It’s time to begin the fourth year of Meet the Class! The class of 2021 has the strangest admissions season in memory—standardized tests being largely sidelined, few in-person campus visits, all on top of the demands of living through a pandemic—and I’m interested and excited to see how it goes for the more than a million college-bound high school seniors. It looks like there will be four seniors participating this year, and here is the first installment. Enjoy!
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Kendall Wulbrun, Assistant Director of Admissions at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Guy Hatch, Admissions Counselor at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Skylar Kuhn, Admissions Counselor at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Logan Reed, Assistant Dean of Admission at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Diana Zhu, Admission Counselor at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Hayley Burke, Assistant Director of Admission at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Perri Watts, Assistant Director of Admissions at University of Colorado Boulder.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Christine Grotzke, Regional Admissions Manager at Michigan Tech University.
A little over a year ago, I wrote about the accelerating rate at which colleges and universities were going test optional. I explained that test-optional isn’t going to last, simply because there’s no good reason for it to remain. I’m going to re-post the entire thing here, but read all the way to the bottom for really important updates and recommendations. Or at least skip down to the bottom for the updates. But really, just keep reading.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Bailey Burrows, Texas Regional Coordinator of Admissions Services at Arizona State University.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
This response is from Daly Simpson, Assistant Director of Admission at Villanova University.
I’ve been a little worried about Katie. She and several members of her family had been sick. Flu-like symptoms are bad enough, but during our current pandemic they can be pretty scary. Also, she seemed to be leaning heavily toward one college, but wanted to delay her decision until the end of May. I thought maybe she was having doubts. Katie has allayed my fears, though. Read the full interview below to see how she’s feeling and where she’s going to college. Congratulations, Katie!
This spring has been a little different than the past few years for Meet the Class. With everybody staying home, there have been few campus visits or tours. High school classes have been minimal. Prom and social events have been postponed or cancelled. There’s been little hand-wringing and no last-minute decisions. Below is a short and sweet conversation I had with Diana, who will be attending the University of Oklahoma next year! Congratulations, Diana, and thank you so much for sharing your weird, stressful school year with us. Read the full interview below.
For most high school seniors, this milestone year has really been ruined by Covid-19. Classes cancelled. Graduation cancelled. Prom cancelled. Senior trip, senior skip day, senior prank: cancelled. On top of that, somewhere around a million seniors are also trying to figure out if, where, and how they’ll go to college next year. Campus visits have been moved online. Some, but not all, colleges have pushed their decision/deposit date back by a month. Family financial outlooks are changing drastically. There’s just so much chaos, and it’s hard to know what to do. Unfortunately, I can’t make any of it better or easier. What I can do is give some tips and reminders to think about as you go through this process as best you can.
In the several years I’ve been following seniors through Meet the Class, I’ve never been as anxious and excited to hear back from them as I am right now. I haven’t met any of these students in person, but I’ve really come to like them over the past eight months. So I’m relieved to hear from Katie, who was able to make a campus tour before everything closed down, and is making use of her extended time to make her final decision. Read the full interview below.
Meet the Class gets updated each month from September to May. Each installment features an interview about both the facts and the feelings of where the student is in the process.
While seniors have a few more weeks before they have to make their final decisions, it’s ok to let them go and start focusing on current juniors and sophomores who are planning for their admissions season, not ending it. One of the most basic, and common, questions about the whole experience is how many colleges to plan on applying to. Most years there’s a news story about someone who is accepted to all eight of the Ivy League schools—though so far there’s no report of that this year—and there’s also usually a story about someone accepted to a large number of universities, sometimes over 50. Are these role models for you to follow? How many colleges should you apply to?
I felt nervous sending out interview questions this month. We’re in the middle of a global health crisis, a global financial crisis, and a near-complete shutdown of society. So…how’s your college search? But I also want to know that these seniors, who I’ve been checking in with since September, are doing ok. So far, I’ve heard from Diana, and she’s fine. She’s still on track to head to college in the fall. The University of Oklahoma is her frontrunner, though Texas Tech is still in the running, and Texas A&M has decided that they want to be on her list too. Read the full interview below.
Meet the Class gets updated each month from September to May. Each installment features an interview about both the facts and the feelings of where the student is in the process.
The final stretch of college admissions for the high school class of 2020 is, to say the least, a giant mess. Some schools have moved their decision and deposit deadlines back a month to June 1, while many are keeping the May 1 deadline. Tours, visits, and accepted-student events are cancelled. As millions of people find themselves unemployed, financial aid will have to be re-figured for many would-be college students, and already many seniors are changing their minds and deciding that they will not be going to college next fall.
But many, many seniors are still making their decision as best as they can. Make sure you look up any online events your possible schools are hosting, check on their deadlines and how to appeal financial aid offers for changes to your family’s situation. Understand that you may not have as much information as you would like to make this decision, but you’ve got enough. You knew to apply to these schools, didn’t you? Other than that, here’s my advice for the coming weeks.
