Coronavirus Silver Lining: Easier To Get Into Many Top Colleges

Dave_Berry
Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:24:38 +0000

"If there is a glimmer of brightness in the current plague besetting the planet, it may be that high school seniors in the United States are suddenly more likely than ever to get proverbial “fat envelopes” or acceptance letters from their dream schools, as colleges send out final letters of admission in the coming weeks.

‘We were already in a very new and uncertain world of higher education enrollments, caused by the demographic shift and the high cost of higher education,’ says Bill Conley, vice president of enrollment for Bucknell University, a selective liberal arts college with an enrollment of 3,600 in rural Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. ‘So this [pandemic] comes along and throws it very much into the food blender, you know, when it was on just a little bit of mince, it is now on full grind.’

As a result, Bucknell and many other schools, unable to court prospective enrollees with festive campus “admitted students days” or even routine campus tours, will be increasing the number of students they send acceptance emails to in an effort to ensure that they yield enough to fill their incoming classes." …