very long train ride, though I am usually out in Princeton.

Charleston or Hilton Head

It's a great lesson in communication and practice sending reminders to someone who is doing you a favor. Very common issue, for sure.

My oldest was an exchange student to Turkey for a year, and I do think the experience opened up some college doors. It's not a huge hook (because there are obviously many international students that don't get in everywhere), but it is useful, especially when written about thoughtfully. My kids have done dual enrollment, but it is not my preference. The grades follow the student all the way through college, unlike high school grades,so you do want to proceed with caution there.

It's much easier to schedule than an AP exam, and, as 8 said, there are colleges that require one or two anyway (not all colleges, or even most, but many selective colleges.) My STEM daughter did SAT subject tests for chemistry and physics, but did do the AP exam for biology because she took the AP course.

There are a number of test prep books that he could work through to get ready for the exam, along with whatever you chose to do for the course. You could not call the course AP BIo unless you have your syllabus approved, but the testing would still allow for the possibility of credit at schools that offer such. 8 mentioned the option of taking the SAT bio subject test, and that would also be my preference. FWIW, my daughter took AP Bio through PAH. I've not been one interested in putting together my own courses for the most part. :-)

You can get there in the winter but it is more complicated. My husband did it in the winter when we lived in the area. I had to drive him and his friends to a remote spot, then they skied the rest of the way in. And of course they had to haul the skis for the entirety of the hike.

Public school in our area is not challenging, so no worries there. My youngest is in our public high school and no way is her education nearly what her homeschooled sisters' was. Very much depends on where you are. And my public school kid has little homework, despite being on the honors track