College Confidential has a unique opportunity to connect students directly with college admission professionals to share timely, reliable information that can be used when making critical decisions related to higher education. With the recent sweeping changes due to the coronavirus, students are uncertain about the impact to admission decisions this year and potentially in future years.
To assist students and their families as they navigate these changes amid uncertainty, College Confidential is hosting a panel discussion via webinar where you can hear from college admissions professionals on how they see COVID-19 impacting such factors as:
admission decisions;
admission calendar and timelines;
financial aid needs/awards; and
how the switch to eLearning/online testing will impact student evaluation and admission decisions.
You can ask questions for the webinar by replying in this thread.
UPDATE: For those you have missed the webinar, you can check out the recording here:
How will schools take into account current Juniors who were planning to take SAT/ACT this spring and are now unable to do so? Many will only have one chance to take it (hopefully) in Aug/Sep. With disruptions in grading, how will GPAs be calculated for these same Juniors when they apply next year?
Will schools be less likely to revoke acceptances from students whose last semester/quarter grades were negatively impacted? What about if the student ended up not receiving a diploma because of the impact of the last semester/quarter grades?
How will COVID-19 affect how many students you take off the waitlist for your schools? Do you foresee more students getting accepted from the waitlist or less than usual? Are you putting more students then usual on the waitlist, or is it still the same amount as usual? I know it’s hard to give a precise answer, but a guess would be helpful if possible.
With international, national, and frankly, most activities canceled will colleges be more lenient on the extracurricular activities? As most activities are done in junior year, a lot of opportunities for increasing participation in activities are lost.
Hi! How will the freshman year of incoming (class 0f 2024) college students be affected? I’m a current senior in high school and want to know how my freshman year will be impacted. Will classes be postponed or held online?
Thanks!
For rising freshman, if classes wind up being held online in the fall, it would be better for me to defer for a year. Will this be a possibility and until what date?
College is expensive, and certain majors do not translate as well across an online platform, such as performing arts. Essentially, students in those majors are paying a very high price for a lesser style of education under COVID-19 restrictions. Is there any talk of reimbursement, refunds, reduced prices, increased financial aid? As the parent of a performing arts major who has been accepted into some very expensive schools with minimal financial aid (possibly as a result of COVID-19), I am extremely hesitant to make a financial commitment to any college at this time. I would first like to know how high-priced performance programs plan to compensate for lower-quality cyber lessons and missed live performance opportunities should COVID-19 restrictions continue.
I want to second all of the questions about whether colleges will be business as usual in the fall - or will we all be stuck in distance learning for the next year. And if so, should we just defer a year?
Coming into this year I was planning on taking a GAP year preferably after I got into my dream school. Unfortunately, I was waitlisted and was wondering if next year will end up being ultra-competitive because of the possibility of a lot of students taking GAP years and then re-applying.
Adding to questions about campuses potentially not opening this fall, what options are colleges considering for incoming freshman? My daughter is on a gap year, starting at Tufts this fall. Is it reasonable to expect freshmen to begin college online, away from meeting students and becoming familiar with their schools and campuses? Will colleges be proactive in addressing what flexibility and options to offer incoming freshmen, such as postponing start of college to 2nd semester? Thank you!
What will universities do differently during the 2020-2021 applicant selection process (compared to recent prior years) and in what ways should the expectations and planning process of high school seniors be different as they prepare their applications?
Have endowments gone down due to the downturn in the stock market? How will this impact financial aid availability, especially for merit aid for students applying in fall of 2020?