Based on the grads from the high school I work at, my kids’ friends from 2019 and 21, and our friends across the country - there are a lot of nearly 20 somethings and early 20 somethings still figuring this out. I was surprised by the handful of kids in the class of 22 who were taking a year to work and not committing anywhere to even defer. There are kids who graduated with S19 who are just now getting to a four year college and may have some credits, but not two years worth. Community college enrollment has been down in much of the country the past couple of years.
The colleges are recalibrating some of the freshman admissions and transfer projections as well. As kids apply to more colleges, it pulls the numbers in various directions.
The Class of 23 will be slightly impacted by some of this, but the colleges have a better feel for things than they did 6 months ago.
This makes sense to me. Our D20 was profoundly impacted by Covid and still today it impacts her path and learning. But I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily been a bad thing.
I’m wondering how my daughter will (should?) handle the not-so-good things in her app.
She had one particularly low grade during distance learning. She’s a good math student, but Algebra 2 online was a hot mess. Then the summer following sophomore year several expected activities were closed and her mood tanked. Fortunately she recovered strongly.
Can anyone relate or point me to a good resource on ways to address such things in an application?
Interesting point I’ve noticed at my D19’s school - WVU, in a conservative state - the school not only doesn’t require masks, it specifically says masks cannot be required by faculty. (!!)
That said, she’s in theater tech, in the College of Creative Arts, and lately, in every indoor pic she posts of rehearsal or class or workshops, all the kids are masked. Voluntarily.
I work in the business, COVID had a minor impact, the biggest impact is coming from test-optional and the ease of Common App. Applications are shifting, more kids are applying to the top or more popular schools. Schools they didn’t think they could get into otherwise. Nonflagship State schools and smaller LACs, are losing applicants and enrollment. Until something else shifts, this will be the trend for who knows how long.
The colleges know there were many different ways that school was happening for students.
Some teachers may have been less available than others due to their own kids being home trying to learn remotely. Some families had multiple losses and serious medical complications. Some students struggled with the isolation.
Showing growth and a positive trajectory in grades will be what they are looking for. She can talk about that in her essays and any college specific short answers. Many ECs lost student leadership as kids graduated and lost steam - can she talk about how she came in and helped re-energize one of her activities?
Finding colleges where they will be able to thrive and be their best self is what this is about.
Miami of Ohio sent an email the other day that there is an outbreak on about 200 students they know of and “strongly recommending” wearing masks indoors.
I will be very upset if schools start mandating masks again, unless there is real evidence of a surge in SERIOUS covid. I work in a hospital in the Northeast and we are NOT seeing any surge like that. I do not want my kids losing more of their youth to this disease for political reasons. I have a daughter at Emory, who’s apartment window is literally a view of the CDC, and Emory is not doing any testing or masking mandates currently. I have no problem with schools mandating that we wear masks when we visit to tour- they should try to protect their students and staff from outsiders.
what I find irksome is when colleges have promo videos where the students are wearing masks outdoors and even speaking to the camera with voices muffled by masks, when they are outside and not even near another person. this seems totally unnecessary and is pandering to the liberal left (which, by the way, I belong to in general).
Out of curiosity - do you happen to have an idea about any shifts that schools are making to ensure they don’t over-enroll? Are they changing admittance policies? I know some larger schools have larger freshman classes this year than before, leading to housing changes (doubles made into triples, housing in hotels temporarily, etc) and also causing some space in class issues (students not getting into the core classes they need). While some smaller schools are seeing a decline, some are bursting.
The LA Times ran an article about the UCs cutting back on admissions due to overenrolling previously.
“Five of the nine UC undergraduate campuses admitted fewer California first-year applicants compared with last year in the first round of offers — mainly cautious about overenrolling. After monitoring the number of acceptances, campus officials then sent out additional offers to students on the waitlist.”
The original LA Times article is behind a paywall so this is a Yahoo copy of the article.
Many of the UCs and Cal Poly overenrolled significantly in 2017. Goes to show, yield is a bit of a guessing game. My daughter’s freshmen class at Cal Poly was over by 1,000 in 2017. Irvine got themselves into hot water trying to rescind offers for silly reasons. This last cycle it looks like they extensively used waitlists to prevent over-enrolling.
My college kids (boston area and SEC) - and the kids at midwest college where I work - don’t seem to care either way about covid now. I think and agree its personal preference with masking. no judging either way; take care of yourself.
What I notice in a college for my D23 - and to me is a much larger, serious situation for teens/college ages - is mental health resources. I appreciate the escalated emphasis on this area, and look for what colleges do in those areas.
That’s interesting. That’s the same dynamic at my daughter’s HS. Even after the policy changed and the large majority of students stopped wearing masks the theatre kids (tech and performance) kept wearing them.
She can’t really speak to re-energizing a group, but she will include something simple about the grade. At an info session this summer an admissions officer at a selective school suggested doing that for anything below a B during remote learning. I’m thinking geesh, my niece dropped out for a year due to remote learning. Fortunately they both got back on track.
As a teacher who lived through COVID with junior high and high school students, any return to normalcy is welcome. So many of our students suffered mental health crisis, and the situation in public schools was much worse. The maturity and reading level of our students coming up from grammar school is markedly low. We can not keep children in a perpetual state of emergency indefinitely. It’s not healthy for their development. All indications are that COVID is now with us permanently like a cold or flu. We need to start treating it that way.
lol, this says something, I’m sure…maybe that theater kids are crazy leftists, by and large, or maybe that they’re really big on health - which makes sense, seeing as how if they go down, the show could go down with them…
