One year ago, my email inbox started to fill with cancellations.
I was set to participate in a counselor tour of Virginia colleges. Canceled.
On a trip to see my in-laws in South Carolina, I had arranged to meet with admissions at Clemson and Furman and to attend presentations by the Honors College and Engineering department at the University of South Carolina. Canceled.
Lindsey and I were presenting a session at the upcoming SACAC conference. Canceled.
That week marked the start of a massive life shift. The “New Normal.” For the last year, we have worked from home, stayed socially distanced, and gotten used to wearing masks. We’ve worried about our health, our loved ones, our country, and our students.
It’s been a long year, and I very much hope that we are rounding the corner.
As we come up on one year of living in a global pandemic, we are also coming up on the end of the college admissions cycle. Most of our students have most of their admission results already (with the remainder to come trickling in by April 6), and we are able to see the impact Covid-19 had on the college admissions process. Naturally, our team is having a lot of conversations about what we have seen in the admissions world this year and what we think the implications are for future application cycles.
Here are the 5 main lessons we’ve learned from Covid-19 and how we think they will impact the future of college admissions.
ZOOM IS HERE TO STAY
Zoom definitely has its limitations. Because Zoom eliminates most body language and transmits 3D interactions onto 2D screens, Zoom fatigue is real. I feel for students who spend all day in Google Classroom and then have to hop on Zoom with me to talk about their feelings and their futures.
But virtual meeting platforms have opened so many doors, and I think all of the positives have outweighed the negatives of occasional technology hiccups and me wondering how tall my students are in “real life.”
For our current students, we’ve been able to get to know them in their personal spaces. We’ve met pets and younger siblings, seen childhood bedrooms, and been taken on field trips around the house. We’ve been able to seamlessly work with students living in other states as easily as students living in North Carolina. While I can’t wait to get back into the office with students, Zoom will give us some added flexibility for busy schedules and students who live further away.
For our community, Zoom has given us a new way to connect and provide free access to college planning information. We now regularly host webinars for local schools, businesses, and the community at large.
And for colleges themselves, virtual platforms mean a new way to interact with students. We believe nothing can fully replace the in-person campus tour for getting to know a school, but even in a pandemic-free world, cost, time, and geography can limit the ability to visit every school on a student’s list. Virtual tours and information sessions have massively expanded access for colleges, and we think they’ll be sticking around.
CHOOSE YOUR DEADLINES WISELY
Early deadlines (especially the non-binding early action deadlines) are tempting. We’re usually pretty big fans of them ourselves. Knocking out applications before first semester of senior year ends - before Thanksgiving even - can remove a layer of stress for many students.
But we’ve learned that in a year of uncertainty, early isn’t always better. This year saw a lot of deferrals and waitlists while colleges hedged their bets, and it’s extended the process for stressed-out seniors.
Our advice is that students shouldn’t apply early action if they aren't completely ready or if the school is a "reach." There are later deadlines for a reason. If students want to make sure the college admissions office reviews first semester grades from senior year (especially if junior year didn't go so well), then selecting a regular deadline instead of early action might be a better option. Stronger applicants also tend to apply early, so if the school is a reach for that student, waiting until the regular deadline may be a better choice to stand out.
Pro-Tip: Students can still have their application finished early even if they don’t plan on applying early. Shoot for Thanksgiving as your own internal deadline and then make sure to add any updates before submitting the application before the regular decision deadline.
TEST-OPTIONAL MAY NOT HELP YOUR CHANCES MUCH AT HIGHLY SELECTIVE SCHOOLS
Without a doubt, test-optional was the way to go this year. For months on end, most students could not safely take an SAT or ACT, and the added stress of trying to was ridiculous. I spoke to students who were waking up at 4am and driving 2 hours to testing sites, students who finally found a seat only to have their test canceled the night before, and students who were terrified to put themselves and their families at risk for the sake of a test. Test-optional policies were a much-needed reprieve from some of the chaos this year.
But many were hopeful that this test-optional year would also boost their chances of admission at schools that may not have considered them with test scores. There was a lot of confusion about test-optional versus test-blind, and many students got their hopes up that college admissions would be easier this year. Selective colleges received record numbers of applications from hopeful students thinking this was their year.
At the end of the day, reach schools remained reach schools. Selective schools remained selective. By going test-optional, colleges did not lower their admissions standards, and in many cases, they took an even closer look at other parts of the application or required additional materials like more essays.
As of now, more than half of all colleges and universities remain test-optional for the upcoming admissions cycle. We’re glad that students still have this flexibility in a year that continues to be uncertain. But we hope this year’s juniors have learned from this year’s seniors that test-optional is not a “trick” to getting admitted to highly selective colleges.
THIS YEAR’S ADMISSIONS DATA MAY NOT MEAN MUCH
I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines this year. For many colleges, applications are up. Way up. Up-by-more-than-100%-up. And that means that when all the admissions decisions are in, acceptance rates are going to be down. Way down in some cases. Already selective schools are going to look hyper-selective. Single-digit acceptance rate selective.
But the story is different for other colleges. Applications are not up everywhere, and some colleges are concerned about filling their incoming classes. For those colleges, acceptance rates might slide the other way.
As for other statistics, in a test-optional year, most students only submitted test scores if it benefited their application, so we’re likely to see an increase in average test scores for incoming classes. And with all of the different Covid grading policies that have happened over the last year, incoming freshman GPA is an almost meaningless statistic.
For the upcoming cycle, we’ll be taking this year’s admissions data with a grain of salt, consulting previous years’ statistics for context, and listening for specifics coming from the colleges themselves.
CREATE A COLLEGE LIST YOU CAN GET EXCITED ABOUT
When we work with students on building their college list, we emphasize two things: fit and balance.
We want every school on the list to be a good fit for the student academically, socially, financially, and environmentally. A place where they can see themselves thriving over the next four years. And we want the list as a whole to be balanced between likely, target, and reach schools.
It’s easy for most students to get excited about reach schools and even target schools, but it can be a challenge to get some students out of a “safety school” mindset and into a “likely school that comes with opportunities” mindset. This year, the latter was more important than ever.
As I have said countless times this year (and in this blog post), this was a year of uncertainty. And in an unpredictable, we are seeing that our happiest students are the ones who were excited about all of the colleges on their college lists. The students who could identify plans A, B, and C and see the different value in each of them. There should be no “back ups” or “last resorts” in this process - only different options that bring with them different resources, experiences, and opportunities. All of which we hope our students can get excited about.