I would say UCs might be test blind now but they have become reliant on AP scores. I was told AP scores did not matter as much when SATs were taken into account. So in some sense UCs have moved from one test to many tests.
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Tagging a few people who might have interesting perspectives to add.
@AustenNut @Mwfan1921 @blossom
It would not be surprising if URM enrollment increased at colleges that already did not consider race/ethnicity before then, since some URM students are no longer getting into those colleges that used to consider that.
Of course, the effects on individual colleges (particularly smaller ones) can be noisy compared to overall trends.
I didn’t follow college admissions very closely pre-pandemic, so I don’t know how insightful I might be. A few things that I’ve noticed less of among applicants (though not entirely eliminated) are:
- Fewer “nonprofits” founded
- Fewer pay-to-play opportunities touted
Whether it’s because some of those activities became “known” as an admissions trick that therefore lost its effectiveness or whether admissions offices became more focused on equitable admissions and reducing the obvious ways of applicants trying to buy their way in (not a la Varsity Blues, but via pay-to-play enhancements), if the pay-to-play opportunities were ever effective in the first place.
Probably due to the ever increasing number of applications (i.e. students applying to 20+ colleges), I think that demonstrated interest is becoming more important at numerous institutions. Closer to the start of the pandemic it seemed as though there were 2-3 schools where DI was pretty important, but I think it’s grown as colleges are probably having a tough time trying to figure out who’s actually interested in them and how to do their yield projections properly to result in a class of a suitable size.
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I am finding that pay to play “do research and have it published” services have really proliferated. If you have $5k+, you can be published!
I think before pandemic fewer people were doing DE on top of high school and ever fewer were “doing research.” At least in my area this is the observation.
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Absolutely! Research, paid for or otherwise, is considered a must by some kids.
And the idea of service trips as a resumé booster, etc,. while still there, is much diminished from what it used to be. The nonprofit seems to be much less prevalent than it was.
Great ideas from all! What’s lying ahead?
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In our area the landscape for your typical average excellent (or even stronger) student has remained tough. Compared to pre-pandemic times, fewer kids at our HS are getting into T20s despite having similar (or better) credentials than kids 10 years ago. The burst of kids heading south (and by that I mean south of VA) seems to have leveled out. I’m not sure if that is a response to the political climate (I’m in MA) or keeping closer to home given the turbulent economic situation. Taking the SAT seems to be in vogue again (S24 tutored a few kid last summer) after a period where many kids didn’t take it. My assumption is that some smaller schools are going to suffer financially as the cohort of college aged students shrinks and we’ll see an acceleration of college closings. Finally, the lack of grant funding under the current administration is going to lessen the research opportunities on all campuses and shrink the pool of doctoral candidates as spots disappear.
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That’s another great point, and in fact, I have noticed the opposite. For the last couple of years, I have seen a big increase in students applying to southern schools from my area north of NYC. That could be due to the possibility of scholarship money, or successful and aggressive recruiting by southern universities. But I actually think it’s mostly due to word of mouth, at least around here.
Southern colleges generally had less restrictive lockdowns. Kids had more fun. Their friends and siblings have seen that their friends and siblings had a good experience. To me, the uptick in applications to southern schools has been very noticeable.
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I personally know of some families (and read of a lot more) who went south more recently to avoid some of the campus protest issues last year/difference in how those campuses handled it (not saying good or bad, just what it was). Now that those protests have largely died down aside from one ivy that seems to remain in the news, will be interesting to see if any of that reverses.
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I had one D who graduated from a private HS in 22 and was focused on private colleges in the NE. Younger D is graduating from our local public in 25 and she is focused on California public universities. (We are in NorCal)
For older D who applied during COVID, she and her peers wrote almost exclusively about social justice for their essays. What else was there to write about in Fall 21 when they were filling out applications? And now, almost prophetically, that is the cohort of students involved in the college protests. (Not saying they’re all participating in protest, just that the level of animation and emotion in this cohort feels very much connected to the COVID timeline).
Younger D, having gone to large, local public high school, is very aware of the ins and outs of the UC/CSU unpredictability. She went TO because the publics were her priority, but about half of her friends took tests. Very few of her friends did anything pay to play, they know it’s pretty worthless. They were more focused on school extracurricular and paid after school jobs, which seems to be producing pretty good results so far.
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I feel like this is a big change in the last few years. Topics like social justice, mental health, and identity seem to be a little tapped out for admissions officers. That sounds terrible but hopefully you get my point. You hear more advice now to not discuss these topics in essays.
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A couple of people have mentioned “pay to play”. As immigrants with no understanding of the US college process until D19 went through it - I haven’t seen that term in this context before. Can you give some examples of what it means in a college application process? Thanks!
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Very much so. There were a few years where these topics were paramount, and now I’m seeing something that might even resemble a backlash against them (talking primarily about social justice and mental health here)
Certainly kids are being advised NOT to write about anything mental health related in their essays. It feels almost like a doorway opened for a few years for kids to be vulnerable and authentic, and then it got slammed shut again. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
I’m not sure I agree with that entirely. I advise students on college essays. Each year, I probably work with 30+ kids just on supplements. The community essay is still by far the most common one for many colleges. (Apart from why this college.) It’s very broad and I think colleges like it because it is one of the few supplemental essays that allows kids to identify a community they feel part of. It’s a safe place for a kid to indicate where they feel they belong.
So a kid can describe ANY kind of community: church, sports, an ethnicity, a race, a club, a culture, a neighborhood, a movement, or something much more nebulous. It can be virtually anything.
I have also seen an increase over the last few years in essays asking questions such as this: Diversity and inclusion are integral to our community. How will you contribute to these qualities on campus?
But I am definitely interested to see if that particular question does indeed get replaced by something else.
I expect a question like this is going to gain traction: “How will you contribute to fostering collaboration and tolerance in our campus community?”
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IMO, generally, writing about mental health issues hasn’t been a good idea for a long time. I came to this site in 2014 and students have always asked about it and are nearly always advised against it.
During the pandemic, yes, it was a bit more acceptable simply because so many students were traumatized. The supplemental Covid essay was meant to address that. The Covid question has since evolved into the Covid and/or other disaster question.
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Have the demographics of students going south for college changed? I.e. do they have a higher or lower proportion of minorities, LGBT, or female students compared to before?
Off the top of my head, some examples of pay to play might be:
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Paying for a summer research experience and then students say, I did research on X topic with professor from Y university…sometimes leading to Z publication.
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Paying to have a research paper published.
Essentially, it’s anything where one has to pay in order to receive an honor/accomplishment that one lists on their application.
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It can also include paid summer travel/service trips (ie building huts in Fiji), and paid pre-college programs on university campuses.
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Of course, there are some very notable examples of non-pay to play opportunities, especially competitive free summer programs. Other examples of pay to play:
Service trips
Summer university experiences
Science camps and the like
Athletic camps, etc…
Paid for internships
Many other examples.
These are all great activities, btw. It’s great that kids do something fun and productive in the summer. My own kids did all kinds of pay to play activities. Of course, paying for things is a privilege that a lot of kids don’t have. It’s more impressive if kids have summer activities that are prestigious and free, such as TASP or B of A SLP.
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I think this message has filtered its way down to a lot of kids at this point. I was surprised by the extent to which my younger D was adamant about only looking for free internship programs or programs that paid a stipend to promote participation. Probably because she was very focused on UCs and CSUs.
A few years ago I had a friend bitterly disappointed that their child didn’t get into UCLA because they felt that him having done the summer academic program there (which costs $) should have been a huge leg up.
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