Covid-19 means this could be the most competitive college admission year ever. Why? Because of deferrals. Take Harvard as an example: About 20% of students deferred. Unless Harvard adds seats to the freshman class next year, their acceptance rate this year will drop to around 3%. But Covid-19 also presents a rare opportunity: it gives non-elite students their best shot to attend the most-elite schools.
Think about it. Testing is optional, many students have a semester or two of pass/fail grades, and the pandemic has prevented students from participating in many school-based activities. So how will admission readers evaluate you? They will focus on your writing, nontraditional activities–like work–and your letters of support more than ever. Competitive students who might have been out of the running with low test scores, now have an opening: to win over their admission reader with compelling writing that highlights their intellectual curiosity, academic vision, and texture.
Jeff Selingo, a leading voice on college admissions this year, took an opposite position in a Washington Post article entitled “Covid-19 will make college admissions even easier for the elite.” (Would add link but not sure it’s allowed.) His subtitle sums-up his thesis: “Admissions officers will be relying on high schools they know best.” In other words, with no testing, and unusual transcripts tainted by online learning, admission officers concerned about a student’s academic aptitude will accept more students from high schools they know better–and that’s typically elite schools.
I’m offering an optimistic, but candid, counterview in the spirit of respectful disagreement based on my time as a Stanford admissions officer. Jeff is right that top colleges accept more students from certain schools. But the main reason: Exeter and Andover typically have more compelling applicants. At Stanford, we didn’t give deference to certain schools. We looked for the most compelling applicants. Sometimes that meant we admitted more students from Exeter than other schools. (Is that fair? Of course not. But that’s a different debate about the quality of our public schools.)
Jeff’s take makes sense: the rigor of your high school course load is critical to admission. So you could see how an admission officer, struggling to size up your academic ability this year, might lean on the school you attend. But the justification for rigor relies on a questionable premise: admission officers are concerned about whether you can succeed at their school. I think we need to challenge and refine that idea in two ways.
First, since Jeff’s talking about the “elite” getting an edge, let’s talk about the schools they apply to: Here’s Harvard’s Dean of Admissions under oath at the Harvard Admissions Trial: when asked how many of the 40,000 applicants are academically qualified to do the work at Harvard: “A very large percentage could do the work at Harvard.” (Trial Day 3, Tr. 194:15-20.) I had the same experience: I’d say 80% of the applicants I read could have thrived at Stanford–they were from all sorts of schools. And let’s keep it real: college grade inflation is rampant. Most smart high school students would do just fine at most colleges (at least as measured by grades). So concerns about student performance are overstated.
Second, in my experience, admission officers all care about access to education. Now, it’s true they are concerned if a high-performing student from a weak school will succeed. But in my experience, that concern is overstated. Because here’s the truth: admission officers would much rather take a chance on a smart, first-generation student with moxie from a weak school, than admit a smart student from an elite school.
Numbers have always been the least interesting thing about students. They are necessary, but not sufficient. And this year, they matter less than ever. Jeff thinks colleges will make up for the lack of numbers this year by deferring to better high schools. I think they’ll make up for it by weighing your writing, activities, academic vision, texture, and letters of support more than ever.
Bottom-line: I can only speak to my experience. But the primary question I always had as an admission officer: “Is this an intellectually curious student with a compelling vision for what they want to study and how they want to use their education?” That comes from writing, activities, and the ideas students care about. Not school pedigree. This could be the most competitive year ever. But it will also level the playing field more than ever: for the hardcharging, thoughtful, weak-test-taker student to shoot their shot.
–MCS
That is one of the three schools my son bumped to RD since he was so burnt out from his applications and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be offered one of their scholarships, since they’re very heavy on service orientated activities and that’s not him, not to mention the last few years they have not accepted anyone from our school for Engineering. They also seem to reject from our school the students who are at the very top of the class. I’m not sure if that’s because they think the student won’t go there otherwise or what, but the kids that get in there are not usually the ones in the very top so it’s usually a surprise who gets in. If he doesn’t get into his ED school, I guess he will be spending the next few weeks working on his final 3 schools still on his list. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. 