BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE LAST TWO WEEKS

You know it’s a long-overdue blog update when there was an enormous issue that has since resolved itself!

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT VISAS

This was a really big deal. In what most believe was an attempt to force colleges and universities to reopen for in-person instruction, the Trump administration moved to revoke all visas for international students whose courses had moved online due to COVID-19. There are more than 350,000 international students on F-1 visas in this country right now and most would have been impacted. The colleges would have lost an incredible amount of money - so they decided to sue. Harvard and MIT filed the first lawsuit and many others were in the works. Fortunately, the administration reversed the order and all is (mostly) well again for now.

TEST-OPTIONAL ADMISSION

Schools continue to become test-optional for the Class of 2021! Since the last time I posted, some of the newest additions to the list include University of South Carolina, University of Maryland, and MIT!

ALABAMA

How crazy is this? Alabama has announced that they will not waive the SAT or ACT for admission. Instead, they will conditionally admit Class of 2021 students. Each will need to take the ACT or SAT by May 1, 2021.

MICHIGAN

They had an incredibly confusing “test-flexible” policy that was, at its core, test-optional. I was telling everyone not to worry about it and to read between the lines - but how many seventeen-year-olds know how to read between the lines with something like this? I’m glad to see that they changed the wording on their website to make it clear that they are test-optional, but it would have been nice if they had indicated on the website that a change was made… now the confusing part will be that some people will think the old policy is still in effect. Can’t win!

ATHLETICS

There’s a lot going on in this space! First, Division I and II student-athletes still have to take the SAT or ACT for NCAA eligibility (whether their actual schools have gone test-optional or not), and nobody is happy about it, let me tell you. The basketball coaches have been particularly outspoken. Next, many universities are dropping athletic programs as a result of COVID-19 and the economy. Stanford cut nearly one-third of their varsity sports offerings about a week ago, and Dartmouth made lots of cuts too. Brown cut teams, reversed a couple of the cuts, and maintains that all of this is unrelated to the pandemic. And then of course there are all the sports that have been suspended for either next fall or the entire year. Here’s a great searchable list. As I tell student-athletes every single year, you’re not in until you have an acceptance letter from the admissions office - but that’s never been more true than this year.

ACT

Lots of angry parents and students this past weekend. There were many situations in which kids showed up to take the test and couldn’t, for whatever reason. Most had last-minute cancellations, but I read this story on Facebook of a mom that traveled from Georgia to South Dakota to get her daughter a seat at a test center (can you even IMAGINE!) and then they wouldn’t let her test because the proctor was mistaken about a rule. That poor family. I would have lost it.

DEADLINE AND DECISION PLAN SHIFTS

Johns Hopkins announced the addition of ED II and Georgia Tech shifted their deadlines around, now differentiating between in-state and out-of-state students. UVA announced the deadline shift for ED a little while back, and my guess is that we will see more of this over the upcoming month or two.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE LAST TWO WEEKS

Scott Galloway posted a great blog post that examined why certain colleges and universities are reopening for in-person instruction and others aren’t: in short, they need the money. “If students don’t return in the fall, many colleges will have to take drastic action that could have serious long-term impacts on their ability to fulfill their missions. That gruesome calculus has resulted in a tsunami of denial.” He then went on to assess the strength of over 400 institutions while considering issues of value and vulnerability. Ultimately, he placed each school in one of four quadrants: thrive, survive, struggle and perish. He noted that schools in the “thrive” category could actually come out stronger and potentially more exclusive as a result.

Check out the entire study - it’s definitely worth a read. Many were predictable, but there were also some real surprises on there for me.

This Washington Post piece about misdiagnoses and inaccessible care at college health centers is (a) scary and (b) not particularly surprising. Everyone, and I mean everyone, complains about this - no matter where they go. I am not sure I have ever had anyone tell me they were happy with their college health center. When I was at Wash U almost 20 years ago (that hurt to type) we always used to joke about how they’d either tell you that you were pregnant or had mono.

If you’ve been thinking about putting together a learning pod for your child, check out the Washington Post’s very in-depth piece on them - in which I was quoted! I also spoke on WTOP about these a week ago. Trust me, pods are not as easy as they seem. In the right setting, they could be great, but 95% of the plans I’ve read and heard about do not sound very promising. More thoughts on these later in the week.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

This is our busy season, and boy are we busy! The Class of 2022 is continuing to fill up and we have a bunch of kids on the 2021 Late Start Waitlist. Most of our September availability is up on the calendar at this point, and we will be reaching out to 2022 students in the next few weeks to give them booking instructions to get started this fall!

On a separate note, I have been in the media a lot recently, and some of you saw my segment on NBC at the end of last week in addition to the links I posted above. With regard to the NBC piece, I was a bit surprised to see Colvin Run spotlighted that way and hoped that it didn’t give anyone the wrong idea. As I posted on Facebook on Friday, we have not just liked it but LOVED our experience there. It’s a wonderful school with the best teachers and administration you could ever ask for. Truly, every single one of my daughter’s teachers has been phenomenal.

So please know that while I definitely have issues with the county, I have no issues with Colvin Run, which has been nothing short of amazing. Honestly, I think most of my clients’ parents would say the same about all of their schools. Langley, Madison, McLean, Oakton, whatever - everybody loves their teachers and principals.

But I do think most parents agree that the county is simply too big, and there were a lot of balls dropped for a lot of kids this past spring as a result. It will be interesting to see if FCPS ends up starting the year 100% virtually or not - if I had to put money on it, I think all schools will, private and public. We shall see!