bibiche Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 19 minutes ago, RootAnn said: Quoting myself to update that school starts the 18th & 23rd, respectively, for my two college students. The latter one has two covid cases already & has requested mask usage in two areas on campus (athletic space, food service space), probably because that's where the kids on campus are right now (athletes move in early). It'll be interesting to see if they move to requiring masks again. Are they testing regularly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 @bibicheI don't think there is a plan for regular testing right now at that school. Last year, all students were "required" to test every other week if they wanted to get into certain campus areas like the cafeteria and the library. Professors were supposed to be checking to see if their students had a green (tested negative) page on an app at least once per week. In reality, this was rarely checked (never for most students, only a couple professors were known to check) so I know several students never got tested second semester. Testing upon arrival is "required" for on campus residents and athletes, but not if you are vaccinated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 My ds moved in today with no vaccination requirement, no pre- move in testing, or plans to test going forward. The university encouraged vaccination and warned they wouldn’t be providing quarantine facilities or food deliveries. Masks are required in academic classrooms and labs and required events such as orientation. But no restrictions beyond that. They have normal welcome week activities going on. Ds and his friends he knows who are attending are vaccinated. No clue on the rest of the population. We are in a low vax state. Last year they had closed all the common areas in the dorms and the dining halls were takeout only and groups and clubs weren’t supposed to be meeting. Masks were required everywhere outside the dorm room and lots of surveillance testing and contact tracing/quarantine. So they went from pretty significant mitigation efforts to not much of anything. We will see how things develop over the next few weeks. Last year some local schools waited until kids were moving in to announce restrictions and classes moving online. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 @frogger Hugs! This whole thing has been hard. Hopefully it'll be fine there with masking on campus. I hope your ds got in with a good group of guys. I don't know of any of my dd's friends who didn't get vaccinated last spring, but several work part time in retirement facilities & such so they do have more exposure than just the other students. There seems to be a consensus that they will do what they need to in order to keep in person classes and activities. I hope that attitude pays off. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 12, 2021 Share Posted August 12, 2021 My teen is terrified that they're going to get moved in, and then the school is going to send all students home and classes online. I'm really hoping their vaccination, masking, and pooled testing will be enough that they will be able to keep classes in person at least until Thanksgiving (it wouldn't really bug me if they did the last week and finals virtually, because it is only two weeks between Thanksgiving break and the end of the semester, and then we could just go get our kid once, and not come back until Jan. We're just far enough away to make driving a real pain, but not quite far enough to make flying the logical choice.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UmmIbrahim Posted August 13, 2021 Share Posted August 13, 2021 (edited) My ds left for a pre-orientation program this last Monday. He is having an absolute blast so far, which I hope will carry him through in the event that things end up in bad shape during the semester. He already took a gap year, so he's got to make it work, even if things revert to primarily virtual. Right now, his university is requiring both vaccination as well as entry COVID testing for all students upon arrival. The original plan for on-campus buildings was to not require masks in classrooms for vaccinated students (i.e. basically all except for a teeny tiny percentage of medical exceptions), but that has just been modified. Everyone must wear masks at all times in all on-campus buildings except for the dorms. Some of the kids are bummed about needing to wear masks in the gym, but most are happy that classes are going forward as in-person sections. We'll see how things play out this year! Edited August 13, 2021 by UmmIbrahim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaSprout Posted August 13, 2021 Share Posted August 13, 2021 For our D3 school, athletes are required to be tested fairly often, and since we have a lot of athletes on campus (60% of the on-campus population), that's pretty much regular testing. I know a lot of the coaches are leaning on their athletes to get vaccinated b/c of how the quarantine rules play out for vaccinated student athletes. Our campus (also dd's DE school) announced that they are "business as usual" with no masks, but dd's friend just got a notification that her university physics lab is virtual. Fingers crossed that dd's section stays in person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimomma Posted August 13, 2021 Share Posted August 13, 2021 Dd's university is not mandating vaccines or doing any routine testing. They are requiring masking indoors except for in individual dorm rooms. This was just announced. They were almost all online last year and I know dd is very concerned they will end up back online if things get out of hand. I think they will get out of hand but I have not shared my thoughts on this. I am at least glad they added the mask mandate. The students seemed to be good with this last year. At least on campus. The off campus parties and bars are a whole different concern. The area as a whole has schools with no masking or testing mandates, very low vaccination rates, and STILL has limited access to testing which means even well-meaning people are forgoing tests when sick. What's the point if it takes 5 days to schedule a test and another 5 days to get the results? I have big concerns and am just hoping beyond hope that dd has something resembling a decent freshman year. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted August 14, 2021 Share Posted August 14, 2021 10 hours ago, skimomma said: Dd's university is not mandating vaccines or doing any routine testing. They are requiring masking indoors except for in individual dorm rooms. This was just announced. They were almost all online last year and I know dd is very concerned they will end up back online if things get out of hand. I think they will get out of hand but I have not shared my thoughts on this. I am at least glad they added the mask mandate. The students seemed to be good with this last year. At least on campus. The off campus parties and bars are a whole different concern. The area as a whole has schools with no masking or testing mandates, very low vaccination rates, and STILL has limited access to testing which means even well-meaning people are forgoing tests when sick. What's the point if it takes 5 days to schedule a test and another 5 days to get the results? I have big concerns and am just hoping beyond hope that dd has something resembling a decent freshman year. Yes, hoping all of our kids can have a decent year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 I have mentioned that my ds moved in with no required vaccination, testing etc. He just texted me and had a big bag of swag for being vaccinated (including a nice water bottle, hammock, etc). He then sent me a link for a drawing vaccinated students are registered in. There are tons of prizes and they are significant. Several premium parking passes and priority registration passes but then other experiences like a cookout for you and 25 guests on the baseball field, a basketball party for you and friends at the arena, VIP suites for football games, ticket packages for expensive games that students could probably make a lot of money selling, concert tickets, VIP suite at the minor league baseball stadium and on and on. So that is their approach. We will see how it goes. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSera Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Is there a list anywhere keeping track of what universities have what requirements and then that will track how it’s going? I am very eager to know how it goes for the schools that start with a fully vaccinated campus and those that start fully vaccinated plus masks. Really, really hoping that those measures allow for a safe year in person. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibiche Posted August 17, 2021 Share Posted August 17, 2021 2 hours ago, KSera said: Is there a list anywhere keeping track of what universities have what requirements and then that will track how it’s going? I am very eager to know how it goes for the schools that start with a fully vaccinated campus and those that start fully vaccinated plus masks. Really, really hoping that those measures allow for a safe year in person. A lot of schools have Covid dashboards, so you can just Google the school and see what their numbers are. I think the list of schools that require vaccines was posted earlier in this thread. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 On 8/16/2021 at 7:59 PM, KSera said: Is there a list anywhere keeping track of what universities have what requirements and then that will track how it’s going? I am very eager to know how it goes for the schools that start with a fully vaccinated campus and those that start fully vaccinated plus masks. Really, really hoping that those measures allow for a safe year in person. The Chronicle of Higher Education has been tracking what schools are requiring what on their website. I don't know if they'll be tracking cases or not. I breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday when Agnes Scott posted pictures of International student move in/orientation, because everyone was masked, everyone was distanced and everyone was vaccinated and tested. It gives me a lot of reassurance since my kid moves in today. Plus, when we wandered through campus yesterday, they are setting up for orientation, the family lunch and parent orientation outside, and everyone has a set window to move in to avoid having too many people in the dorms, plus windows are going to be open for move in (and the two first year dorms have BIG windows in each room). It really feels like L will be much safer there than at at home. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 School starts today for one kid & Monday for the other. The "requested" mask usage at Monday's start has moved to required for the first two weeks. They've already had 5 or 6 reported cases on campus & move in for the non-athletes doesn't start until tomorrow. This is a very small on-campus community (under 2,000 students and I'd say half or more of those are all online). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UmmIbrahim Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 My son's school has had a few more updates to their policies. In addition to full vaccination requirements, initial testing, and mandatory weekly testing, they have expanded the mask wearing requirements to include common areas in the dorms (previously, mask wearing was required in all buildings except the dorms). So far, my son said student compliance is high in his dorm, at least, so going well thus far. For students attending pre-orientation programs (a fairly small number), I think something like 4 or 5 had initial positive covid tests. Medical school students also started at the university last week, and there were something like 25 initial positive tests (this was a larger pool of students). We'll see how many of the first-year students end up with positive tests (don't have those numbers out yet because move-in was on Tuesday). The upperclassmen will be coming to campus slightly later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 On 8/16/2021 at 6:59 PM, KSera said: Is there a list anywhere keeping track of what universities have what requirements and then that will track how it’s going? I am very eager to know how it goes for the schools that start with a fully vaccinated campus and those that start fully vaccinated plus masks. Really, really hoping that those measures allow for a safe year in person. I don't know of any such list, but I think it would be very difficult to make comparisons. Even schools that have the same size student body and are located in close proximity can have very different characteristics. Some schools have students traveling from foreign countries; some have many students traveling from all of the country to reach their university. Some schools have a high percentage of their students living in dorms, for others it is in off-campus housing, and for others the students are living at home with other family members who are not part of the university community. Some have many part-time students who hold jobs. Others have a high proportion of their student body who are graduate students coming to campus one night a week. Some schools have all of their classes taught by full-time faculty; others depend on many adjunct faculty teaching one class while they hold down a full-time job or teach at other colleges. Those and many other differences contribute to how closed of a system the university is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 According to the director of student health at move in, the college is sitting just over 98% vaccinated now, and will be at over 99% when time limited waivers expire (mostly international students who couldn't start the sequence until they got to the US and to campus, plus a handful of people who had COVID, say, last Spring (right about the time many states started vaccinating under 18) and there hasn't been enough time to wait 90 days, plus three weeks, plus two weeks. They're masking in all indoor public areas, including common rooms of dorms, and doing pooled testing weekly for all students, faculty, and staff, and testing those with waivers twice weekly. And this is a school where the vast majority of students live on campus all four years, which, I'm sure, helps. (Many of the faculty live in college owned houses right off campus as well). The city, and indeed, the surrounding tri-county metropolitan area all have mask mandates. It feels like the kids are probably about as safe as it's possible to be. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 Updates to my son's school's policies: they were already requiring vaccines and indoor masking, but they just announced they'll be testing everyone as soon as they get to campus. They have 5 positives out of 288 amongst the students who arrived early--all vaccinated or partially vaccinated. I'm very curious to know how many are symptomatic. We could be getting some really interesting data on breakthrough infections from all these schools doing universal testing. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyD Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 13 minutes ago, kokotg said: Updates to my son's school's policies: they were already requiring vaccines and indoor masking, but they just announced they'll be testing everyone as soon as they get to campus. They have 5 positives out of 288 amongst the students who arrived early--all vaccinated or partially vaccinated. I'm very curious to know how many are symptomatic. We could be getting some really interesting data on breakthrough infections from all these schools doing universal testing. I wish they would do that here. The university where DH teaches (and where DS16 will be taking a class this semester) has mandatory vaccination and indoor masking, but their most recent announcement about testing was that only the small group of unvaccinated students (who have religious/medical exemptions) will be subject to weekly testing. DH thinks they will reinstitute surveillance testing as soon as the unvaccinated students start testing positive, but the undergrads arrive this weekend, so tick, tock. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSera Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 21 hours ago, Bootsie said: I don't know of any such list, but I think it would be very difficult to make comparisons. Even schools that have the same size student body and are located in close proximity can have very different characteristics. Some schools have students traveling from foreign countries; some have many students traveling from all of the country to reach their university. Some schools have a high percentage of their students living in dorms, for others it is in off-campus housing, and for others the students are living at home with other family members who are not part of the university community. Some have many part-time students who hold jobs. Others have a high proportion of their student body who are graduate students coming to campus one night a week. Some schools have all of their classes taught by full-time faculty; others depend on many adjunct faculty teaching one class while they hold down a full-time job or teach at other colleges. Those and many other differences contribute to how closed of a system the university is. Yep, all true. I’m still very interested to see the data 😬. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 And here we go... UVA disenrolls 200 students... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 My senior's DE large state university, I should mention, is very much the opposite of my oldest's small LAC: no masks required (and not many worn), no vaccines required, no regular testing. At least he's just there a couple of hours a week instead of actually living there. And if cases explode and they have to go online, it will save me a lot of driving at least 🙄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 27 minutes ago, Farrar said: And here we go... UVA disenrolls 200 students... I much prefer the Us mentioned in the article that reach out to each studrnt individually rather than just blanket drop them. Speaking as a mom whose new freshman has been attempting to keep up with the multiple email "mandatory" surveys and online trainings being sent from her new college to various email addresses -- some of which haven't worked without multiple tech support requests, I appreciate someone reaching out to help before just dropping them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 11 minutes ago, RootAnn said: I much prefer the Us mentioned in the article that reach out to each studrnt individually rather than just blanket drop them. Speaking as a mom whose new freshman has been attempting to keep up with the multiple email "mandatory" surveys and online trainings being sent from her new college to various email addresses -- some of which haven't worked without multiple tech support requests, I appreciate someone reaching out to help before just dropping them. I believe some of this is terminology. The UVA students aren't kicked out permanently or anything yet and can remedy their status, which I think will be super obvious to them. But yeah, this is all very new and reaching out would be better, I agree. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaSprout Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 (edited) Rose Hulman does seem to be passing the cost of testing unvaccinated students on to them: COVID-19 | Rose-Hulman Conversely, my small Midwestern school where dd does DE is back on campus with almost no masks, no vaccination requirements, and required tests for only athletes (which to be fair is a sizeable percentage). No one is tracking vaccination rates, although there is some sort of small incentive for being vaccinated with walk-in clinics on campus. Edited August 21, 2021 by MamaSprout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 11 hours ago, RootAnn said: I much prefer the Us mentioned in the article that reach out to each studrnt individually rather than just blanket drop them. Speaking as a mom whose new freshman has been attempting to keep up with the multiple email "mandatory" surveys and online trainings being sent from her new college to various email addresses -- some of which haven't worked without multiple tech support requests, I appreciate someone reaching out to help before just dropping them. I agree. I had so many hiccups with IT over the last year. As it turns out, part of the issue was likely that Agnes Scott took last year and completely redid their IT. Which likely was a good choice, overall, but it complicated matters when the websites would spontaneously change. Then, the CC didn't send a final transcript for weeks-so I am VERY glad L's admissions counselor texted that, so we could follow up with the CC and make sure it got sent! Having said that, I suspect there was some degree of trying to slip under the radar for many of those 200+ students. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyD Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 (edited) deleted Edited August 24, 2021 by JennyD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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