As the stock market tumbles and more and more countries extend lockdowns, traditional institutions are disrupted. College admissions for this admissions cycle and the ones after will be drastically altered. This is how you can adapt to cancelled extracurriculars and tests.
For high school seniors and other applicants awaiting decisions:
- Early to mid March is the season for admissions committee meetings. With universities closing their doors, it is probable that some universities’ committee meetings were impacted, and many continued to work online. It is possible that some universities will be late in releasing admissions decisions this year. Be prepared for them to happen the May 1st deposit date could get pushed back.
- As you all know, admitted student days are being cancelled or taken online. You can also find virtual tours on CampusReel. If you do not have access to the internet at home, and thereby cannot make an educated decision about where you will attend college, consider reaching out to the co-leaders of the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s rural and small town special interest group. You could alternatively reach out to the leaders of the special interest group with which you most closely align to ask for help.
- If your family cannot afford to make a deposit to a university due to economic strain as a result of Covid-19 (or any other reason, for that matter), email the university to outline your family’s circumstances and ask for an extension on the deposit deadline or reduction in deposit amount.
- If your grades suffer during this time (because of illness, financial instability, stress, etc.) and you are worried about being rescinded, write an email to the universities to which you’re considering depositing (after you’ve been admitted) and provide them with context into your situation.
For younger students:
- You can check for SAT test site cancellations here. This list is slow to update, so please check individually with your test center.
- Do not panic if your SAT is cancelled; it is probable that more and more schools will go test optional in the year or two to come to accommodate for students impacted by Covid-19 test cancellations. At the very least, you can write an additional information statement on your college apps that outline how your test results were impacted by Covid-19.
- As a safeguard, juniors (without test scores OR with test scores lower than their goal) should investigate this list of test optional universities and add at least one to their college lists.
- Do not stress about visiting colleges to demonstrate interest. You can investigate whether a university even considers demonstrated interest in the admissions process by looking at their common data set. Once you’re in a university’s common data set, control + F for “Level of applicant’s interest” and you’ll have your answer as to whether or not they even factor it into admissions decisions. There are other ways to demonstrate interest. Some colleagues at College Coach wrote this helpful guide. At the very least, you can write an additional information statement for the university in question, describing how your plans to visit campus had to be cancelled.
- You can check out the aforementioned CampusReel for campus tours, but many universities have announced that they are working on recording their own virtual tours and information sessions online, so check universities’ admissions websites regularly for those resources. Some universities are doing regular Zoom/Facebook Live info session/Q&As, so consider registering for something virtual.
- Be prepared for summer programs to be cancelled. If they are, if you remain quarantined through the summer, or if you cannot or will not pay for expensive summer programs, consider taking free online courses through Coursera, EdX, MIT’s OpenCourseware and other online sources. Keep in mind taking those courses will count as “academics” instead of “extracurriculars”. Reading, tinkering with electronics, perfecting a hobby, etc. are all reasonable summer activities.
- If you were selected to compete in some prestigious competition or attend some special program or event, and can no longer do so, you can include in your honors/awards section on college apps that you were selected/nominated for the award/competition/event, and/or provide that information in an additional information statement.
- AP exams might be cancelled. If they are, and aren’t rescheduled for a later date this calendar year, consider signing up to take the exam next year. Like mentioned above, when you ultimately deposit to attend a university, you can also contact them to see if your grade in the AP class can confer credit. Would also be worth mentioning in your additional info statement in college applications that you were unable to take the official exam but practice exams had you scoring XYZ.
- For international applicants, the TOEFL might be headed online, at home.
- Unfortunately, colleges might take massive hits to their budgets and could rebound by seeking to fill incoming classes with more full-pay applicants. If you can pay in full, great. If you can’t, consider broadening your list to include need blind institutions and universities with higher acceptance rates at which you will qualify for large scholarships.
And for students in college/transfer applicants:
- If classes are cancelled, dorms are closed, and you are unable to go home (you are an international student, you cannot afford to return home, home is not a safe place for you, etc.), please consider reaching out to your alumni association. Many alumni are rallying around current students to offer temporary housing, rides, food, storage, etc.
- If you applied to transfer and your mid-term grade reports are impacted by college closings, please contact the institutions to which you applied to ask for extensions/alternate options. If you have to return abroad, your timezone conflicts with the timezone in which your classes are offered online, and your grades suffer as a result, write a short extenuating circumstances essay and share that with those institutions, as well.
- The U.S. Student and Exchange Visitor Program has determined that, for students on F-1 visas, having to head home due to your university’s closure will not be considered a violation of your F-1 visa. When the university resumes face-to-face classes, all F-1 students will be expected to return to classes.
For juniors and underclassmen, several options exist:
- If you are academically minded, you can take online courses on EdX and Coursera. If you have your major and interests in mind, this is a great way to build on them and demonstrate interest. Keep in mind these activities occur under “academics” rather than “extracurriculars”
- Most school-based and community-based extracurriculars will be closed to you if your school has already closed. I advocate online extracurriculars as an excellent way to address this; they also give you access to interacting with a broad range of students across the nation and countries. RoundPier is an excellent way to find these other ambitious students who are leading online student initiatives, some even registered as 501c(3) nonprofits. Plus, RoundPier’s new student coalition is verifying student-founded nonprofits and such for college admissions purposes, removing a lot of the fluff we see from current applications.
- Conduct independent research. Potential STEM majors should be looking at submitting research work to journals like the Journal of Emerging Investigators (JEI) who only take work from high schoolers. This is a good replacement for cancelled science fairs, science olympiads, and other competitions.
- While many entrepreneurship and business related activities are cancelled (think DECA and FBLA), there remain a few that remain open. Check out GATSVI (Gifted and Talented Silicon Valley Innovators) who offer an online curriculum for serious entrepreneurs, culminating in international competition and an invitation to join their selective summer program (with only 12-15 attendees per year).
- Pick up a hobby. Everything else I just suggested is centered around college admissions. Depending on where you live, you’ll probably be off school for more than 3 weeks. I picked up video animating and animation on a whim, but its turned out to be incredibly useful for the work I’ve been doing in my student-run media organization.
There will be a drastic paradigm shift in admissions. In general, subject testing has been on the decline for years, with schools like MIT saying that they do not even evaluate the subject test anymore. It only exists in holdouts like Georgetown. For this reason, there will be much less emphasis on SAT/ACT scores and 2nd semester grades.
With this in mind, colleges will rely on other factors of your application (ECs, LORs, and essays). While everyone is locked down in quarantine, those that make the most of it with online extracurriculars will come out virtually untarnished. Juniors especially during this time should consider starting Common App essays.
For more on COVID-19’s general effects on education, check out Aadil Razack’s article here.