Will admits to the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 2024 get to throw toast onto Franklin Field this coming academic year? Will admits to Dartmouth College’s Class of 2024 get to run around the bonfire this fall? While most universities have not yet announced their fall plans, including whether learning will be in-person or remote, we figured we’d share with our readers the messaging the Ivy League schools have put forward. And if you happen to find yourself uncertain about their plans after reading their messaging, well, know that you’re not alone.

A Certainty of Uncertainty Around the Ivies

As Komal Patel reports for The Daily Pennsylvanian in a piece entitled “Here’s how the Ivy League is planning for the fall semester,” “Penn announced it is considering a combination of virtual and in-person classes for the upcoming fall semester…Brown President Christina Paxson wrote to the Brown community that she is ‘cautiously optimistic’ that students will be able to return in the fall, but has not made a definitive decision…Columbia has not yet announced a decision regarding the fall semester…Cornell President Martha Pollack announced on April 22 the creation of four planning committees to recommend when normal operations should resume…Dartmouth has not yet released a definitive plan for the fall term…’The probability of a full, residential, business-as-usual fall term is not very high,’ Dartmouth Provost Joseph Helble told The Dartmouth…Harvard announced that the University will open in the fall, but it is not certain whether classes will be held on campus or virtually…Princeton announced that it is exploring a variety of options regarding the fall 2020 semester…[Yale President Peter] Salovey wrote that a decision about the fall will be announced no later than early July, according to the announcement.”

It Will Unlikely Be Business as Usual at the Ivies

So, essentially, the one thing we can say with certainty about what Ivy League campuses will look like this coming fall is…there is currently a great degree of uncertainty in light of the pandemic. None of these schools — quite understandably — have a clue at the present moment but they’re all certainly in the planning stages of how they will operate this fall whether learning is remote or in-person. Because it’s becoming increasingly less likely that these schools will be operating this fall under the business as usual approach.