Some high school students will have an experience much closer to normal. The elite boarding and day schools have mostly planned to open in person with the resources they have to make the experience and the standards as normal as possible. That is tens of thousands of kids who will be well prepared for college, and I am guessing the admissions stats will reflect that. A very stressful situation for all.
Are there really tens of thousands of kids that graduate each year from the elite boarding and day schools? I had no idea there were that many.
Well, yes, there are. Many such schools have a graduating class of 100 or more. Consider the 50 top boarding schools in the US. Then add in maybe the top 5 or 10 private day schools in each of the largest 25 cities in the US, and the numbers do add up quickly.
Unfortunately the present situation will exacerbate existing inequities.
I, in no way, meant to ruffle any feathers. I get it, it’s a very stressful time for ALL students and their parents. While I don’t have a rising HS senior, I do have a rising HS freshman so I know what these kids have faced already and will face this coming academic year.
I was in no way suggesting that students have to get all A’s, I think my point is that I am encouraging my children to do the best they can (whether its high school or even college) under the circumstances and that they don’t take anything for granted. Every college will have a different spin on what factors are important this admissions cycle, and frankly how they treat freshman, sophomore, and junior grades and not just the seniors’ grades. I personally don’t think adcoms are going to give a pass on multiple semesters under CV-19 restrictions. All high schools (and colleges) that I am aware of have said they intend to go back to regular grading in the fall (whereas some schools had “credit / no-credit” options this past spring).
Ironically enough as we speak, I’m on a Fall 2020 reopening conference call with the superintendent of our local school district and he said that he has “high expectations” of the students whether they are allowed on campus or are doing their learning using the online virtual academy option.
Regarding testing and TO. Some students will be able to study for and take one the SAT/ACT this summer or fall and some cannot (or will not). I don’t think any of us know exactly how this plays out during college application reviews but all our students can do is adjust to this “new” normal the best they can and put their best foot forward.
Lastly, I do stand by my statement that for the colleges that have early decision, this year it will be even more of an advantage to the “unhooked” applicant to get into their reach college using this option.
Just one father’s perspective and opinions…
"AlwaysMoving;c-22879489"]Georgia Tech has put together a neat Event Risk Assesment tool that allows users to select a group size and then see the % chance that someone at the event has COVID-19 for almost every county in the US.
https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/
Thank you for this link. After I played with it for a while I sent it to a bunch of people.
Local HS announced a preliminary hybrid model - 1/4 of students will be in the building at a time. 1 week in person, 3 weeks from home/per month. All courses live streamed for those who are at home that week. Everything will be graded again. Start of school year pushed back until after Labor Day. Masks required. Details being announced Friday. Nothing yet about K-8.
but resources that are offered at top 30 -35 starts dropping big time as small endowment can be detrimental in this environment.
Totally understand. I truly do. I don’t have any high school kids but talk to families almost daily. I am also helping a few family friends get through this. Some with Act /Sat scores but most that do not. I never suggested testing earlier. Not sure where you got that from. I just know these kids are still working at this. Essays, I assume will count more this year. Friends that counsel kids at The Lab school in Chicago as one example, tell me otherwise. These kids usually get into where they want but the last few years even for them there has been a change. No question this year is going to be different in evaluation of the kids. How much different and who your up against is the question.
essays always counted more and will be always most important unless one is recruited athlete or celebrity.
Maybe I can actually explain. One of your posts was saying something like its almost ok not to get the same grades as you can. At least that’s the way I read it. I am telling you that others(students) are going to make the best of it and study harder if they have to. Some might have to get tutors (if they can afford it) but their not going to settle because school will be different this fall. Yes, every school will be different and learning approaches will be different. Top students will figure a way.
I feel bad for the smart kids that are going to really struggle. Those that don’t like change. Those kids will need some extra help. Essays (unique, personal and interesting), will count more no question. But the kids that can separate themselves and differentiate themselves from the pack might do better. Will see…
Geez why so late. Naperville just okd their plan but teachers I know stated as much a month ago… https://www.nctv17.com/news/district-203-announces-return-to-learn-plan-for-upcoming-school-year/
I would assume it will look similar…
What he said ^^^^?.
Colorado just announced that SATs would be given to seniors (those who should have taken the SAT last April) in schools on Sept 23. This is the free test that Colorado uses as the NCLB test for juniors.
Students don’t have to take it if they don’t want to. All Colorado public colleges are test optional for next year, but some students may want to take the SAT for other colleges or for merit.
Baby steps.
I think the outer limit of developing the disease is 14 days, and that’s why the 14 day quarantine is required. Now, people are infectious a couple of days before getting sick, and if you were infectious I assume you’d test positive, so maybe if there was an instant test you could take it on day 12, test negative and be sprung from the quarantine. If you had an instant test.
What a dandy tool but I am confused about the charts. When using different tools i see different risk assessments. For ex i see that one chart shows a 32.44 % chance that one person will be positive in a 1000 person gathering (using yesterday’s incidence) in NY . This is using the “real-time US and state level estimate.”
I am picking 1000 because we have 1000 people in our high school.
When i use the “risk estimate by county tool” it shows a >99% chance that 1 in 1000 person event will be covid positive. So i take this to mean that in the school there would be 1 positive person.
Anyone seeing the same inconsistency between charts? I giess my county(Nassau) is skewing it that much?
@silverpurple, the chart labeled Risk Assessment Planner, NY, is confusing. You have to decide how many current cases of covid you think are circulating. it depends on how many cases are being missed in testing. If you think every single positive case has been identified, then in a 1000-random-person event there’s a 32.4% chance of one of them being covid-positive.
Most of us think there are a lot of cases of covid that aren’t being identified. If there are five times as many cases as we know about, the probability rises to 85.95%. If there are ten times as many cases as we know about, the probability rises even higher, to 98.03%.
Pitzer College joins Pomona and Scripps in not inviting students back on campus this fall (sorry if this was posted already):
https://www.pitzer.edu/emergency/2020/07/14/fall-2020-plans/
And colleges won’t know it, because we were told to inflate grades.
That said, some kids did great with the online format and learned more than before. Unfortunately their grades look the same as the other kids’.
Ditto to everything homerdog said. A Feb ACT missed because S21 got a concussion a week before. Three subsequent ACTs cancelled, and no sites in our entire region available. Job - cancelled. Two multi-year summer volunteer activities - cancelled. Boys State - cancelled.
And if I hear an AO say one more time, “Don’t worry, we understand, we will look at everything holistically,” I will scream. How to you compare apples to sausages to cookies??
Every. Single. How-to-Get-Into-College book/blog says, “The junior year is critical! The summer between junior and senior year is critical!” It has been drilled into the kids. No wonder they are anxious and bummed.
And on top of this, they can look forward to a senior year that will likely be as dismal as spring was for last year’s seniors. No sports, activities, dances, running to the store to buy all the stuff for a pep rally.
@knowstuff and @socaldad2002 – At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’m not saying it’s not that kids shouldn’t or can’t excel and get As. Of course they should and many will.
That’s NOT the issue. The issue is end of junior year and now senior year are chaotic with many DIFFERENT ways across schools.
Many examples
– students in districts that adopted grade inflation last Spring vs. those who live in districts where they didn’t. (For example, every student in my S’s HS got a 100 on their transcript if they passed last semester – every class, every student so no daylight between any students regardless of performance for the last semester of Junior year.)
– districts with huge technology gaps for students that left promising, low-income students ready to finish out Junior year with a flourish behind b/c of access to high quality internet or devices
- big events that where students’ opportunity to ‘shine’ were cancelled (Athletics, Model UN, debate, etc. My S’s robotics team was gunning for world’s this Spring but everything past the first tourney cancelled)
Yes, motivated students can and will pursue self-directed learning and try to differentiate themselves in some way, but I am saying that that given all these many factors combined, the traditional lens and context for viewing HS transcripts and ECs is out the window b/c there’s no way for an AO in their 90 second initial read will be able to know the circumstances. Admissions systems are simply not able to absorb the new, very different context that each student encountered given all the variables.
So yes, bonus points for those who perform well and manage to shine anyway, but Class of 21 kids are worried that these ‘missed opportunities’ and factors outside of a student’s control are impacting how they are able to present themselves as a candidate.
Kids have ‘their thing’ so if it’s suddenly taken away at a pivotal time after years of building toward it, it’s not like it’s so easy to suddenly pivot to something else that allows them to shine.
You can’t ‘rise to the occasion’ if there’s no occasion to rise to during a season of everything cancelled!!