We’re now moving into week three of our new normal. My students are figuring out how to navigate their online classes. They’re becoming masters of college research, finding virtual tours and college Instagram accounts to explore. And they’re doing an amazing job of taking care of themselves, going for socially distant runs with neighbors, picking up hobbies they haven’t had much time for lately, and finding joy in small things like cooking dinner with their families. It has truly become a bright spot in my day to get to spend a few hours talking to these humans. It is also a pleasure to get to focus on normal things, pre-pandemic things. Because no matter what is going on in the outside world, my seniors are still making decisions about where they want to (hopefully) go in the fall and my juniors are gearing up for their own application process in just a few months. As my seniors get their decisions back, many of us have noticed a marked increase in waitlist offers. This has been frustrating for my students as it means they have to make decision in the next month or two while another part of them waits for the final news. But given our uncertain times, this is not surprising. Many students and families are unfamiliar with the concept of yield in college admissions. Instead, they focus on admit rate, or the percentage of students who are admitted out of the students who apply. But yield, or the percentage of students who actually attend out of the students who have been admitted, is equally important. Colleges have limited dorm rooms, classes, and resources, and so admissions officials are very conscientious about how many students they should admit in order to yield the right freshman class. Schools like Harvard and the Naval Academy typically yield about 80% of the students they admit, while flagship public institutions like Berkeley and University of Michigan yield around 50%, and regional private schools like Santa Clara University and Baylor University yield about 20% of the students they admit. Understanding these statistics is vitally important to ensuring that they don’t enroll too many students – and have to triple bunk kids in freshman dorms – or enroll too few students – and miss their budget significantly. But this year is a brave new world. Because of the pandemic, colleges are much less confident in their historical yield numbers. Students may be more inclined to choose a college close to home than in previous years. With the financial upheaval, some families may no longer be able to afford some of the colleges on their students’ lists. And in the face of all that uncertainty, colleges are turning to their safety net: the waitlist. I’ve talked about the waitlist before and steps you can take if you find yourself in admissions limbo. But my biggest takeaway from this development has been the importance of a well-balanced college list with at least two or three safety schools and two or three target schools. Because what I’ve seen this year is that the reaches are still reaches, and typically come back as a no. And the targets have become more unpredictable, resulting in increased waitlist offers. But the safeties are still safeties, bringing acceptances and scholarship offers even in the midst of all this upheaval. I have always been a strong proponent for the balanced college list, urging my students to tilt their choices more toward safeties and targets and away from too many reaches. That’s easier said than done, but I have seen firsthand that it produces the best results, the most choices, and an overarching sense of confidence and empowerment at the end of this process. And in this unsettling moment, that’s more important than ever.
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Here in California, we officially kicked off the week with an order to “shelter at home,” and avoid nonessential outings as much as possible. As someone who already works from home and meets with students online, this didn’t change my day-to-day as much as other people’s, including - and especially - my students. So I’ve tried to be a space of consistency for them as everything else around them shifts. My teenagers have suddenly gone from having every hour of their days scheduled with school, activities, homework, and carpooling to having little or no structured school time and no activities. They’ve gone from barely seeing their parents and siblings to spending hours every day together. They’ve gone from having no spare time to read a book to finishing an entire series in a weekend. This upheaval has understandably caused a lot of chaos and anxiety for my students as they struggle to separate out facts from rumors and create a new daily routine for themselves. I’ve tried to hold some of this anxiety for them and tell them what I do know (see last week’s post). And after they’ve had a little time to feel whatever they’re feeling, I’m encouraging them to try to change the narrative and look at these new spaces as opportunities instead of gaps. At Collegewise, one quality we’ve always urged our students to develop is their initiative. We often talk about the difference between a summer internship you got because your mom talked to someone she works with and one you got because you did your own research, found a company whose work you were excited about, and emailed them yourself. Those are two very different stories to share in an essay or an interview, and they demonstrate very different qualities that a student will bring to a college community. Colleges have always loved students with curiosity and initiative, drive and flexibility. And in this current moment of fluctuating norms and daily cancellations, that’s exactly what is called for. So while you might have been planning to do a research program on a college campus, now you have the chance to design your own experiment and run it in your kitchen or your closet or your garage. While you might have been hoping to work in a political campaign office and go canvassing door-to-door, now you have the opportunity to make record numbers of phone calls for a candidate you believe in. While you might have expected to go to football practice twice a day, now you have the opportunity to rediscover a hobby you love that you haven’t had time for these past few years. There is great loss in this moment and today’s students are being asked to make enormous compromises. But, as with many situations, our ability to stay nimble will be the thing that helps us through this crisis and helps us thrive on the other side. The most important thing is your health and the health of the people around you. But if you find yourself sitting at home with nothing to do, instead of hitting “Next Episode” on that new Netflix show, think about one way you could take initiative. I debated what to write about this week, whether I should discuss the athletic recruiting event I attended last week or speak to the admissions decision trends I’m seeing with my seniors this year. But in light of this week’s news cycle, it seems bizarre to talk about anything but coronavirus. But I also don’t want to contribute to fears and anxieties around this topic, making people feel more out of control than they probably already do. So instead, I want to share a few college admissions-specific points and some resources that might be helpful to high school students navigating applying to college along with everything else. Standardized Tests: The most immediate consequence of coronavirus that my students are seeing is with SAT and ACT test centers closing. The next SAT is tomorrow, March 14th, and the next ACT is April 4th. As more and more high schools close and shift to online instruction, those administrators are also having to decide if they should continue to host the SAT and ACT on their campuses. The biggest issue so far is the lack of consistent information. The College Board and ACT have published lists of school sites that have cancelled their test administrations, but they’re not always accurate or up to date. For the most reliable information, we’re recommending that students look at the specific high school or district website to find out what their plan is. It’s hard to know how this will evolve for current juniors and sophomores. More colleges may implement test-optional policies in the next year to address the fact that students were less able to prepare for, take, and retake their standardized tests. ACT and College Board may try to implement a more flexible computer option for their tests, similar to the GRE. With little information, I’m encouraging my students to follow the usual timelines as best they can, but try to stay flexible and nimble as things change week to week. Campus Visits: Spring break is traditionally the time that my sophomores start to explore colleges they might be interested in, my juniors visit some of the schools they are most excited about applying to, and my seniors make a last tour of the schools they’ve been admitted to before choosing their home for the next four years. But as colleges are shutting down for the rest of the month or the rest of the school year, they are also suspending campus tours, admitted student events, and information sessions. This is particularly hard for my seniors who may have to make a decision about whether to attend a school without the benefit of visiting, meeting current students, or attending special events. But while exciting, admitted student weekends are often not very representative, painting a school in the best possible light rather than giving students a taste of the normal day-to-day rhythm of a campus. I often caution my students against weighting that experience too heavily in their decision process. The best way to choose your college hasn’t changed: think about your top priorities for the next four years – a particular major, the opportunity to do undergraduate research, a great local live music scene – and think about which college is best equipped to help support you in those goals. And remember that most students are happy with the school they decide to attend, even if it wasn’t their first choice. And as always, it’s not about where you go, but what you do when you get there. For younger students who are trying to get a feel for places they won’t be able to visit, many colleges offer virtual college tours and have a range of interesting videos on their YouTube channels. And if you want to learn about a city you’ve never been to, travel sites like The New York Times’s “36 Hours” series are a great way to learn about a new city and their culinary and cultural offerings. Yes, many things are changing, and that change brings with it some discomfort. But those changes don’t mean that you can’t go to college at the time you were planning to. And while college may look a little bit different for the next six months, or year, or year and a half, students can still get a great education and work toward their larger professional goals. And maybe the struggles you’re seeing play out today will inspire you to learn more about epidemiology or public health or higher education. We’re going to need smart people to tackle serious problems, and in the coming years, that could be you. RESOURCES: SAT Test Center Closures: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/test-center-closings ACT Test Center Closures: http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/test-day/rescheduled-test-centers.html College Campus Closures: https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/coronavirus-impact-on-campus-visits Virtual College Tours: YOUniversity TV: https://www.youniversitytv.com/ YouVisit: https://www.youvisit.com/collegesearch/ I woke up yesterday morning to the news that Elizabeth Warren had ended her run for president, and I’ve been feeling a little blue. Don’t tell me you’re surprised; I’m a college-educated, white woman – this is what we do. But just as I was really getting into a funk, I read a post from one of my friends reflecting on his feelings about the primary as a Yang supporter. He encouraged people who had voted for someone who was no longer in the race to think about the legacy each presidential hopeful leaves behind. Which got me thinking about when a failure isn’t really a failure. Even if they missed the mark to become the Democratic nominee, each candidate has left their mark on the Democratic Party. In 2016, Bernie Sanders brought the party far closer to embracing Medicare for all than they ever had before. Andrew Yang brought significant attention to the idea of a universal basic income. And Elizabeth Warren (and Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Tulsi Gabbard) made the idea of a woman as president a little easier to imagine. The reason this is striking a chord with me this week is because we’re now in the home stretch of the college application process for seniors. March is when the vast majority of admissions decisions come back, especially for those highly selective schools that students have been crossing their fingers for for months (or years). Realistically, these are the schools that are most likely to say no. For many of my students, these are the first no’s they’re going to hear in the process. And as we head into what can be a more demoralizing part of the college application experience, I want to get a head start in helping my students see these no’s in a different light, not as failures but as the normal setbacks everyone faces when they try to do something big and meaningful. There is a certain vulnerability in trying to do something and coming up short, whether running for president or applying to college. But I hope that even if the experience doesn’t turn out the way you hoped it would, you’ll still hold space for that vulnerability. Losing out on becoming the Democratic nominee for president doesn’t make Elizabeth Warren any less accomplished as a senator, professor, and advocate. In the same way, hearing no from a college you were really excited about doesn’t make you any less valuable as a student or a person. |
What is the When I Was 17 Project?When I Was 17 is a blog series dedicated to collecting the varied stories of people's career paths, what they envisioned themselves doing when they were teenagers and how that evolved over the course of their lives. I started this project with the goal of illustrating that it's okay not to know exactly what you want to do when you're 17; many successful people didn't, and these are a few of their stories.
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