If some colleges move to online classes this fall I believe there will be a drop in attendance by students taking a gap semester / gap year or taking online classes closer to home or at less expensive community colleges before transferring credits later.
That, along with financial pressures in the universities from lower tuition, perhaps fewer international students, etc…
If an applicant was a good candidate based upon test scores, GPA and the intangibles (and possibly a full-pay student), but rejected, do you think colleges would reconsider them on a one-on-one basis (i.e. a direct appeal / letter to the university admissions office)? I assume they go to their waitlist first.
Maybe a better way of asking this, do you think colleges will expand their waitlist retroactively?
For most schools, their waitlists are huge. If you are willing to commit to a school with all of the uncertainty, why do you think that enough with the current admits+ WL will not? It is time to move on.
I agree with @Eeyore123. I think that this is what the waitlist is for.
I do think that some schools might go further into the waitlist this year than they do in most years. On the other hand, I also think that universities cannot know now quite what is going to be happening in September. The same of course is true for employers.
This is going to be a tough year for nearly all of us.
In addition to going to their usually deep waitlists, I expect some schools to have another go at accepted students who turned them down to attend elsewhere, by offering them more financial aid.
To add: Schools are reaching out to students who were denied entry into particular programs but admitted to the university and making offers for admission into same said earlier program where the student was denied.
So, that is not a reach out to a formerly denied student, on the whole, but to the student denied in one aspect of admission, yet accepted in another aspect.