Last week the Common Application let us know that they will be adding a question to the 2020-21 application that gives you a space to discuss the impact on you from the pandemic. Here is the text of the prompt:

“Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.
Do you wish to share anything on this topic? Y/N
Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.”

You’ll find the prompt in the Additional Information section. Your response, if you choose to respond, will be limited to 250 words.

I’m really happy they added this specific question. Students, especially juniors, have good reason to be anxious about how spring 2020, summer 2020, and possibly fall 2020 will be reflected in their college applications. On one hand, almost everyone has been affected, so there’s no need to explain to colleges that there was a virus that kind of shut down the world for a while—they know that. On the other hand, it’s affected everyone differently, and students may want a place to explain how it affects them, especially if it’s hit them in drastic ways.

As someone who lives in a hurricane-prone area, I’m also pleased to see that they include natural disasters in the prompt. It makes me think that this question, though maybe without the specific reference to COVID-19, is here to stay.

There are a few things to keep in mind about this prompt.

It’s optional. If you don’t think your college application is affected by COVID-19 beyond what’s normal for everyone, then don’t feel pressured to write something. Your response, or lack of response, is not going to be the thing that gets you accepted or denied to a college. It’s a chance to explain how the pandemic may stand out on your transcript. If you have number grades for all your other classes, but spring 2020 classes just show pass or fail, there’s no need to explain that. If you normally have great grades, but you still failed most of your spring 2020 classes because you had to care for a sick family member or didn’t have internet access, then you’ll really need to explain that.

The Common Application’s goal is to give you a space to talk about COVID-19 stuff without having to take away from the other parts of the application. It’s a good idea to follow that. You can also fit COVID-19 stuff into the longer “additional information” prompt, and/or you can fit into the longer essay. But don’t. Your case would need to be really exceptional to do that. Only the most extreme circumstances warrant using one of the longer essay prompts to discuss coronavirus-related changes.

Remember that extreme circumstances might be positive, as well. There are a number—a small number, but still—of people who weren’t on a college-bound path before the pandemic but now are. The flexible school schedule allowed them time to work on their mental health. Or moving in with another family member has given the structure or inspiration they didn’t have before. If the break has been a good thing for you, you may feel embarrassed or guilty about that and want to keep it to yourself. But if it is relevant to how a college may see you in your application, go ahead and explain it.

Your high school counselor will also have space—twice as much, 500 words—to discuss how your school’s policies changed during the shutdown. It will be in the school profile section, so it will be the same for all students at your high school using the Common Application. Here are the instructions counselors will get:

“Your school may have made adjustments due to community disruptions such as COVID–19 or natural disasters. If you have not already addressed those changes in your uploaded school profile or elsewhere, you can elaborate here. Colleges are especially interested in understanding changes to:
Grading scales and policies
Graduation requirements
Instructional methods
Schedules and course offerings
Testing requirements
Your academic calendar
Other extenuating circumstances
Your students will have a similar space in their application to share how these events have affected them personally.”

When school resumes in the fall (in whatever form that takes), it would be fine to politely ask your counselor if they’ll be responding to that prompt. If they say no, then you’ll definitely want to answer the individual version of the prompt in your application. It’s not ok, though, to ask to edit or change your counselor’s response. And your parents should definitely not ask to edit or change the school profile.

So if you’re going to write something for the prompt, how do you do it? Normally I favor starting big and unencumbered, and then editing down for clarity and size. Not in this case. For this you’re reporting, not being creative. Start with a single sentence that gets the facts across, and then build onto that as space allows. Don’t be dramatic. Instead of “Tears welled up in my eyes and my stomach tried to condense itself into a tiny ball the moment my parents said ‘we need to talk,’” go with the facts: “Both of my parents lost their job this spring, and we may lose our home by the end of the year.” This isn’t a prompt for showing off your writing, it’s for explaining facts and circumstances. If the facts don’t seem powerful enough on their own, then it’s probably fine to simply not answer the question.

I suspect most students will, in the end, not answer the question. Circumstances extreme enough that they stand out in the context of this year, but simple enough they can be explained in 250 or fewer words, will be rare. But I’d hate for you to not know it’s there.

Update: the Coalition Application has also added COVID-19 questions.

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