How are admissions changing?
“Colleges are deferring students and also using waitlists more than ever before because of the challenges associated with COVID-19 and also due to the sense that students are applying to many more colleges. They know that statistically if a student is only going to choose one school, they may want to go someplace else, so the admissions team decides that they’ll put them on a waitlist.”
– Barbara Shore, private college counselor
Apart from making tests optional and campus visits, what would you say were the most major changes that colleges are making to the application process?
“For most students, their summer plans were cancelled. Jobs were lost, internships were lost and camps were closed. The ability for colleges to evaluate students on their extracurricular activities the summer before senior year has [been limited], and most students didn’t have much to afford because they were in quarantine. They just have less data to go on and that’s the significance of applications as they already have fewer grades and no test scores for the most part. The parts of the application that they do [submit] are going to have a greater weight than they have had in the past.”
– Dr. Elizabeth Stone, executive director of Campanile College Counseling
What do you think is most important that seniors remain aware of as they go through the application process?
“Students need to be really aware that essays and letters of recommendation count. What also will be attractive to college admissions teams is how a particular student handled the pandemic. It’s okay to say that you struggled a bit in your essays. But it is important that students can focus on the positives and explain what they did during the pandemic like raising money to give to COVID-19 relief efforts or doing online concerts.”
– Barbara Shore, private college counselor
How do you think COVID-19 is impacting the way that seniors make decisions about colleges and their future as a whole?
“From the students that went into college this year during this pandemic, what I’ve heard statistically is that 20% of them have decided to take a gap year. They decided that they don’t want to do their distance learning in their bedroom while they’re supposed to be off at [their campus]. They don’t feel that missing out on that opportunity is the best choice right now. Some families are being hit really hard [economically], so students really have to take a look at their family situation as a whole and see if it’s still feasible for them to go off to college and live on campus somewhere.”
– Lea Sanguinetti, junior class counselor
Are colleges planning on staying test-optional next year? What measures do you think juniors should take on behalf of this?
“It’s going to have to be a very individualized process at each school. That being said, many schools will continue to not require SATs or ACTs, but if a student was able to take the test and has a good score, I say, when you can, submit it because it will help. At least a good number of colleges will go back to using the SAT and ACT. My suggestion to my students is to sign up for tests in the spring, register, start prepping a few months out and then see what happens, given that there are vaccines on the horizon and that we may be looking at flattening the curve that way. Students also need to be aware that there are both opportunities and challenges without test scores. There are a bunch of students who don’t do well on standardized tests yet have really impressive portfolios or school records or essays. For those students, there are new opportunities to apply to schools that they’ve never considered before.”
– Barbara Shore, private college counselor
What do you think is important for future seniors to prepare for?
“I think that they need to take a lot of things into consideration, like tuition, credits and refunds and looking up what colleges offer. Students need to think about what happens when they’re sick and what happens when school shuts down. In terms of residency, a lot of freshmen have to pay for a dorm for a year, and if they back out, they lose their spot, so students need to think about where they’re going to live [especially since] we’re in a pandemic. [Preparing] is a lot harder, and [since] you’re not at school anymore you can’t just walk into a counseling office and ask us things like before, so I think the process [feels] a lot longer than it used to be.”
– Angela Castillo, senior class academic adviser
In what new ways are the district and college counselors trying to help seniors amid changes to the admissions process?
“Since we’re in this virtual environment, we’re doing a lot more planning of events together so we can make it more accessible to seniors. Rather than having each school run their own college application workshop or financial info night, we’re running events that are open to the whole district. Something we did for the seniors last spring was have our districtwide virtual college visits. Historically, for in -person schooling, colleges will come visit us a lot in the fall, not so much in person in the spring, but knowing that there would be this gap in the spring when virtual learning was not carrying through the day like it is now, we wanted to have something that students could do and still have that opportunity to schools. If we are still virtual in the spring, that is something we will offer to the current juniors.”
– Steven Hanson, San Mateo High School college and career adviser
How is there an effect on students that want to attend a school away from California?
“There are some additional opportunities for students because a greater percentage of them are attending a school in a state closer to home in case school closes as a matter of having a safety net. Therefore, there may be some new and better opportunities for other California students out of state. The scholarships may not be greater, but they may have a better chance at getting in.”
– Barbara Shore, private college counselor
