A bit of a chill in the air when we came into the office this morning, kids back at school, and seniors submitting applications almost every day - happy September!
BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK
TULANE EXPERIENCES BACKLASH FOR IDA RESPONSE
Early on Tuesday, Tulane University began evacuating students to Houston in response to Hurricane Ida. Students won’t be permitted to return to campus until October, and classes will continue online, so many are headed home while others will stay with faculty in New Orleans.
Tulane blamed faulty forecasts for the late evacuation, and people on Twitter became ANGRY! Criticisms of the university’s response went viral, demonstrating that the path of the hurricane had been predicted to hit New Orleans several days in advance of the evacuation. We touched base earlier this week with a current freshman we have at Tulane and were glad to hear that she is safe and doing well, but really sad that she won’t be able to return to campus for six weeks.
(Side note: Despite the sometimes unpredictable weather, Tulane is growing increasingly popular with students - their acceptance rate dropped from 30% a few years ago to 9.73% this past year! The class of 2025 at Tulane set records for diversity as well as academic excellence.)
BUT THE AMHERST COVID BACKLASH IS WAY WORSE
I have always been on the more conservative side with Covid - just this week I kept one of my kids home from school for days as a precaution because kids in other classes there were testing positive and I didn’t want to risk exposure. So I do understand being cautious and in general applaud that.
But what is Amherst thinking? They are taking their Covid restrictions way too far, in my opinion, and students are furious. This piece from the New York Post made me laugh - “Students, all of whom were already required to be vaccinated, will spend non-class time in their dorm rooms and may leave campus only in a handful of defined emergency situations. One of these is apparently going to the bank, though what a bunch of would-be rowdy undergraduates who can’t hit up the local dive bars or have a coffee will need money for is a mystery.” Sounds fun, right? I really like Amherst, but yikes.
COVID-19 OUTBREAK AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
On the other end of the spectrum, Liberty University switched abruptly to remote learning this week following a coronavirus outbreak on campus. Their numbers tripled within the last week and they now have 4x as many students with Covid as UVA, JMU, VCU and Virginia Tech COMBINED!!! To put this into perspective, their student population is about 15,000, and the combined student population at those four schools is about 115,000. Time to start getting vaccinated, guys! With limited ICU space at the only local hospital, the university had to pivot to protect its students. Liberty is just one of several schools, including Rice and Duke, that have made changes in the last few weeks in response to the Delta variant.
One week ago at Liberty. Seriously???
COLLEGE FOOTBALL KICKOFF
College football started this week, with fans eagerly awaiting yesterday’s top-25 matchup between Ohio State and Minnesota. As universities struggle with the Delta variant, it is up to the colleges to manage COVID-19 during these travel games. Some football teams, including Ole Miss, Arizona, and Boston College, have 100% vaccination rates headed into the season.
BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
My favorite college rankings were released this week! I look forward to the Princeton Review’s rankings every year, and we often recommend them to our clients. Instead of ranking the colleges from best to worst in a general sense like many other guides, Princeton Review identifies the characteristics that students seek in an undergraduate education and identifies the top 25 schools that best fit each one. They are called "Great Lists" and range from "Great College Dorms" to "Great Career Services" to "Great Professors" and more.
I also really like the write-ups in the Princeton Review rankings - they give a "School Says" and a "Students Say" section for each aspect of the school. This gives you a more realistic sense of what's happening on campus. For example, the "School Says" part about Wash U's campus life reads: "Washington University offers a nurturing, yet intellectually rigorous, environment where students from all identities and backgrounds thrive." But what do the students say? "WashU is ‘the package deal. Great academics, amazing extracurricular activities, and the best people.’ There’s ‘always funding for student groups, student initiatives, university-run activities, research, and the infrastructure is unmatched’: ’Dorms are five-star hotels, food is delicious with tons of variety, [and] the buildings are gorgeous.’ (I agree!).
Create a free account on review.com to check out all of the rankings and write-ups, or buy the brand-new "Best 387 Colleges" book, which contains the same information all in one place.
Tulane and Penn State joined together this week for a webinar on “Making the Most of Your Common App.” If you missed the event, you can check out this recap. There are some common sense tips from each school, but our biggest takeaway is the importance of demonstrated interest at Tulane. As we mentioned above, their acceptance rate has dropped into the single digits, and Tulane is a school that takes demonstrated interest seriously! Students who are applying this cycle should make sure to prioritize visits, optional essays, and interview opportunities to maximize their admissions strategy.
Lastly, the WSJ published a fascinating piece that I know would strike a chord with MANY of our readers here in Northern Virginia. It explores the increasingly problematic issue of public universities rejecting their own state’s students in order to accept more out-of-state applicants. Why is this happening, you ask? Because the out-of-state students pay a whole lot more in tuition. Texas and North Carolina were identified as two schools that are bucking this trend, which is why it’s next to impossible to get into UT Austin or UNC Chapel Hill from out of state. According to the article, the other “48 out of 50 flagship universities increased their share of out-of-state freshmen from 2002 to 2018. The average increase was 55%, although some … increased by more than 150%.” So basically everyone just pays extra to go to their neighboring state’s universities since they can’t get into their own, which brings the states more revenue but also increases student debt.
OFFICE HAPPENINGS
As I have mentioned before, we are continuing to transition from working primarily with our original Class of 2022 cohort to kicking off the application process with our juniors and spending more time with our Late Start Seniors and grad students. And we’re hearing from our Class of 2021 students as many of them finish up their first week of classes, which is so fun!
One of our 2021 students sent us this absolutely adorable plant a few weeks ago (the picture doesn’t do it justice). I’m considering kidnapping it for my home office instead because I like the color so much ;)
Remember, if you just started senior year and are feeling overwhelmed - it’s NOT too late for help! Seniors who book a Meet & Greet within the next several weeks will likely be able to finish their applications by November 1. It never fails to amaze me how we can completely dig these families out of a bad situation and put them on a path to success in a matter of days, and it’s really gratifying because they are always so thankful and appreciative. A mom told me the other day that working with us was like taking a magic pill and losing ten pounds overnight. I wasn’t sure where she was going with that (haha) but then she explained that while it’s always better in retrospect to do things the right way (I.e. diet and exercise, or spending a year on the college application process), sometimes you really just need a quick fix and that’s exactly what we gave her! :) I can appreciate that!!
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