ARE There Any Options?
I love Dylan’s college. I think it’s doing the best it can in this unprecedented situation, especially given its location in an area of the country not known for its progressive behavior.
But what I really like is the college’s Facebook page designed specifically and exclusively for parents of students.
Because when the news was out that Dylan’s college was opening two weeks late, I had no idea what to do, where to turn, who to ask about options. I wanted to know right away: ARE there any options?
And Dylan came downstairs after midnight when the news broke and said, for the first time in months: “Don’t get your hopes up, but I might want to take, like, a gap semester.”
I had no idea what a “gap semester” might entail. We had already paid the college bills. Could we get a refund? Who did we need to contact? What about housing? What about the stuff he has in storage? What about his classes, his books, his credits, his financial aid…?
By the time I checked into the parents page, there were a hundred people yammering about their unhappiness. Schools should reopen! they screamed. Virus be damned!
A hundred other people were cheering. Finally! they yahooed. I’m so glad the students can stay safe!
Then there was one parent who unassumingly posted a link to a page on the college’s website. The link was labeled “Leave of Absence.”
I read the comments from parents who had done this “Leave of Absence” thing, describing the quick, easy process. So I went to the link and read some more. The Leave of Absence page described exactly what Dylan needed: a one-semester break with no penalty, for a student who has completed at least one semester of college, is in good academic standing, and fully intends to come back to college and get a degree.
This sounds too good to be true, I thought.
Another parent posted a document from a legal website that assured me that a Leave of Absence during this pandemic was, by law, quite acceptable.
Basically, a Leave of Absence means that Dylan would not take classes for one semester, and instead would be able to have a lengthier in-person college experience when the pandemic is over.
So we spoke to Dylan and offered him this option. I’d been speaking to him about it for three months, but he’d always shrugged it off.
This time, he thought about it for nearly 24 hours (driving me crazy) and then said, “Yeah, I think I want to do that.”
And then he filled out the forms, wrote the requisite letter, and scanned and emailed the documents to the appropriate department.
Meanwhile, I emailed financial aid to see what consequences he would have. I emailed someone at the registrar’s office. I emailed housing. And I emailed the storage people.
Dylan could have done all of that, but I had nothing better to do.
And then we waited – safely not at a college campus teeming with coronavirus – for Dylan’s Leave of Absence approval.
Approval arrived in less than 24 hours. Dylan is now temporarily un-enrolled in college, and I am actually thrilled about it.