RC alum here: I read most of the thread, and don't have much to add to the great points raised, other than to second that "missing the first day for this reason

RC alum here: I read most of the thread, and don't have much to add to the great points raised, other than to second that "missing the first day for this reason hasn’t happened to anyone else since we’ve been running RC online" seems pretty counter to the inclusive spirit of RC. I think better wording should have been used here. The thing that struck me is that RC is 99.9% unstructured. Orientation day is the one mandatory day. I kept thinking - what a shame for the author to miss the one day in a 6-12 week program that they need to be there for.