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Over the past year (and more!) I've so enjoyed getting to know each and every one of you. I've delighted in your successes, marveled at your cleverness, laughed at your silliness, and so admired you for your resiliency. Above all, I've been so grateful to you for the kindness you have shown. When I posed the question to you, "Who do you want to be in the time of global crisis?" you rose to the challenge, selling Black Lives Matter signs and artistic, homemade cakes to raise money for charities, organizing a group to make masks to donate to vets early on in the pandemic when masks were hard to come by, and engaging your peers in important conversations. You watched your siblings when your parents were working, you helped out around the house, you cleaned neighbors' yards, and you tended to friends who were struggling. When the world dealt you some unlucky cards, you played the best hand you could and each of your gestures of kindness and grace has made an impact.
Now that the college admissions cycle for the Class of 2021 has largely wrapped up, in this excellent article, Jed Applerouth takes a moment to review how colleges, and students, adapted to the challenges presented by this past year and how the effects of the pandemic will continue to have an impact on the college admissions process.
When I meet with a 9th or 10th grader, it’s not hard to predict their course sequence through high school. While I can’t predict which elective classes they might take, it’s not hard to guess if they are on track to take AP or Honors classes. We can easily figure out how far along the math and foreign language sequence the student will get and you can give a good guess at where their SAT scores will fall. So, Selingo is right: Course selection as early as middle school can predict course selection in high school and, ultimately, class rank.
In his blog, Next, Jeff Selingo wrote a compelling piece about the Pandemic’s Long Tail in Admissions, arguing that the impact of COVID-19 on the college admissions process (decisions to become test-optional, ever-more holistic reviews of applicants, expanding wait pools) were responses to a crisis. Now that there is a moment to breathe and take stock of the situation, he opines that it’s time for some lasting (arguably long-overdue) changes to the admissions process.
It’s hard to imagine a world that won’t be forever changed by the events of this past year, and perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in higher education. While we all hope that all students will have the opportunity to return to their colleges next fall, while they might be going back to the same campus, they will not be going back to the same place.
On this snowy first day of February, it’s hard to imagine the arrival of the warm, sunny, days of July and August, but it’s time now for students to start thinking about how they will spend their summers. While one goal is to demonstrate to colleges their ability to find meaningful and productive ways to fill their discretionary time, more importantly, I hope that they will learn a little something about themselves in the process.
The admissions cycle for the Class of 2021has been like none other. While it’s too soon to know anything from certain (and one thing we’ve learned from this past year is that nothing is certain) it is likely that the pandemic will continue to impact college admissions, in some ways for the better. So, what might students do now to start to build their strongest applications they can?
In truth, the fundamental advice I give my students is the same as it has always been: Do your best and be your best. But these last few months there’s been a twist. Telling students to take classes that challenge and inspire them also means finding other opportunities for independent learning. More than being involved in their communities, I encourage students to take on responsibilities around the house, help neighbors, and find ways to reach out to those in need. And with the time they might have spent preparing for the SAT or ACT I encourage students to do things that are more personally fulfilling and deeply engaging.
The personal statement is the most powerful 650 words a student shares with admissions readers. While much of the rest of the application tells what the student is; class president, varsity soccer team midfielder, barista at Starbucks, of 4th of 5 children, the essay gives the applicant the chance to talk about who they are. More than just “telling their story,” this narrative must move well beyond plot and explore motivation, character, and even conflict.
While the most important thing for seniors to do is to put together the most compelling application they can, they should be sure to use the features and information provided on the Common Application to organize their college application processes. There are a lot of pieces to pull together but being organized, strategic, and proactive will help make this process more efficient, productive, and hopefully rewarding.