COVID College Admissions and the class of 2021

When the COVID pandemic first began in the US in March, and public measures were taken to limit the spread of the virus, schools closed first. Seniors at the time lamented the Class of 2020 as the worst year of seniors in two decades, leaving prom and homecoming events cancelled and a group of teenagers anxiously waiting college decisions in their homes which would not come out for weeks. At this point, it was too late for even the most ambitious high school students to ask: “How will Coronavirus affect college admissions?”

So when May 1st, 2020, passed, and seniors made their enrollment deposits, that was the end of it. In the meanwhile, the class of 2021 juniors were just starting to realize that their admissions cycle was one that was never seen before in a college admissions landscape epitomized by USNews ranking reports and copious college emailing. COVID college admissions was not a one-time occurrence for the class of 2020, it would color college admissions for years to come.

Major Trends from Class of 2021

1. An arduous push for non-traditional leadership

One of the most worrying trends in a US-news dominated system of college admissions is the continually deepening competitiveness of college admissions. Jeffrey Selingo in his new book “Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions” details a system driven by abstract metrics at USNews rewarding statistics like lower acceptance rates and increased applicants and yield resulting in massive increases in applications to multiple schools. With COVID college admissions, this won’t stop.

Perhaps one of the aspects less oft covered by the general, non-student-driven media is that of what “driver” students at top public schools and private schools do in comparison to that of their fellow “passenger” students at smaller public schools struggling to get students to community college. These “driver” students congregate in online communities like Reddit’s r/applyingtocollege and the culture there is unlike anything you’ll ever see espoused by the media. Students who don’t even mention grades or SAT scores understanding that these are hardly an indicator or application differentiator at top schools. Students who understand that those metrics open doors but “holistic review” activities that only the top students could ever dream of really get them through the door.

At top public schools like those in wealthy suburbs in Palo Alto and North Virginia, students have come to expect an influx of “instagram nonprofits” in the fall, the lowliest of which are follow-for-follow accounts boasting a generic social advocacy like climate change without tangible impact. This is one of the most recognizable forms of the lengths that top students without first-generation, unique racial minority, or legacy hooks go to in order to produce “non-traditional” leadership.

I spoke to Madhavi Akella from a California school about this phenomenon. One of the most telling things she helps epitomize about these top students is this:

Sean: Why do you think high schooler’s are going to such lengths filing paltry 501c3 registrations and creating detailed instagram profiles?

Madhavi: They see other high schoolers doing this… they feel like they should be doing it too because at the end they’re also applying to the same colleges (higher education has long seen an overwhelming increase in applications due to decreasing admissions rates). So they feel that its necessary to be equal for admission to the same schools.

And so, in a world where traditional school-based and community leadership positions are cut off and colleges still hold the same vague values it evaluates applicants with, the results are disastrous. More application filler. Less standards with which to hold them to (no school, no community). And, most frighteningly, a massively increased grey area where standardized testing is gone, “accomplishments” go unverified, and students view this sort of non-traditional leadership creation as necessary.

2. A Struggling Equality on the cusp of collapse

College admissions is a tough job. Admissions officers are expected to evaluate an applicant with materials that could never define them entirely. So the college application becomes more like a business pitch, where the top and privileged students are serial entrepreneurs and the first-gen and poorer students pitch themselves on the spot. This is made worse without test scores, access to standard extracurriculars, and almost unreachable public school counselors,

Before the advent of the COVID pandemic, a landmark case brought against Harvard University by Students for Fair Admissions made the rounds. Though cleared of race-based admissions bias, Judge Allison Burroughs maintained that Harvard’s admissions process was constitutionally sound but that the school could improve bias training for admissions officers, maintain clear guidelines on using race in admissions, and more accurately flag race-related disparities ratings.

COVID college admissions will have shifted aside consistent indicators like the SAT and disrupted prominent holistic points like extracurriculars. In doing so, it is only fair to assume more emphasis will be placed on unclear race-based guidelines with potential for increased disparity. This time though, the disparity is different. We can take a look at higher education during the Great Recession for comparison and come out with a major conclusion.

Author Jeffrey Selingo writes in Who gets in and why:

Schools that traditionally filled maybe a quarter to one-third of their classes through ED boosted that proportion to upwards of half in the fall of 2008… the sellers didn’t return to their own ways.

Add to this the fact that international students that many schools have relied on to charge full sticker-price tuition as an income stream have been discouraged and even barred from studying in the US. The atmosphere is ripe for full-pay applicants with access to extracurriculars and who have played the game early enough to take their SATs to be favored.

So how will schools evaluate applicants with a lack of quantifiable metrics and greater disposure for unclear guidelines on “holistic admissions”? At Ampheros, we previously talked at length about the unclear truth about test-optional admissions. Unclear guidelines like those exposed by the Harvard case are likely to take admissions two ways:

• A repeat of 2008. Increased ED acceptance rates, preference given to applicants with standard extracurriculars and grades as if no major disaster had occurred. Dubious and inconsistent decisions made on how the recent disaster had affected students. All this, but amplified in COVID-19. Full-pay and upper class applicants benefit.
• An inconsistent and horrendously un-meritocratic admissions season. Giving artificial boosts to those claimed to have been affected, severely amplifying legacy and ethnicity hooks, and falling prey to the large amount of instagram nonprofits and app fillers. Honest middle class students lose tremendously here, while upper class and lower class students benefit under the tradeoff between maintaining diversity and a full-pay class.

3. Unrefined College Lists

The most obvious impact of COVID college admissions as foretold by many news stations and high education experts is the impact on where students are applying this year. They predict a greater incentive to stay at home at regional colleges, a college list wary of private universities with high tuition, and an increased unpreparedness in college admissions that leads to students not having the traditional safety, match, reach college distribution that counselors so often tell them to have.

Even with top students at high schools, the prospect of finding a student with a well-versed list of schools equally divided among safeties, matches, and reaches with sound reasoning for each school is rare. Their lists are often heavily influenced by online rankings like USNews. This produces a jumbling of colleges that, for even top students looks something like this:

• [Ivy+]
• [Ivy+]
• [Ivy+ / Prestigious Liberal Arts College]
• [Prestigious Private University in-state]
• [Nearest Local State School]

Multiply that by recent trends that have seen CA applications skyrocket to 4.1 applications on average per applicant. We at Ampheros are seeing students with final college lists that look like the initial list drafts from Ivy-smitten 2nd semester juniors. Its evident that the majority of students in COVID college admissions aren’t going to find the schools with the right fit.

So how does this affect college admissions? As per our previous thoughts on the process this year, students whose applications more so resemble those of normal applicants during a non-COVID college admissions season are going to have a leg up here over normal applicants barring extenuating circumstances. These are students who know how to explore college options beyond websites, messaging LinkedIn alumni and speaking to current students on the respective college’s subreddits.

Conclusion

Given all these trends and the talk in higher ed about COVID college admissions, we can create a profile of what top COVID college admissions candidates at high schools are doing. These are students who have:

• From March school closures onwards, have began working on college essays and reaching out to current/past alumnus to build a college list
• Have already taken their SATs and subject tests and had the climax of their physical extracurriculars before school closures
• Demonstrated continued extracurricular commitment in the midst of COVID (barring unusual extenuating circumstances) via online means.
• Have taken the initiative to use online resources such as Reddit to optimize a college list considering fit, written the same “why college” essays and completed the same demonstrated interest requirements as non-COVID admission applicants, and comfortably plan/planned to apply via REA/ED/EA
• Kept a consistent extracurricular and personal story about their interests and adaptations pre-COVID to post-COVID, outperforming restrictions and expectations at every level.

One of the most hidden messages of COVID college admissions comes through the typical university response when asked about the university’s response to COVID. Sure, they will be lenient on test scores. They will be lenient on cancelled extracurriculars. They will be lenient on Junior and Senior year grades. They will be lenient on letters of rec, seeing as how students wouldn’t have been able to see them for a year now. But given all these leniencies, the universities stick to their admission procedure – to identify the best and most unique out of the rest.

We know it isn’t about having the best sob story or the most COVID-induced barriers. It then turns to one conclusion – one that the high school students founding bogus nonprofits at top HS schools realize. That leniency is an invitation, almost a veiled demand, that top applicants must surpass the limits of COVID to stick out. Extracurriculars must be found or moved online and continued to adapt to COVID. Grades must be kept top of shape, despite the fact that more and more students encounter out-of-school impediments to learning. Your teachers should know you as well as if they’d known you in person for 2 years, your “why college” essays should feel like you’ve been to their college.

Because in an admissions cycle where the universities say the “normal” applicant materials aren’t required, the “normal applicant” suddenly becomes the best applicant.