[Did enrollment numbers at your kid's school increase or decrease?]

At my son's school, the state flagship, enrollment figures haven't been published yet, but the unofficial word is this year's freshman class is the largest in several years and possibly has set a new all-time record. That surprises me.

Their plan is to keep the campus open for at least some in-person classes. We'll see. (My son currently has 4 set to be in-person and 2 online. Classes start in 3 days.)

Freshmen are required to live on-campus at this school. Overall dorm residency has dropped from approximately 6300 last year to approximately 4800 this year. Presumably many sophomores and up who would have otherwise lived on-campus this year have opted to live off-campus due to the virus. Rumor has it that many freshmen who applied for on-campus living exemptions this year were denied. I imagine the school will be hurting financially with that many dorm rooms empty. 

[Cost for 20 year old male- car insurance]

5 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Yes, for liability-only it made a difference because they are insuring a driver who is usually driving a particular vehicle.  I think this varies by state.

Well, not exactly. The driver is insured no matter what vehicle s/he is driving. S/he could even be driving a vehicle owned by someone else/not in the family, etc. The coverage still applies in the case of an accident no matter what vehicle s/he is driving. Coverage is on the driver.

[Cost for 20 year old male- car insurance]

Insurance rates also vary with credit history. Bad credit or no credit can result in higher rates. Not saying I agree with it, but that is part of the game too. Insurance underwriters believe better credit/money management = lower risk driver. That's another reason why young people on their parents' policy can get lower rates versus being on their own policy. DS has had his own credit history starting at age 16 when he began driving and we added him as an authorized user on our credit cards (4 different banks, all did it the same). 

[Cost for 20 year old male- car insurance]

24 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

In our situation it did very much matter which car DS was the driver of.  The insurance company saw the chances of being in a wreck and the amount of damage that would probably occur to another automobile as very different depending on what vehicle DS was driving.  The way the premiums are set can vary greatly from state to state.

For liability-only coverage, or full coverage? For full coverage, yes, that is accurate. For liability-only, they are writing the policy on the driver, not the vehicle.

[Cost for 20 year old male- car insurance]

FWIW, the type/age of car he's driving has little to nothing to do with the rate. Liability insurance is for him as a driver; he's not actually insuring the car if he doesn't have comprehensive/collision coverage. Liability coverage is exactly that - compensating someone else for property damage, medical bills, lost wages, etc. if DS is found to be at-fault in an accident. Liability does nothing to pay for your own car if you cause an accident, so driving a beater doesn't help with the insurance cost. In fact, driving a vehicle with more modern safety/collision avoidance features could help. Also, age matters some in how the rates are set, but length of time/driving experience matters more, especially for young male drivers. That's why we made sure DS got his license as soon as he was able to at age 16, while he was still living at home in a pretty rural area with lower insurance rates - before going off to college in another area (Big City) with higher insurance rates. He'll have been insured for more than 2.5 years at that point and the rates with our current insurer start to drop after 3 years of driving experience.

[Anybody Else Considering NOT Taking the AP Exams?]

3 hours ago, Paige said:

How can they guarantee that? 

Exactly. I have serious doubts about it myself. She was just parroting to me the "company line" from College Board.

[College Fall 2020 - Virtual or In-Person? What do you think?]

The university my son is planning to attend announced this today regarding the fall 2020 semester: "After careful deliberation, our intention is to return to in-person educational operations . . . offering traditional instruction and residential life."

[The covid19-adjusted AP exams]

On 4/18/2020 at 2:55 PM, dmmetler said:

I think that especially online, it would be really hard to prove you DIDN'T cheat, unless they do the live webcam proctoring. Especially if you go for the 2nd test date, where there is likely to be lots of information about what the one question for the first test date looked like. 

I agree. And the AP exams this year are not going to have live webcam proctoring, right? At least that's my understanding. I wish they were.

[The covid19-adjusted AP exams]

For those whose kids will be taking the exam, does this statement from the College Board concern you? If not, why not?

Quote

Students Who Violate Exam Security Will Receive Consequences

• Students whose responses mirror online content or other students’ submissions will have their scores canceled.
• Students sharing or receiving exam content or exam responses, or engaging in any plans or efforts to provide or gain an unfair advantage, will be blocked from testing or their AP scores will be cancelled. This includes communications or assistance in-person, via the Internet, social media, or any other means.
• If we determine that a student gained or provided an unfair advantage on an AP Exam, we’ll notify their high school so the school can choose to take necessary disciplinary action, as appropriate. We’ll also provide information about the incident to colleges or other organizations to which the student has already sent any College Board scores (including SAT scores)—or to which the student would send scores in the future.
• Students who attempt to gain an unfair advantage also may be prohibited from taking a future Advanced Placement Exam as well as the SAT, SAT Subject Tests, or CLEP assessments.
• Under certain circumstances, College Board may inform law enforcement of any incident to determine if prosecution of the test taker, or anyone assisting the test taker in misconduct, is warranted.

https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/students/taking-ap-exams/security

Bolding by me. My son is scheduled to take Calc AB. On the calculus exams especially, and conceivably in other subjects too, of course a student's answers will look like other students' answers. That's the nature of the subject; there's only one correct answer. My son would have a lot to lose (scholarship $) if he were to be accused of cheating, and there's no way to defend yourself and prove you didn't. Same as others accused of cheating on the ACT in the past couple of years, which was in the news for a while.

Am I worried about nothing?

[Anybody Else Considering NOT Taking the AP Exams?]

I emailed the AP test coordinator at our local high school, through which DS is signed up to take his AP exam. Now that the exam will be online, I asked her what the procedure and deadline is if DS decides to cancel his registration and not take the exam due to all the changes. She replied that her contact at College Board is encouraging test coordinators to NOT cancel any registrations, because "if you cancel, you can't change your mind and sign up again". She said if DS decides not to take the exam, he just needs to not log in to his College Board account on test day. That "no show" will trigger her to contact us and ask if he wants to take the exam on the alternate date in June or if he wants to not take the exam at all. At that point, we could get a refund, less the school's processing charge. She doesn't know yet how much the refund will be. She also reiterated the College Board's position that colleges will unequivocally accept this year's exam results.

We're leaning toward DS not taking the exam. There is little upside for him in taking it.

[COVID-19 Online class instruction]

38 minutes ago, regentrude said:

It will have to. People will have to develop ingenuity. So, teach the theory during lockdown, redesign the labs so that they can be consolidated.  The alternative would be not teaching anything at all now and that clearly does not make sense either. People will come up with ideas to make it work. They will have to - we can't say let's just put college on hold because it's less than the ideal education and let's simply not graduate any teachers because they can't do the amount of student teaching required by the rules, let's not graduate any nurses because they don't get in their clinical hours, etc - society will get creative and find a way. The less than perfect education is still better than telling the young people, sorry, you have to waste a year of your life watching netflix because we can't do in person labs.

)

I really hope you're right. I can't imagine a world where our future doctors and nurses and all other healthcare workers don't learn what they NEED to learn by getting a hands-on education. I also hope that many of your fellow educators take the same dedicated approach that you obviously do.

[COVID-19 Online class instruction]

Just now, regentrude said:

my point is that you can do online classes for however long you need and then wait to do the lab in person when it is safe, and do them intensive in a short amount of time

OK, thanks for explaining. Might work for some majors, but not others (life science) - way too much ground has to be covered to make it all up at the end.

[COVID-19 Online class instruction]

On 4/8/2020 at 8:11 AM, regentrude said:

Actually, they can. I can imagine different scenarios to accommodate that, like lab intensives and block schedules. It is not necessary to have labs every single semester; you can bundle them up if that becomes necessary. (For example,  my physics majors have physics lab classes in five semesters only. Many other disciplines are similar)

I've been thinking about this. Are you saying colleges could have lab intensives in-person even if everything else is shut down and limited to online? If the virus is still a threat, it is still a threat. Even for in-person lab intensives. No way I'd accept that risk.

[Class of 2020 College Acceptances]

18 hours ago, BookwormTo2 said:

One of the universities my DD was accepted to with a merit scholarship but one she declined admission to back in January -- emailed her last week offering her a spot in the fall. I think their admissions office is trying to see if local kids are going to change their mind about attending in light of the pandemic. 

Same here. My son has received similar offers from a couple of schools he had declined earlier.

[COVID-19 Online class instruction]

5 hours ago, frogger said:

I think if you have a decent instructor (an issue no matter when you go to school) it's a good time to get general ed credits done. You can't travel. A lot of other opportunities will be off the table so you also have to ask what your alternatives are.

All true. DS is thinking hard about what his options might be for next year. His intended major requires courses that can't be done virtually (lab classes). Current students are having to take incompletes in them, no online option. He's already done many of the gen eds by DE, unfortunately. If he takes a gap year, he may not be able to travel like a normal gap year kid would, but he can gain more work experience, earn money, continue volunteering with the organization he has been helping with online, devote time to learning practical skills that will benefit his future career. He already has an online part-time job and has been offered an internship that can be done at-home virtually. He has a health condition that affects his lungs and makes him higher-risk. Does anyone really think colleges might re-open to in-person classes but keep their dorms closed? We are rural, no colleges nearby, so if dorms don't open, DS can't commute or can't go off to college as planned, and I'm not sure I want him living in a dorm until there's a vaccine anyway. Just thinking out loud, no way to make decisions at this point.

[COVID-19 Online class instruction]

Bookworm, yes, that has been exactly my son's experience in his DE class this semester too. Teaching himself from a powerpoint and the textbook. No discussion or lecture. Some weeks there is a ~5 minute(!) pre-recorded video of the prof, but not all weeks, and it is just to introduce the topic, and doesn't cover anything that's not in the powerpoint or text. The school has adopted the policy that the profs will give letter grades at the end of the semester and then the students can choose pass/fail if they want. This is not the school that DS plans to attend in the fall as in incoming freshman, but this experience is making us consider whether he should take a gap year because no one knows yet if in-person classes will happen this fall.

[College Fall 2020 - Virtual or In-Person? What do you think?]

My son's college just now officially canceled ALL on-campus activities, classes, meetings and events for the summer. For students and staff. This included his on-campus enrollment/orientation that was to take place in late May, and the 3-day camp for incoming freshmen that was scheduled for late July. Enrollment and orientation will be done virtually now and the orientation portion will be significantly reduced.

I'm not holding my breath for fall. For now we (as a family) are hoping for classes to be in-person and dorms to open, but at the same time we're assuming that none of that will happen and classes will be online only. IMO, dorms are as bad as cruise ships in terms of spreading illness, maybe worse if there are only community bathrooms, which is what many of the freshmen at this school get stuck with. Also starting to think about applying for a gap year.

[Anybody Else Considering NOT Taking the AP Exams?]

Same here, thinking about letting DS drop his AP exam. I don't think the exam they have proposed will be fair and I am not convinced colleges will even widely accept it. And even worse, all the threats about what they will do to you if they suspect you of cheating give me pause. It makes me think of the cases in the past year or two where kids were accused of cheating on SAT or ACT exams and what happened to them. Just accused and assumed to be guilty with no way to defend yourself. I think DS will probably take CLEP instead, if one can be scheduled this summer. His college accepts CLEP in addition to AP.

ETA - He already has several DE credits and was planning on this one AP exam only for the potential college credit. So he would have taken the class regardless but doesn't "need" it to show rigor on transcript. Not that big a deal for him to dump the AP exam.

[Transcript - 1st & 2nd Semester of Final Grade?]

Here's a screenshot of the format of my son's transcript. Only a final grade, not semester grades, for each year, except for his senior year. Senior year has a grade column for both semesters since colleges want a mid-year report of senior year grades. (8th grade is there for reporting a math class only. I didn't count advanced work completed prior to high school in any other subjects.) 

[Thinkwell on sale--do you like their courses?]

9 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I was typing my response when the last post in the thread was maize's question was "which course?" Thinkwell's science courses are poorly labeled and someone who is unfamiliar with them may think they actually offer different courses that are taught at different levels. My post to maize was to share that it doesnt matter which course bc they dont offer a chemistry course that doesnt expect a previous chem course; they only offer advanced chem. 

Sorry if my post somehow offended you.

LOL, I didn't choose to be offended. I thought it was slightly out of context and/or had skipped over some key points from my post, but I understand threads can move quickly sometimes. Hence the winky-smiley face. 😊

5 hours ago, SusanC said:

I've been really pleased with the Fundafunda Biology classes taught by a fellow boardie. It is fairly synchronous.

We too thought FundaFunda's biology course was great. It does not have live class meetings but there are lecture videos and also weekly deadlines to keep the students on track.

[Thinkwell on sale--do you like their courses?]

4 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

FWIW, their chemistry courses presume a previous high school level chem course.

Yes, that's why I made sure to include this in my response: "DS has already had basic high school chemistry, so this is a course in "Advanced Chemistry" for him."  😉

[Thinkwell on sale--do you like their courses?]

4 minutes ago, maize said:

Which chemistry course is he doing?

The regular chemistry course. It covers a little more ground than their "Chemistry Compatible with AP" but most of the material is the same between the two. They just chopped out some material from the regular course to create the AP-compatible course, so that it matches up with only what is covered on the AP exam.

[Thinkwell on sale--do you like their courses?]

My son is using Thinkwell Chemistry this year. It's supposed to be college-level chemistry, "a college-level course that's accessible enough for introductory college chemistry courses, but rigorous enough for science majors." We've been kind of disappointed in it. It seems shallow, not enough depth. We started off with the intention of it being our sole (or at least main) curriculum, but we're now using DoctorTang.com's materials and just using Thinkwell as a supplement to introduce the topics, like an overview at the beginning of each chapter. (Doctor Tang doesn't have videos.) Also, strangely, the Thinkwell "exercises" focus on some insignificant, nit-picky details, with odd wording that doesn't jive with the way the concepts were taught in the lectures, and at the same time the exercises completely avoid a lot of the significant concepts. It's like whoever wrote the questions for the exercises wasn't completely up to speed with what is covered in the lectures. FWIW, DS has already had basic high school chemistry, so this is a course in "Advanced Chemistry" for him. (He intends to major in a science-heavy field.) It seems like the quality of Thinkwell courses may depend a lot on the subject.

[Menu planning with grocery shortages]

On 3/20/2020 at 6:27 PM, alisoncooks said:

Went into the grocery and I had pretty good luck with finding some soft things: premade mashed potatoes, pudding, cottage cheese, applesauce, popsicles. Also a couple of soups (chicken and stars, etc). 

Those that recently had kids with wisdom teeth out: how long did they need soft foods?

For my DS, only about 3 days. After that, he wanted regular food and he just chewed carefully, not in the back. Also, just in case they don't tell you, be sure that your DD doesn't use a straw to drink for a day or two after her surgery.

[Excelsior classes]

No personal experience with either of those teachers, but I know that Becky Frank has a reputation for being well-loved by her students. My son took chemistry and biomedical science through Excelsior, as well as German club for 2 years. Very good experience with all three. We thought Excelsior was really professional and did a great job administratively . . . just in case you haven't worked with them before.

Hope you get more feedback about those two particular classes.