Just under two weeks ago, we talked with Rob and William about their fall college decisions, and both of them said they did not want to go in-person to campus. Since then, their colleges have continued to email updates about plans for the upcoming school year. William’s college is offering a full online option, with an easy and no-penalty cancellation for housing reservations. Students who do go in-person will have half-capacity college housing, and low-capacity dining-hall options. So William’s college will get their full tuition from William (though not the room and board), and he will attend classes from our house—which will help reduce the number of students on campus, for the benefit of students who must attend in person, which is how the college seems to see it.
Rob’s college is going in-person, with some classes offered online only to reduce class size, but no all-online option: that is, the students are expected to attend some classes/days online to reduce the number of students physically in the classrooms on each particular day, but the classes are not designed to be taken fully online from off-campus, nor is that an option at this point. There has been no change in housing or dining hall capacity mentioned so far (and Rob’s four-person housing is still listed as including himself and three roommates), and they are still listing the usual pre-pandemic multi-hundred-dollar cancellation fee for housing (which was reserved back before the pandemic), as if these were Normal Times and not Pandemic Times.
Rob’s college is also asking all students to quarantine in the same state as the college for two weeks before classes begin, without saying how that can possibly work. Are we supposed to…stay in a hotel? For two weeks? Carrying in all our groceries with us and never leaving our room? How many households have a spare adult who can suspend their usual life for two weeks to accompany the student? Furthermore, it’s apparently honor system! So some families will attempt to quarantine as instructed, at huge personal expense and baffling inconvenience, and others will roll their eyes and just show up unquarantined!
How glad am I that we already decided he would not go? VERY GLAD. HANG the cancellation fee! HANG it! They can HAVE it! They can keep their several hundred dollars, and WE will keep the entirety of the tuition they could otherwise have had for this semester—and possibly we will also keep the remaining tuition for the rest of his college education, if this experience has a long-term effect on our feelings about the college! How about THAT! Paul and I were talking this evening about how, until now, we would have ENCOURAGED any of our younger three to attend this college, been GLAD if they’d chosen it, REJOICED if they’d chosen it—and now we feel VERY DIFFERENTLY. It reminds me of things I’ve seen online about people planning to ask in all future job interviews “How did your company handle the pandemic?”—to see if the company valued/prioritized its employees’ safety, or no. I hope Rob’s college will feel they got a good value out of that cancellation fee!
(I do plan to attempt to have the fee waived. But none of their communications indicate that having it waived is an option—or even that they are aware that some students may WANT that option. They are proceeding as if they believe all students will be reporting back to campus next month, well-rested and quarantined and eager to get back to learning together. And if we CAN’T get the fee waived, then they are WELCOME TO IT. I consider it a SMALL COST to keep my child off of their fully-populated, no-online-option, honor-system-quarantined campus.)
We (meaning mostly Rob, but Paul and I are available to assist/nag/prompt if needed) are now looking into several options for Rob. Possibly he will take a semester off, and wait for his college to change their plans, as we suspect they will be doing even before the end of the fall semester. Possibly he will be able to get some sort of online internship. Possibly he can continue his online summer job. Possibly he will see if he can get a rapid transfer to William’s college (he was accepted there back when he was applying to colleges, and it was one of his top finalists, and we feel EVEN BETTER about that college now than we did then).
Rob’s college WTF?!?! Are they oblivious to the news…? Or apparently not because of the required quarantine which… WTF?!?!?!?!
Very, very glad you had made your decision in advance. I hope Rob’s college is now fielding lots of incredulous/angry/panicked phone calls.
Thanks for sharing as this is all interesting (especially to those of us not from your country).
I swear that a lot of people are behaving as if things they wish were true were actually true and THAT IS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. Anyway it sounds like Rob’s college has that type of leadership. “Wow, I really wish all the kids could come back and we could go back to normal!” “Sounds great, let’s do it!”
I have been seeing a lot of “We need to get kids back to school, SAFELY!!”—where adding “SAFELY” seems to be the only plan, like it’s a magic spell for making it in fact safe. Like adding “socially-distanced” to words such as “birthday parties” and “bowling,” as if just SAYING “socially-distanced” means it WAS socially-distanced, and safe.
I keep seeing this too (and my school district is also doing it.). And it is so clear that the priority is getting kids back to school, with safely being the afterthought.
Just a thought that maybe the main goal should be keeping kids safe and the secondary one be going to school.
*Wanders around aimlessly in bafflement.”
If you are able to share I’m Very curious if Rob or William are attending public or private colleges. Are the privates doing this better than the publics??
I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know what public/private mean for colleges. I know what it means for K-12, where public is the state-provided, required, free education and private is the non-state-provided option you have to apply for if you want to get in and then pay for (either directly or by scholarship), but I don’t know what it means when it’s college, where everyone has to apply to get in, and there isn’t a free/required/provided option. The schools are not state schools, if that’s what it means.
That is what that means. (Look how good you are at figuring things out! “Not like some,” she said, in her weariest Eeyore voice)
Yeah I meant state school vs not. Like university of North Carolina gets state money=public and something like Stanford or lots of little liberal arts school like middlebury (sp?) are private. Sounds like your kids are at a private college. Students at both can get public financial aid. Pell grants etc. I just had the perception that different types of schools were handling this differently.
1. I was shocked at the height of your children, especially William, who is still around 11 years old in my brain.
2. I am so glad I am not trying to figure out college right now. My oldest is entering kindergarten and we have decided that she will not be attending in-person schooling (even though we KNOW she is missing out on SO MUCH). We are just waiting to find out whether the district will be offering an online option or if we will be paying for a homeschool curriculum. Either way, my mom has agreed to lead her schooling so my husband and I can both continue to work. And the toddler will continue to stay home, I will continue to work remotely (as I always have) and my husband will continue to work remotely through the end of 2020, perhaps longer. With kindergarten off our plates, we should be able to get our work done and keep the toddler entertained and occupied. It may require some evening work hours (as we have been doing for months now already) but we will manage.
3. I am feeling very confident and good about this plan for our family, but also frantic and despairing because I never wanted to be a stay at home mom and I never intended to keep my kids home every day. Daycare and public school was the plan, and I am running low on the patience required to parent two young children 24/7 with no breaks and no end in sight. Omg.
Rob’s college seem to be suffering from an acute form of ‘not reading the room’. I can’t believe you will be the only family taking this stance and I think they will have to make a hard turnaround as you say.
I’m glad William’s college appears to be working in a more appropriate way considering the state of things here right now.
If Rob wants something to work on whilst away from college EdX do excellent free online courses from different universities all over the world on a variety of topics. Might keep him feeling more engaged with his studies.
I’m in Canada and my husband teaches in a trades program at a community college. They are not planning to return to campus in the fall and all classes will continue to be taught online through 2020. The government launched a pilot program this summer to allow final semester students who needed to finish a hands on course to return to the classroom. But it seems like they are trying to keep everything online in the fall, which means rejigging a VERY hands on curriculum. Some of the machines they use weigh thousands of pounds and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are clearly not portable.
I am sputtering at the decision that Robs college has made. Just sputtering.
I was trying to remember at what stage of college he is in— is this his last year?
I am thinking that you will also not be the only family making this decision and that enrollment will drop tremendously. Is this college planning on testing students? We’ve been looking at colleges for fall 2021 and many of the ones offering in person instruction as the majority are also testing (university of Illinois is creating its own saliva test for example) and a college we are visiting next week sent doctors orders for tests for all returning students.
This is his fourth year, and he’s in a program that takes four-and-a-half or five years to complete.
The college is requiring all students to be tested before returning to campus, and to submit the results of those tests, but the college isn’t doing the tests (they want the tests done before the students arrive). I can’t remember what they said about testing once the students are on campus, but it seems like they’d HAVE to have tests available? But I don’t remember.
I’m curious about Rob’s reaction. I know he didn’t want to return to campus, so I assume he’s unhappy. But, is he as outraged as you and Paul? Does it change his entire feelings about the school as it did yours? I am remembering how very much my home college was and wondering how hard this type of pivot would be. I’m not sure I would have been ready to say “screw this, I’m transferring.” On the other hand, this disregard for safety would have been such a betrayal that maybe it would have changed my feelings. But then, my friends would still be there and they aren’t the reason for this cluster. And, yeah… I think this would have been hard.
He was considering emailing his college a math problem, multiplying the number of enrolled students times the death rate. We have I think talked him out of doing that.
I mentioned to him the option of switching to another school, and he’s considering it, but I think at this point he feels like it would be simpler to just finish up at this school. He’ll be a fourth-year, in a program that generally takes four-and-a-half or five years.
But doesn’t that also mean he still has a third to almost half of his college time before him? That could make a switch still worth his while.
I wouldn’t do it for just one semester, but this is quite a bit more. Especially if (and that’s a real “if”, as I have no idea if that’s a possibility) course issues due to Covid-19 make it more likely that it will take the full 5 years. For example because faculty could be stretched thinner, so they can’t offer certain courses all the time that he’d need, or because they have to make *some* concessions to safety, so smaller class rooms are not useable, etc..
Oh, if he does decide to transfer please, please let him send the math problem to the dean afterwards! That is an awesome response to a ridiculous situation.
I am wondering very much if Rob’s and William’s colleges are in different parts of the country.
We are in a midwestern state that appears to be taking things very seriously (closed things early, slow multi-phase re opening plan, mask ordered in public early). We ourselves are also taking things very seriously (outdoor exercise is our only out of the house unmasked activity.)
Meanwhile, my in laws (in a southern state) are completely mystified by our masked, cautious family. From facebook and phone calls, it’s like watching someone from a different era – lots of photographs together cheek to cheek, vacations, restaurant dining, birthday parties, gender reveal parties, everyone gathering at my 96 year old grandmother-in-law’s house, and church. No masks, no distance.
My company has sent out a list of states that we are strongly discouraged (because they cannot ban us) from visiting. If we go, we must pre-report it and quarantine for 2 weeks on our own dime/own PTO upon return. Unsurprisingly, in law’s state is on that list.
(Anyone reading this from the south, I am not disparaging YOU. I am just so surprised at people just living their lives. It’s so far removed from how we are living you might as well tell me they suspended gravity in the south or something.)
Ugh – I feel all of this. I live in Texas and about a third of us are taking it seriously and the other two-thirds are floating down the river with large groups of friends, holding weddings in venues at full capacity and eating out like there is nothing going on. Our neighbors had a baby shower in their back yard with about two dozen guests. A baby shower! With a pregnant mother present! All of our neighboring school districts are starting later than usual and online only, but ours? Nope! Show up in person in three weeks or, if you’re a pansy and choose to stay home for virtual learning, many of your kids’ elective classes will not be offered and they have to forgo all clubs/extra-curriculars for the foreseeable future. Can you tell our school superintendent (in a district of 15,000 students!) is a Trump supporter? It’s ridiculous.
We have friends about 2 hours away who are on a different planet when it comes to caution. And when they posted pictures of their son’s graduation get-together –so many unmasked teenagers!– I said nothing but one of their relatives asked, essentially, WTF? To which my friend replied that they were outside and under the max allowed, then mused that maybe she shouldn’t have posted photos.
No. Maybe (definitely) you should not have sent the message to your kid with documented poor impulse control that this sort of thing is fine a couple of months before he leaves for college, where I guarantee he’s not going to be more cautious. (I said none of that, but to echo her aunt, WTF?)
So glad we don’t have to deal with college stuff yet, and our kids are transitioning to middle and high schools this year so we don’t have to think about all the senior year stuff being missed. Our school board has voted for a preferred 5 days, full school, but the Ministry will have the final say on August 4th, and will at that time also proclaim whether masks will be required in classrooms or not. Full time in the classroom means the minimum 6 ft between kids will be impossible, and if they say no masks required, then my kids will be taking the virtual learning option.
Originally the plan was 2 days a week in school, 3 days remote, which would have allowed for distancing and only minimal exposure and would have been perfect for us if the cases remain low here. But parents of young kids lobbied hard for the full 5 days because they need to work and can’t with young kids at home – their other option for the 3 days was to send their kids to daycares, thus increasing their circle of exposure, and have the daycares somehow try to manage remote learning for their charges on those 3 days which… would not have worked. I get that. But I don’t get why the board would not have opted for 5 days for kids up to grade 6 (who are low spreaders and can’t manage remote very well), but the 2-days a week for middle and high schools (who don’t need daycare and can work remotely independently well enough).
We’re nowhere near the infection rate in the US, but I think pretty much all our colleges and universities are offering virtual classes this coming year.
I don’t know how Swistle feels about revealing more about her kids’ colleges (or soon-to-be-ex-colleges, depending), but I have a theory, no so much about those specific (but unnamed) colleges but about what’s driving college decisions, based on what my kid’s and my friends’ kids’ colleges are doing:
Public colleges in well-heeled, liberal states: not business-as-usual. Maybe some smaller classes will meet in person, but lots of stuff will be remote.
Public colleges in poorer or more-conservative states: as close to BAU as possible. Online classes for some things, but mostly just pretending covid is no big deal. Maybe some masking requirements, maybe some limits on sizes of gatherings. If you want to do something safer, OK, but that’s on you. (Honestly this reminds me of how a lot of colleges handle rape.)
Private colleges with small endowments: Get as much tuition and fees as possible. Make professors (and adjuncts, who don’t get screwed enough) come and teach.
Private colleges with big endowments: Offer online or online and some in person. Allow gap years and leaves of absence. Divide who comes when to minimize contact. Allow professors to teach remotely. Try to keep as many staff members as possible employed. Rigorous, innovative approaches to sanitation and reducing transmission.
Not dying is a luxury, basically.
Parents: Many fights about change.org petitions.
Yes. This is exactly the thing based on what I have seen.
i am just heartbroken for everyone making these decisions about how to handle school for their kids this year. There is no way to do this “right” since everyone has to figure it out on their own with 0 support from the top down. Even if a state or a county has mandated a policy of virtual learning for their districts, there is no coordination with, say, employers in that county to figure out how their employees will continue to keep kids at home. Such an unbelievable cluster, and so upsetting to watch other countries around the world pick themselves up from this disaster and start moving on while we here remain mired in highly preventable bullshit.
Yes to everything you just said. :(
My son’s supposed to be attending college as a freshman starting NEXT MONTH and so far here’s what we know:
His college is in NY State, which is requiring 2 weeks of quarantine from all arrivals from 31 states, of which our state is one.
His college has offered NO guidance on how to do that or how they will assist with it.
He still doesn’t have a housing assignment, nor has he heard from his advisor about registering, and I’ve seen on the parents groups that other freshmen have and have had problems registering.
We have to pay his tuition on August 4th.
I’m….NOT…okay with any of this.
I’m a college professor at a private university (meaning funded by endowment and tuition rather than gov’t) in the Northeastern US, and we are getting updates almost daily from the Deans; they can’t make up their minds, which is somewhat understandable and somewhat infuriating.
I will say everybody seems to be trying hard. Lots of public forum meetings with higher-ups, polls, etc.. They’re looking at losing a lot of money, but they’re also invested in academia and are doing due diligence, at least at my school. Researchers are all over the place on what makes the most sense for the 2020-2021 year. There are international students to consider, campus staff, etc. besides just, um, education standards and practices.
Some of the possibilities they’re throwing out are ridiculous, like the second one you’re describing at R’s school. That’s simply dumb; everybody’s going to push back. Do all the teachers and staff want to be there with throngs of students who honor-system quarantined away from home? Nein.
And some of the hybrid models are appealing but untenable for faculty unless they’re going to hire a bunch more adjuncts. Offering the same class simultaneously in two ways (online and in-person) should count as teaching two classes because it’s totally different prep work and time use.
I’m 100% online for my 3 Fall classes, with a synchronous/asynchronous mix (meaning some days we will convene via Zoom at the class start time, and some days we won’t, but students have materials/tasks with completion dates). I feel like this is really the only way it’s going to work for schools where most students dorm. My dept. chair has basically told the deans that our entire dept is online-only; goodnight and good luck. The Deans might finagle something to get some classes in-person partially, but I feel for those teachers and students because it’s gonna suck. Ugh.
Can I vent about a similarly unsatisfying situation with my daughter’s (ex) preschool? Ok. Back in March they offered “suspended enrollment,” which meant we could pay 10% of tuition to hold her spot. Fine, fine. More recently, we decided to withdraw her entirely, and it emerged that we were “not allowed” to withdraw from suspended enrollment, that they expected us to re-enroll her (either in person on online) for the final month before she could withdraw. WTF. This was never stated as a condition, and despite making our case to corporate (it’s a Montessori daycare chain), they said our best option was to enroll in the cheapest class for the final month: $600 for a virtual classroom that we are not going to use (she’s five. No.) Very unsatisfying, and I feel that my only recourse is to leave them a bad review on Google or Yelp or something.
I would be furious about this. If it was never stated that you could withdraw from suspended enrollment, I would provide them in writing that you are withdrawing and dispute the charge on a credit card/close the bank account you were with. That feels like they are stealing $600 from you….kind of like the fee to cancel a gym membership early from beforetimes.
I was/am, furious, unfortunately for us they had the upper hand, as the $600 was taken out of our deposit (they did refund the rest).
Hi, from Texas, where my younger daughter will be moving into her dorm in two weeks and one day. (How I feel about that shrinking time frame varies wildly depending on her moods; can I get an amen from mothers of teenaged girls?)
The virus rates in our city are much higher than those in the town where her university is located, so that was a factor in our decision. They are requiring masks everywhere on campus except in the dorm rooms. Her roommate decided last week to do online-only from home, and the Housing office told us yesterday that my daughter will most likely will end up having the room (which has its own bathroom) to herself. She has two suitemates who will share a common area, but they have been careful and quarantining this summer as has my daughter. Two of her classes are online; the others are in-person but small–that was also a factor in our decision; if all of her classes had been online we’d have kept her at home.
Most universities in Texas will be sending students home at Thanksgiving and doing the rest of the fall semester online; her university is not doing that at this point, but I suspect that will change. We haven’t figured out how we will handle the Thanksgiving break as far as having her quarantine or get tested before coming home, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing. I think our views are affected by the fact that even though rates are going up in our city, we only know one person who has had the virus, and his case was mild and wasn’t even transmitted to the others in his house. We’ve been wearing masks since the beginning of all this, and in our city businesses are required to require patrons to wear masks–so we never see anyone without one. Maybe that has led to a false sense of safety? So hard to know what to do …
“Most universities in Texas will be sending students home at Thanksgiving and doing the rest of the fall semester online; ”
That is so strange to me; what’s the rationale for doing it like this?
One of my school’s hypothetical plans was to wait until after our Sept/Oct break (we break for a month for Jewish holidays) to come back in-person. So, online before that break, in-person after. They’ve since nixed this idea. But why in-person first, online later?
Also I don’t have a teenage daughter, but I once was a teenage daughter, and I extend sympathies. :)
Get the students corralled into the college-supervised pod, establish the relationships with members of the community, get most of the educating done. Then let kids go home for Thanksgiving, which they were almost all going to do anyway and have them keep their travel-acquired germs to themselves by staying home. Then wrap up what needs to be wrapped up and have eight weeks or so corralled into a family-supervised pod.
At least, that’s the logic at my son’s college.
I think it’s because it’s too difficult/risky to have Thanksgiving break and have the kids go back to their homes in disparate places and then come back to campus potentially bringing the virus with them.
Thanks for replies, Slim and Elizabeth!
I get that they want to create the community– totally! My school is doing a ton of zoom events all through August to get students “together,” especially incoming students.
It just seems that…. the start of school in-person in late Aug. is going to be an uncontrollable cesspool. I’m very skeptical that responsible social distancing is even possible in most colleges. And I can’t teach my whole class before Thanksgiving…. Compromising the education is not what we want.
It sucks and there’s no great solution, I guess.
It’s not starting at the end of August; it’s starting at the beginning.
Instruction doesn’t end at Thanksgiving, just in-person instruction (I mean, assuming it doesn’t end earlier, which is not a great assumption).
It does suck and there is no great solution. My kid picked going back to campus with so SO many restrictions because for his particular set of circumstances, that was the least-bad option for him and everyone else involved.
I would be shocked if they didn’t return your fee. I am so surprised that they are not offering an online option, what if Rob had a serious underlying health concern, they would just say “too bad, this isn’t the place for you now” – so irresponsible. What a shame. I feel really bad for him as this is his 4th year. I am sure he will miss his friends.
My rising sophomore is anxious to get back to school – they have made some changes, but we all anticipate that they will end up shutting things down again. It seems impossible to have college kids social distance.
I just thought you might want to know that I can’t even read more than a couple comments on here without a Marines pop-up ad comes on that brings me back to the top of the comments thread :( in fact just writing this comment I have gotten interrupted five times. It’s quite aggressive.
Thanks for letting me know. I went to my ad company’s site and opted out of military ads. I don’t know how long it takes for such changes to take effect, but my hope is not long.
That’s odd…I NEVER see ads on your site. At least, not ads that interrupt (there may be some off to the side – but I’ve reached the point where I can effectively “not see them” usually).
I don’t see ads on a PC, but I do on a mobile device. And yes, the ads that cause auto-reloading are really annoying, no matter what is being advertised!
Yes this! Can’t read a thing except MARINES!
When I was in college, I was thinking about changing schools and visited a few different schools in late August. During these visits, I did really like one school. My visit and interview was on a Thursday. I started at my new school on Monday.
If Rob wants, he might be able to quickly switch to William’s school. Because he was previously accepted, he would likely be able to skip some of the required steps (HS transcripts, interviews, etc). And it is likely that many credits could transfer back to his original school if he really wanted to switch back after the pandemic is over. It is worth a email to investigate if Rob doesn’t want to lose a semester or more as a result of the pandemic
Possibly silly question: Is Rob done with his general ed requirements? If he isn’t, could he enroll at a community college to knock a few of those out? Most community colleges offer online classes even in non-pandemic times, and the credits are generally pretty easy to transfer over. I’m guessing that he’s probably done with GEs by now, but if he’s not, that could be a way of getting some schoolwork done while he’s at home.
I am furious at Rob’s school. Furious! What a pantload. Oldest is going to be a senior in HS this year and all of this is adding an additional layer of stress to the already stressful college-search process but you’d better believe we’re watching closely how colleges handle this Fall and it will affect decisions about where Oldest even applies. Any school that basically communicates they don’t give a crap about their students and teachers is not a place I’m interested in exploring.
Frankly, at the rate we’re going I have almost no confidence that this whole thing won’t STILL be an issue in Fall 2021, which is so depressing I can hardly stand to think about it, but I have to because COVID has made pretty clear that just wishing things would go back to normal doesn’t make it so.
This is all so stressful. Thankfully, I don’t have a college student…but I do have an elementary school teacher/high school football coach. Our school systems haven’t made an actual decision yet, but our county is supposed to return to school on August 24th. I will be outraged if they open then…particularly as our numbers are rising even though our state didn’t fling the doors open (we are still in an extended Phase 2 and, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if our governor doesn’t slam the door shut again soon).
I’m an academic in Australia and watching how many US universities are handling this is astounding and horrifying. Our entire semester 1 (March – June) was online, and that was the case for all Australian universities. Now in my whole state (We have about 8 large universities here), it’s all online for semester 2 (August-nov). And our outbreak & numbers are much less than the US. You are making the right decision for your family and your son’s university to go with in-person is shocking & myopic.
My daughter has decided not to live on campus for her freshman year this fall.
A few weeks ago we heard on a Thursday that students would not be allowed to have roommates. The next day we heard that no gatherings for social, recreational, or religious purposes would be allowed, and there would be no in-person instruction without prior approval. No one had any idea what this meant for classes. All the faculty/staff left for a holiday weekend & it was also the last weekend the housing deposit could be refunded without penalty.
She has had to get a notarized (!) document proving I know she’ll be living at home & has probably sent a dozen emails working on getting an exemption from living on campus & her housing deposit returned. When we talked to one of the higher ups by phone he was not able to provide any clarity other than that his daughter was requesting the same thing from her university in another state, but he felt my daughter would still be just fine at his school.
All the large state schools are doing online only in our state. There was a big outbreak at another university in the same city as my daughter’s school over the summer. They are *still* having on campus housing including for international & out of state students.
On the student forums for my daughter’s school many students were already sharing where the off campus parties would be & how to get around the masks-required rules.
This is INSANE.
Our school board voted on Monday to start the year entirely online, and there are parents now trying to get their rep removed because she didn’t vote for full 5 days in person school with no masks. Even though the county has rapidly increasing cases compared to surrounding counties. Correlation? Definitely.
They’re still going to require teachers to come in and video chat from our classrooms, which is stupid, because the numerous safety issues like old HVAC and bathroom sanitation isn’t solved by only having 120 people in the building instead of 1600. I’m glad my classroom has an external door, so I can avoid the main office during peak arrival time at least.