As more and more of our traditional seniors submit, we’ve been able to accept additional late start seniors! We had so many begin this past week. I’ve written about this before - that even though the work is condensed and it can be rushed (not my ideal timeline for sure), it’s very gratifying to work with these families. They come in so stressed and pulling their hair out, and we are able to basically restore calm and order to their lives within a few days :)
We’re now full for early November deadlines but still have a few spots left for December, January, and possibly mid-November deadlines. Late start families should start the process by signing up for a Meet & Greet here.
BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK
SAT RESULTS RETURNED
The results of the September 23 School Day SAT came back yesterday (October 15), and the results from the October 3 SAT came back this morning. Anecdotally, we have seen many students disappointed with their scores. Now everyone is waiting on ACT scores, and there is still a lot of uncertainty about whether they will be released before the November 1 early deadline, as conflicting information has been released. These close-call score reports have definitely been stressing me out and making it difficult for students to submit applications early! I literally helped people submit applications on the day of the deadline yesterday, which I don’t think I’ve ever done in my whole career.
SWARTHMORE DISCONTINUES COUNSELOR ADVOCACY CALLS
Swarthmore sent out an email to counselors this week stating that they are discontinuing their practice of holding school counselor calls before decisions are released. The email stated, “After conducting internal analysis, we found that counselor calls were requested disproportionately by private and independent school counselors and rarely by public school counselors and college access advisors."
The point that they are making here is completely correct, and there is certainly room for improvement in the equity of who receives the opportunity to advocate for their students. But this is still a hard pill to swallow for those families at independent schools during a year in which additional context and advocacy would have been particularly useful. While I recognize that it would require more work from staff, I wish that Swarthmore had offered to reach out to more public school counselors as well, rather than discontinuing the calls entirely. This is a year when our students need more context shared with admissions officers, not less. We will be watching closely to see if other schools follow suit after this announcement.
SPRING CALENDAR CHANGES AT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Many schools have already begun to shift their Spring 2021 academic calendars to provide a safer experience for students during the pandemic. Lehigh and Fordham are among the colleges pushing back the start of classes and eliminating spring break to try to limit student travel and, hopefully, coronavirus spread. Texas A&M is also eliminating spring break, starting the semester on time and ending early, with a single-day break in March. Davidson gave students a surprise, single-day break last Friday, and plans to replace Spring Break with two shorter breaks, during which students are encouraged not to travel away from campus.
UVA RELEASES CLASS OF 2024 DATA
UVa has finally released more information about its most recent incoming class. The Class of 2024 is the smallest class UVa has seen since the Class of 2016, and it is also the most diverse in the institution’s history. Though the class is smaller, it is still over the University’s enrollment target. This article also states that the return of the early decision option is not the reason for the decline in the acceptance rate last cycle, according to the university, as only 10% of the class was admitted early decision. The stats also show some COVID impact - twice the usual amount of UVa applicants chose to take a gap year rather than enroll in the Class of 2024.
ENROLLMENT DOWN NATIONALLY DURING COVID-19
UVA is not the only school that is seeing an enrollment decline during the pandemic. This study out of the National Student Clearinghouse in Herndon, reveals that first-year enrollment is down by 14% at public four-year universities and down by 12% at private institutions. Graduate enrollment, however, is up throughout most of the country (see our post from earlier in the week for more about the pros and cons of applying to graduate school this cycle).
BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
This New York Times interview with Jeff Selingo contains so many great tips for students and parents, and I really encourage you to read the whole thing! But if you take anything away, I want to emphasize his answer to a question about whether students should apply early decision this year:
Selective colleges with already robust early decision pools are likely to accept more students that way. As I point out in my book, that’s exactly what they did in the wake of the 2008 recession. They didn’t want to take a chance that they’d struggle to fill seats in the spring. Schools that traditionally filled maybe a quarter to one-third of their classes through early decision boosted that proportion to upward of half in the fall of 2008.
I expect the same this year. They don’t have much room to grow that part of the incoming class — after all, they likely won’t admit 75 percent early — but they’ll up the numbers where they can.
While I know it can be difficult to choose to commit to a school in a year when students may have been unable to tour the campus, this reinforces my advice that early decision can be a great choice for students who do know where they want to go to school - and more so this year than ever!
I always tell students who are waffling about making a binding commitment that they need to reframe their thought process. The question should not be “Binding commitment or not?” because they have to make a binding commitment at some point regardless of where and how they enroll. Instead, the question should be “Is it worth making the commitment a few months early to increase the chances of admission at my top-choice school?” The answer is usually yes.
The New York Times has published a lot on the admissions process this week, and I also recommend this article that contains advice from a range of college admissions officers. I particularly want to point out the answers from Seth Allen at Pomona and Zaire McCoy at Rollins about the impact of deferrals on this cycle’s applicants. I have fielded so many questions about how deferrals will affect applicants (I wrote a detailed post about this back in July), so I was glad to see that Allen and McCoy also felt that deferrals would not have a huge impact on this year’s class. Shannon has been attending a lot of counselor information sessions that emphasize the same thing - colleges are working to mitigate the effects of deferred enrollment, so this shouldn’t be something that has current seniors overly concerned, at least for right now.
I don’t know if this is quite as simple as it sounds, but it is worth reading this study out of Georgetown, which found that Joe Biden’s free public college plan would pay for itself within ten years. The study results indicate that even though Biden’s plan would cost $73 billion a year, it would be offset by a $186.8 billion increase in tax revenue from workers who would earn more money because of their advanced education. I always approach these “free college” plans with a little bit of skepticism from the taxpayer standpoint, but if it really is that simple it sounds good to me!
Finally, if you are a podcast lover like me, check out this NPR podcast episode which explores the coronavirus testing protocol at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The campus has seventeen testing centers and tests all students and staff on campus every few days. Students are required to have a negative result in order to enter campus buildings and attend classes.
Because the school does its own testing in-house, there are days when 2% of all coronavirus testing in the U.S. is done on that particular campus! It was interesting to hear about the impact of this aggressive testing model, especially considering that Illinois still saw coronavirus spikes from students socializing even after knowing they had received a positive test result.
OFFICE HAPPENINGS
Submitting is most seniors’ favorite part of this process (at least until the acceptances roll in!), but as we keep repeating and over and over and over again….submitting an application DOES NOT mean that the work is done.
After submitting, students need to continue checking email daily and keep track of the status portal login information for each school. These portals are essential because they will show if information or application components are missing. Applicants can then take care of any missing pieces (which often involves following up with recommenders) and can ultimately make sure all materials have been received.
Some schools will also use the portal to request additional information or outline next steps.. and this can come as a surprise! Below is an example of a form that appears on the University of South Carolina portal. All applicants applying to the school have to fill out this form in order to complete their applications. Students must indicate which “one supplemental material” they are providing for review (SAT/ACT scores, three alternative test scores, or a graded paper).
This is a great example of a portal situation that could go wrong quickly if ignored. Interestingly enough, the USC application doesn’t indicate that this form exists on the portal or that the student is required to fill it out.
So if a student didn’t log in to the portal, he would naturally assume that his requirements had been met - particularly if he had already submitted his SAT scores. However, that’s not enough - without the completed form by November 2, USC would consider his application incomplete and would not review it. All of the student’s hard work would go down the drain! And if you’ve had the “pleasure” of writing those USC Honors College essays this fall, you can understand exactly how frustrating that would be!
Finally, some of the emails with portal access can time out quickly (within 24-48 hours), so if students miss these emails, they will have to follow up with the admissions offices to explain why they aren’t checking their email each day as requested - not a great impression to give off!
Have a great weekend and check those portals!