Will less people apply to distant colleges this year?

Applying to College
1

Do you think, or have you heard reports, of less people applying to distant colleges this year due to COVID? (Especially with engineering, since use of facilities is essential to learning)

2

I’m not clear on your last point - a close school with closed labs is no better than a far-away school with closed labs, and I don’t see why a close school would be more likely to be open.

There have certainly been posts here of students choosing to accept offers to closer schools, feeling the ability to travel home more quickly is beneficial. I imagine that would hold true of applications. Uncertainty likely drives students to stay closer to what’s familiar,

(For SAT reference, it’s “fewer”)

3

The most “prestigious” schools haven’t really seen a decrease in applications, if anything they’ve seen an increase (ex: Brown had a 16% increase in ED applications.) However, I definitely think a lot of students took gap years or decided to choose schools nearby (this is all speculation, as there’s no clear trend that can be made since decisions could be based on finances, program strength etc.)

Even at the schools that are open with students on-campus, most large lecture classes (at Brown, it’s above 19 students), are held virtually—in response, some schools (such as UIUC) have been shipping at-home lab kits to test experiments and visualize basic concepts.

4

I have not seen any stats. It would seem that university admissions staff should know the answer.

I have been expecting that the pandemic will be over by September of 2021. The one person that I know who is applying to universities is applying to them ignoring the pandemic.

I have wondered whether there will be more applicants for 2021 for fewer spots due to students having deferred and not started this past September.

5

That may be the case for gap years of choice by students from financially secure families attending colleges where the on-campus residential experience is an important factor to them.

It may be less the case at colleges where students from families whose finances were wrecked by the economic effects of COVID-19 were forced to drop out or not attend at all because of lack of money.