Covid-19 offers non-elite students their best shot to attend the most-elite schools

Applying to College
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Covid-19 means this could be the most competitive college admission year ever. Why? Because of deferrals. Take Harvard as an example: About 20% of students deferred. Unless Harvard adds seats to the freshman class next year, their acceptance rate this year will drop to around 3%. But Covid-19 also presents a rare opportunity: it gives non-elite students their best shot to attend the most-elite schools.

Think about it. Testing is optional, many students have a semester or two of pass/fail grades, and the pandemic has prevented students from participating in many school-based activities. So how will admission readers evaluate you? They will focus on your writing, nontraditional activities–like work–and your letters of support more than ever. Competitive students who might have been out of the running with low test scores, now have an opening: to win over their admission reader with compelling writing that highlights their intellectual curiosity, academic vision, and texture.

Jeff Selingo, a leading voice on college admissions this year, took an opposite position in a Washington Post article entitled “Covid-19 will make college admissions even easier for the elite.” (Would add link but not sure it’s allowed.) His subtitle sums-up his thesis: “Admissions officers will be relying on high schools they know best.” In other words, with no testing, and unusual transcripts tainted by online learning, admission officers concerned about a student’s academic aptitude will accept more students from high schools they know better–and that’s typically elite schools.

I’m offering an optimistic, but candid, counterview in the spirit of respectful disagreement based on my time as a Stanford admissions officer. Jeff is right that top colleges accept more students from certain schools. But the main reason: Exeter and Andover typically have more compelling applicants. At Stanford, we didn’t give deference to certain schools. We looked for the most compelling applicants. Sometimes that meant we admitted more students from Exeter than other schools. (Is that fair? Of course not. But that’s a different debate about the quality of our public schools.)

Jeff’s take makes sense: the rigor of your high school course load is critical to admission. So you could see how an admission officer, struggling to size up your academic ability this year, might lean on the school you attend. But the justification for rigor relies on a questionable premise: admission officers are concerned about whether you can succeed at their school. I think we need to challenge and refine that idea in two ways.

First, since Jeff’s talking about the “elite” getting an edge, let’s talk about the schools they apply to: Here’s Harvard’s Dean of Admissions under oath at the Harvard Admissions Trial: when asked how many of the 40,000 applicants are academically qualified to do the work at Harvard: “A very large percentage could do the work at Harvard.” (Trial Day 3, Tr. 194:15-20.) I had the same experience: I’d say 80% of the applicants I read could have thrived at Stanford–they were from all sorts of schools. And let’s keep it real: college grade inflation is rampant. Most smart high school students would do just fine at most colleges (at least as measured by grades). So concerns about student performance are overstated.

Second, in my experience, admission officers all care about access to education. Now, it’s true they are concerned if a high-performing student from a weak school will succeed. But in my experience, that concern is overstated. Because here’s the truth: admission officers would much rather take a chance on a smart, first-generation student with moxie from a weak school, than admit a smart student from an elite school.

Numbers have always been the least interesting thing about students. They are necessary, but not sufficient. And this year, they matter less than ever. Jeff thinks colleges will make up for the lack of numbers this year by deferring to better high schools. I think they’ll make up for it by weighing your writing, activities, academic vision, texture, and letters of support more than ever.

Bottom-line: I can only speak to my experience. But the primary question I always had as an admission officer: “Is this an intellectually curious student with a compelling vision for what they want to study and how they want to use their education?” That comes from writing, activities, and the ideas students care about. Not school pedigree. This could be the most competitive year ever. But it will also level the playing field more than ever: for the hardcharging, thoughtful, weak-test-taker student to shoot their shot.
–MCS

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I find some of your perspectives very interesting here as well as in your AMA thread. They seem to run counter to some “conventional wisdoms” held (at least here on CC). Is it possible that the differences are due to different actual implementations of admission policies, which seem to be similar on the surface, at elite colleges? Would these actual implementations, along with subjectivities in human judgements, better explain why an applicant is accepted at one elite college but rejected at another than what we attributed to so-called “fit” factor?

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I have always found statements that elite schools rely on the ‘outstanding’ LOR from high school teachers. My kids went to 3 different high schools (same kids, 3 schools each) so they had 3 different GC and a wide assortment of teachers. I never read anything from any of the GCs or teachers that I found to be even decent writing. A simple note home or a comment on a paper could contain multiple grammar and spelling errors. The third and final GC was not very mature and I did not depend on her for anything, especially help in applying to colleges. I’m sure the form that she filled out had a lot of checkmarks and no comments whatsoever.

The final school sent students to MIT, Navy, UNC, Duke and other top schools. I’m sure their parents (and coaches, as many were recruited athletes) did the work to get them in.

I don’t think a lower income student would have any better of a chance at the elite schools this year from that school unless they are athletes. Their LOR, essays, activities will be the same as they always were or even ‘lesser’ as there are limited public activities for students to participate in, and the LORs will be written by the same people they always have been. Around here, there are still private tennis lessons and music activities for private students, but the public facilities, from rec centers to libraries to cultural activities have all been closed for months High schools in the suburbs were open (now closed) but the city ones were not.

If the only thing holding back a student from getting into an Ivy was a test score, then maybe they have a better chance, but the score is not usually the only issue.

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The issue with being so encouraging is it can miss reality. More competition will come as more kids blindly apply to tippy tops, because they can. The top colleges will not lower their expectations.

It doesn’t matter who says 80% of applicants could do the work. These elites are looking for much more than simple keeping up. They see themselves as communities. The whole in holistic matters very much.

Face it. As hard as the past year has been, ther will still be those who meet and exceed expectations. Plenty, to fill seats. I’m not sure it’s some favor to encourage the long shots, as a generality. My experience is adcoms will be fair. But the bar is the bar.

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I have to agree with this.

I believe colleges will stick with what they know and where they have success. They know the rigor at certain high schools and what that involves as well as knowing whether or not the students that come from that high school can hack it at those elite schools.

The high school my kids attend always get multiple students into Penn, but never get anyone into Princeton. We have a track record with Penn, none with Princeton. While it’s not impossible for someone to get in (maybe one day they will), I don’t see a school like Princeton suddenly taking a risk on an unknown, especially one who doesn’t submit a test score when they know what percent of their applicants generally do submit test scores each year.

I also think more important than LORs will be the essays. Universities do not want to see 20,000 essays about Covid and how it sucked up their junior or senior year. As always, I am sure there will be the usual bad topics students write about that will instantly eliminate them, or the kid that doesn’t proofread their essay and eliminates themself when they mention how they want to go to School A, but are applying to School B.

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Interesting topic

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@gobigred2025 Rigor has always been extremely important for selective colleges, so I would think a kid aiming for those types of schools would already realize that (or at least their counselors would). It’s why they all want to see your senior year schedule in addition to what’s already been taken.

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Agree with @lookingforward, the 80% figure used by AO’s is a bit disingenuous when it comes to how many students actually are at the top of the pile and make it to committee or even the first cut. Covid will undoubtedly affect the final selection, and some kids who do get in this year might not have been gotten in in a normal year and vice versa. There will also be plenty (probably most) of students where it doesn’t matter. I don’t think there will be too many who make it to the top 20%/committee who wouldn’t make it Covid world or normal world. IMO, the kids who most likely lose out are the kids who would have had high test scores coming from lower performing HS’s where the score could have more clearly signaled to the AO’s that these were kids worth taking a chance on. It might also help out the kid who for whatever reason is a bad test taker but gets great grades and/or has some heavy duty EC’s.

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  • No test scores
  • Pass/Fail grades, skewing the GPA
  • Fewer/lesser ECs
    In other words, fewer data points. Decisions based on fewer data points are, statistically speaking, more arbitrary.
    I know this is obvious but has not been clearly articulated so far in this discussion.
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@BKSquared The interesting thing about test scores is that in late September or maybe early October, it was published that at least 75% of students had taken the ACT at least once. Since then there have been numerous ACT dates, with results provided within 2 weeks, other than the writing score (which most schools don’t require anyway), so most students had a score, they just decided not to turn it in. I wonder how colleges, especially elite, factor that variable in, especially in areas that they know the ACT/SAT was given and not cancelled and then students didn’t turn them in. Some schools near where I live made sure 100% of the students were able to get tested. Colleges may know that and may use that in their determination or not if a student turns in their score.

But the bottom line, I think test scores are becoming less significant anyway in terms of determining success in college. Where my daughter attends, they dropped the Subject Tests altoghter for Engineering because they realized every kid was getting around the same scores so there was nothing to differentiate them. Therefore, it’s no different really with ACT/SAT. I once read that an ACT score of 34-36 is considered the same because it’s the difference of only a few questions between the scores.

That is why the rigor and grades in the rigor and strength of high school, essays, recs, and maybe track record of other students at the school from that high school may make a world of difference this year. I do wonder if AP tests play any role because an AP class at one school may not be equal to an AP class at another school, so all A’s are not equal, but the AP test is the same, so the 5’s are the same. That’s one piece I’ve never heard any info on.

I do agree that if you’re at a lower performing school, you will no doubt be hurt by all of this, including the financial piece, and there’s a problem with that, but there are also plenty of great schools that give tons of merit money especially for someone that doesn’t want to go far away. I think the % of acceptances will be similar to past years also, because no school is going to want to publish that they didn’t accept URMs, first gen, low income, international, male/female, etc.

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@Artsykiddad

For schools that were pass/fail I would think that more than anything the first semester grades are going to be uber important. Those students may just be deferred to the next round, yet at the same time, they would still have had 5 semester of grades and if they were solid grades, then I wouldn’t think pass/fail all of a sudden would have hurt them.

In our state, the rule was that your grade couldn’t go down from what it was after third quarter. This was meant to help the students that had a lousy third quarter, which was bs since covid wasn’t a factor yet at that time. So basically q4 was set up to be a joke. The problem is that it had a negative impact on students that had higher grades - 1) way less motivation since if they were already happy with the grade they could check out and 2) if you were at an A- for instance, it was near impossible to bring it up to an A. The benefit was really for someone with a C who could turn in any assignment and bump their grade, but if you had an A- you would have to basically get perfect on everything to bump that grade and there were few grades in Q4, yet all the C’s could make up Q3 work and so on. It is what it is.

I think the kids who are going to be most impacted by EC’s ultimately will be current juniors and sophomores who have yet to even participate in a bunch of ECs. Every one of my son’s EC has been able to go on, even if it’s virtually. The only thing he wound up missing last year was his sport, although he made the team, had 1 week of practice then it was stopped. They also didn’t get to go to the state competition for one of his other ECs which is what I think will impact these current juniors, sophs, etc. especially because their honors will be much more limited. Our school still hasn’t given the PSAT to juniors and it is currently reschedule for Jan and may still be cancelled. Look how many that screws. It’s a mess all over. Oh and the Dec ACT just got cancelled, also impacting mainly Juniors. Big domino effect and everyone should be happy with what they were able to get in, but expect that this semester is just as important. In our case we are still remote and have been since last March and I believe will be all year, so not sure how that will impact AP Exams when so many other schools are in person, but it is what it is.

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@gobigred2025: I hope you’re right about schools increasing seats. As mentioned, I said unless they add seats, it could be the most competitive year ever. Adding seats makes sense, although maybe there are logistical problems with a bloated freshman class starting next fall? Defer to someone with higher ed. administration experience.

But as another poster mentioned, the lack of test scores may encourage more students to apply to more schools making it more competitive as well. We will also see lots more students trying to transfer I think.

Re: internationals: my understanding is, at least with that Harvard 20% deferral example, it includes international admits. Which makes sense: I don’t see any international student who earned admission to a top school last year deciding to pass on a Harvard–probably any top 20 school–to attend some school in their home country. Schools down the ranks, sure.

But curious to hear more from you on what specific schools have said about increasing class size?
–MCS

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A minor consolation, slightly off-topic: PSAT was canceled in Chicago last year due to the teacher strike. It was not rescheduled before the pandemic, and consequently, it was never administered.
We were very skeptical when they announced that the scores from the school-administered SAT in early fall of this year would be used for the NMS qualification - to a point of removing USC from our list (the 50% NMF tuition discount being the only way for us to pay for it). To our surprise, D made it to the semifinals, and it was announced within weeks of the test! So maybe these PSAT-deprived juniors are not completely screwed after all.

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@1NJParent Hard to say: do you have an example? Maybe because I was an admission officer–once you’ve been trained, read applications, advocate, vote, see who gets through a committee and why, you have a different perspective.

But having reviewed Harvard’s Reading Procedures that they use to train their admission officers, it looks extremely similar to how I was trained to read at Stanford ten years ago.

Your point about subjectivity definitely is right: I think a kid gets into Harvard but not Yale based on the the particular reader who decides to advocate for them or not; and different readers will be moved to advocate based on slightly different things.
–MCS

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@anon45019500, Yale has publicly come out that they will admit admit the same number of students for the Class of 2025 as for prior classes. There will just be a smaller sophomore class. YAA Q&A: Jeremiah Quinlan ’03, Yale dean of admissions | Yale Alumni Association.

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@twoinanddone I share your experience with rec. letters. They almost never helped a student because they are standard positive. My main point is writing and activities are going to be crucial this year–letters of recommendation a distant third. I rarely saw a letter of rec. so compelling it became a leading piece of evidence in the pitch to admit a student.

But you might be surprised how a test score can hold back a student that’s otherwise compelling.

And as for activities–school based activities rarely help you stand out. Because almost all students do this. So a student who picked up a job stocking grocery shelves during the pandemic, or who took the initiative to self-study an MIT open course online–they will stand out.

Athletes: Right. That’s one of, if not the best, ways to get admitted to a top school. (Which doesn’t make much sense to me, but that’s how it is right now.)

–MCS

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@BKSquared Helpful. Then I’m wrong about it being the most competitive year. (Unless schools get lots more applications from students due to no test requirements.)

So here is from Yale’s Dean: “About 20% of our incoming first-years opted to take a gap year this year – in a typical cycle, that number is only 3-4% – but the increase will not have a negative impact on those applying to be part of the Class of 2025. University leadership has approved a plan to offer admission to the same number of students in this coming cycle as in a typical year. So, this year’s first-year class was smaller than usual. Next year’s class will be larger. The shift won’t make it harder for students who are applying out of high school this year to be admitted to Yale.”

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@artsykidad

Could be true, although many haven’t taken the SAT, as they take the ACT at our school, however, as I also live in IL, they do have to take the Senior SAT and maybe with luck they will get it in April. Our Seniors have not all taken that yet either. 2/3 have taken it, with the last group set to take it in April since the state didn’t waive the requirement.

Congrats to your daughter on national merit. You’re halfway there with USC! Now just need that acceptance letter! :slight_smile: That is one of the three schools my son bumped to RD since he was so burnt out from his applications and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be offered one of their scholarships, since they’re very heavy on service orientated activities and that’s not him, not to mention the last few years they have not accepted anyone from our school for Engineering. They also seem to reject from our school the students who are at the very top of the class. I’m not sure if that’s because they think the student won’t go there otherwise or what, but the kids that get in there are not usually the ones in the very top so it’s usually a surprise who gets in. If he doesn’t get into his ED school, I guess he will be spending the next few weeks working on his final 3 schools still on his list. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. :frowning:

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@anon45019500

Yep, exactly what we’ve been told. Smaller soph sizes means more room for freshmen, especially in schools that require on campus living.

Also, about a month ago there was an article, I believe in the NY Times, that stated that the number of seniors that signed up for common app accounts this year was way down compared to last year and that schools reported the number of applications compared to the same time last year was also way down. I believe it was down about 8%. That is fairly significant. You of course have the students applying to schools that they have no business applying to which may increase applications at some of the elite schools because some want to apply just for sh*ts and giggles.

One school my son applied to that my daughter also applied to two years ago changed their application. This time they actually asked your highest Math course taken and what years you have taken Physics. This was specific to their engineering application. They clearly didn’t want to waste time looking through student transcripts and will probably use that as a means to eliminate students right off the bat because one requirement they have for their Engineering school is that you had to have had at least the equivalent of Calculus 1 /AP Calculus AB.

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@anon45019500

Sounds like you got your answer from the Yale example where they said they will have more freshmen since they are admitting the same number as in the past, plus the ones that deferred will bet attending.

My daughter attends an IVY. They too have said that they expect to admit at least if not more than they have in prior years for the same reason. One factor in that is they have 5 new dorms they are building, 2 expected to open this next Fall. They were initially slated to be for sophs but with the small soph class, my understanding is that they will now used for freshmen, which makes sense since they’re on the freshman campus anyway.

I worry though that classes will just get bigger and either they need to offer more lecture sessions, which stresses the professors, or hire more professors. Her classes are already large.

I believe the issue with internationals derives more from visa issues and whether or not they are still applying to ED. From the FAQs section I just read on a school my son applied to, it states that they’ve been having more international students in recent years for ED than in the past. This year I cannot believe that to be true.