(upbeat electronic music)
- Hi, everyone.
Dr. Steven Mercer here, and it's great to be back
with you again, to talk a lot about college admission,
and especially what's been going on
with college admission during these
really unprecedented times.
Last time, I spoke about two groups of students
that I'm thinking a lot about,
and I was thinking a lot about high school seniors,
and I'm thinking a lot about high school juniors.
And there's a set of issues around college admission
that impact both groups, but this time I wanna talk
in more detail about high school seniors.
Right now is when high school seniors,
in very traditional times, when we're not having
a pandemic like this, where everything
is in change and upheaval, right now is a time
when high school seniors need to be making
a lot of big decisions.
There's a lot going on, and usually,
actually about this time exactly,
those decisions are made already.
There's a few days left until May 1st,
but things are really, really different this time,
and so I think I wanna talk to the high school seniors.
So, just like last time, my overall message is,
there's still a lot that's unknown.
And I had said to some folks the other day,
I gave them some information,
and literally an hour later, that information changed,
and that seems to still be happening.
You know, one of the things I like to do in my spare time,
just for fun, I like to watch the news on the stock market.
I find it to be very, very interesting.
I wish I had any money to invest, I don't.
But I just find it really interesting.
And what I find during these times,
during these tumultuous times,
where things are going on in society,
and not just the economy,
is that the stock market is very volatile, right?
So when it's up, it's not just up a little bit,
it's up a lot.
And when it's down, it's not just down a little bit,
it's down a lot, and it's happening
multiple times during the day or week.
And that applies to college admission right now.
The volatility in positive admission decisions,
or negative admission decisions, which is getting denied,
the surprises in who's getting into what colleges,
how many students a college is admitting,
the kinds of scholarships that are awarding,
and the fluctuation in all the changes in policy
are happening in a big way, in a volatile way right now.
So I wanna urge everybody, that if it's feeling crazy,
it is, and so it's okay.
We're gonna weather this storm,
and high school seniors, college is not going away.
And all the hard work that you've put into high school
and your college applications, it's gonna pay off.
It might be a little different, but it's gonna pay off.
So, when I said there's volatility,
there's volatility on two sides of this equation.
One side of the equation,
it's what's going on with colleges.
I'm gonna talk about what's going on with students, too,
with seniors, but I first wanna talk about
the volatility and the changes going on with colleges.
So a big, big change is, May 1st is traditionally
a deadline by which all applicants
must notify the college to which they are like to go,
that this is where I'm going.
They have to fill out some forms,
send in a deposit, and for all intents and purposes,
the college application process is over on May 1st.
Now, there's sometimes a little bit of overlap after that,
but what's gonna probably happen,
and we already see it happening,
is May 1st is not gonna be
the end of the process for high school seniors.
Colleges are having trouble filling some of their classes,
they are extending the deadline beyond May 1st,
and they're offering students the option
of committing by, right now, by June 1st,
and it's really important that that,
you understand, if you are a senior,
that that's not something across the board.
That differs college by college, state by state.
So if you're weighing your final decisions right now,
and you have not made your final decision,
please, you have to double-check
with the colleges that you're considering,
and understand what their deadline is.
Sometimes college websites are a little hard to navigate,
there's a lot of information.
If you have any doubt, just call them.
It's a very simple question, and it's an honest question,
and you can get that answer really, really quickly.
And if you need some more time, it's okay to ask.
If a college has not extended their reply deadline,
it's okay to say, "Could I have some more time?"
If, they may not give you more time.
But if they are able, they will.
And then, it's important that you have that information,
if you're gonna extend it.
Now, related to that is, more and more colleges
have what are called open applications,
where they're keeping their doors open,
their options open, 'cause they are really, really worried
about these uncertain times.
And they're worried whether or not
they're gonna get the right number of students
to accept the offers of admission
that they've now sent out several weeks ago,
and they're worried.
So more and more colleges are having an open door right now.
Now, I'm not saying, if you're a high school senior,
you can just go back and start reapplying to college,
and do this whole process over again.
You can't, right?
We are, for all intents and purposes,
at the end of the process.
But I want you to know that
there's some flexibility built in,
not everywhere, but a lotta places.
So a student that I'm working with
just sent me an email this morning,
and the student said that they made
their final decision two weeks ago.
They notified all the colleges that they are not attending,
they notified them, they said,
"Thank you very much, I made another choice,
"I'm going to another college."
And, like a lotta students at home,
they've been discussing and thinking
about the world situation, and what feels comfortable
to the student and that family,
and the student emailed me this morning,
and let me know that they're rethinking their decision.
That they're worried that they didn't make the right choice,
and that perhaps they want to be closer to home.
And already, before emailing me,
they emailed one of the universities
to which they had been admitted,
the one that was closer to home, really great school,
and said, "I'm rethinking my decision."
And they said, "We'd love to talk with you."
That's going to be a little bit more common right now.
I can't promise it's gonna happen everywhere,
but I want you to know that it's okay to be rethinking,
it's okay to be talking as a family,
talking to friends, people that you trust,
and making some decisions for yourself.
Now, that's gonna just create
more volatility and more changes,
because if this student does wind up
withdrawing from the other university
to which they originally committed,
and enrolling in another university,
then it's gonna open up spots there.
It's a little bit of a cascade effect, potentially,
at universities across the United States.
Now, also in what I call normal times,
which we probably remember, 'cause it wasn't that long ago,
at around this time, high school seniors
are not just dealing with final decisions,
but there was an increase in the use of a waitlist
by colleges and universities all across the United States.
In the last five years in particular,
there's been a really strong increase in waitlists.
And this waitlist, all by itself,
adds uncertainty, and it adds a volatility,
and it's always a tough part of the process
if you're waitlisted at a university,
or more than one university,
that you truly wanna be considered for.
This year, the waitlist is compounded
with all of these things I've just mentioned.
More colleges are using waitlists already,
the waitlists are gonna be more and more important
to the universities this year,
and what traditionally happens, last year, years before,
is if you're on the waitlist,
you usually aren't gonna find out anything
about that waitlist, usually, until after May 1st.
That's because that's the deadline
by which colleges and universities have set
all students to commit, and then on May 2nd,
they know, did we meet our goals?
Do we have some leftover space?
Did we over-enroll?
And at that time, on May 2nd,
that's when they start to open up the waitlist
and start calling, at the top of the list,
and they work their way down, until they fill that class.
This year, that's going to be compounded.
And what's happening, not at every university,
but surprisingly, there's been what's called movement
on waitlists much earlier.
So, as I said, usually it's May 2nd at the earliest,
that most universities would have any idea
whether they need to go to their waitlist.
This year, universities have already started to analyze
how many incoming students they have committed
by this date, before May 1st,
and they're anticipating the need to go to the waitlist,
and they are going to their waitlists earlier.
When you are in a college admission office,
the folks that work there, going to a waitlist
is a challenging part of their process.
Regardless of how it feels as a student,
for most universities,
they can't just call one or two students
if they have one or two spots to fill,
and immediately be all set.
Because when they call a student on the waitlist,
in traditional times, that student
often has committed elsewhere.
They've moved on, as they should.
They've chosen a great university
from those that they've already been admitted,
and are not on a waitlist,
and so that university has to put that student aside,
and get to the next student on the list.
And that also has a cascade effect.
Because they're often gonna need to go
deep into their waitlist, just to fill
a modest number of spots available.
This year we're starting to see waitlist movement early.
My recommendation is this.
If you're on a waitlist, you need to proceed
as though you are not on the waitlist.
You need to make your decision
of where you would like to go,
from the universities to which you have been
fully admitted, not on the waitlist.
If you are contacted about a waitlist,
the agreed-upon rules in the world of college admission
is that students are given at least 48 hours
to make that decision.
Now there may be some additional pressure
that colleges are feeling,
and they may communicate that to you,
if you're offered a spot on the waitlist.
But the agreed-upon rules, and these are just
an agreement that colleges have made,
there's no laws or contracts,
but they've agreed together that they will give students
at least 48 hours to make their decision.
They're probably gonna be pretty strict
about that this year.
And again, there's some colleges
that might try to push that a little bit.
But if you are offered a spot off of a waitlist,
it's probably a good idea to say, "Thank you,"
first and foremost, "I'm gonna discuss this with my family.
"When do you need me to get back to you?
"What's the latest?"
And of course, usually with those decisions,
comes decisions around not just admission,
but to which major you've been admitted,
'cause that can be different
than the major to which you've applied,
and financial aid and scholarship could be different.
And so that's really important information
that you need to have before you do anything
with regard to waitlists.
And they need to be able to provide
that information to students,
colleges need to be able to provide it, immediately,
if they want students to make a quick decision.
Now, I mentioned money and scholarship and financial aid,
and that's one of the other big unknowns right now.
So, of all the things that I had mentioned
in my previous episode, that are unknown,
this one is still unknown to a great degree.
It's okay to be worried about money.
I continue to encourage all students
that are trying to figure out, along with families,
how are they going to afford college,
what's that gonna look like next year,
I encourage you to call the universities,
speak to the financial aid offices directly,
and also, speak to the admission offices directly.
That's my recommendation.
There's no one formula, that I think this has to be
very much a case-by-case situation.
Now, finally, one of the big changes that's being discussed
is whether or not universities will open in the fall.
As of right now, as we're getting towards the end of April,
there are a very small number of universities
across the United States that have indicated
they absolutely will be open.
Across the board, the overwhelming vast majority
of colleges and universities across the United States
are saying, "We don't know yet.
"We wanna be open, we wanna be offering classes,
"we wanna be bringing in students
"in a safe and healthy and productive way.
"We just don't know what that looks like yet."
So, it's a really honest question
to be asking, "Should I be going to college in the fall?"
And that brings me to the other side of the equation, right?
Students, seniors in this case.
What are you gonna do next year, right?
Because we have this unknown
about whether or not colleges are gonna be open,
or what they're gonna look like.
If they're gonna be online classes,
will you be able to move into the dorms?
Do you want to move, if you're considering is,
to move far away from home?
Those are all unknowns right now.
And last time, I had said, it's unknown,
hold on, be patient.
And now I'm starting to feel like,
and I'm starting to advise,
that it's time to start making some plans
for what you might do next year
if college that you're considering
is not open for normal business.
Either closed altogether, which I don't think is likely,
but probably looking very different.
I'm not saying that I know it's gonna be that way,
but I think if you're a high school senior,
I think you should start making those plans.
And what that might look like
is what's called a gap year, right?
And that's become a popular practice,
it has been popular in other parts of the world,
where students take off a year
between high school graduation and starting college,
to work or volunteer or travel,
or just recharge and do a number of things,
and get clear on their next step into adulthood,
and take a better advantage of college.
There is a lotta discussion about
whether students are gonna be doing gap years.
I think it's okay for you, as a senior,
to start thinking about that.
Now, what you're going to do is a big question mark.
That could be work.
That could be, travel right now seems unknown,
how you're going to work seems unknown.
Doing some kind of volunteering,
that's a possibility too.
But my recommendation is to start thinking about it.
Now, one of the things that students are thinking about,
and if this is something that you're thinking about,
I have a very strong recommendation.
You may be thinking about taking college courses
at a local community college,
so that you can continue on with your education,
start building some of your college units,
which you can hopefully transfer over,
and again, you have to be really careful
that if you've committed to a university,
a four-year university, and you're going to take
college classes anywhere, community college,
another local college, you have to be very, very clear
on what the rules are as to how many college units
you can transfer in, and if you can do that at all.
Okay, that differs university by university.
And you have to be really clear.
But if you're considering taking one or more,
a few classes, a lot, at a local community college,
my recommendation is that you apply
to that community college right now.
Applying to a community college
looks very different than applying
to a traditional, four-year university.
It's not as lengthy of a process,
there's typically no essays, the application is simpler.
But there are often steps involved.
And those steps are gonna be
a little bit more challenging now,
because of the way everybody's working from home,
and offices are remote,
and so, there's going to be, I think,
a flood of students applying for community colleges.
Coming up in the summer, and certainly in the fall,
as everybody's plans become more clear.
My recommendation is apply now.
If you don't need to use the community college option,
there's no harm.
You don't have to pay, you don't have to commit,
it's not a lotta time, it's not gonna change your plans,
but I think it is very prudent
that you put that in place now.
Now, another big concern that I'm seeing seniors talk about
is finishing up senior year, along with,
I guess, the disappointment of senior year
looking pretty different than what they thought
about the traditional end of a school year,
and end of high school activities like proms
and other celebrations.
I know that's really frustrating,
and I think schools and students and families
and neighborhoods are finding different ways
to celebrate students and seniors that way.
But one of the things that's really coming up, too,
is your classes look really different.
And a lot of high schools have said
they're gonna be doing pass/fail grades
as opposed to the traditional grading,
whether that was a letter grade,
or some kind of a numerical grading system.
Colleges across the board have expressed
very, very flexible policies about this,
and they are going to give you credit
for your pass/fail classes.
If there is a college out there
that right now has not going to be
allowing that for seniors, I'm not aware of any.
I am aware that all colleges in the United States
are clear that as long as you pass your classes,
you will have satisfied the requirements.
Now, if you're in a high school,
and you're doing online or remote,
and you are not on pass/fail,
and you are getting some type of traditional grades,
let's say letter grades, it is still imperative
that you finish your school year strong.
College admission can be jeopardized by low grades.
Even though you've been admitted,
and we're at the end of this process,
you are not the exception.
You can't just go and pass your classes,
you have to continue to do as well as you can.
But be assured that colleges are going to accept your grades
if they're pass/fail.
Now, seniors, one of your responsibilities
is to have your final high school transcript
sent into the colleges to which you're applying,
so that they know you're ready to go, and you've graduated.
This is something that's gonna be
maybe a little bit challenging,
because your high schools are closed,
or your counselors are working remotely.
So therefore, I'd like you to make sure
that you are in close contact
with your high school counselor
or your school counseling office,
to make sure that they know, when school's over,
where you're attending, and to which admission office
they need to send your final high school transcript.
Okay, I think I've given you
a lot of information today, for you seniors.
Hopefully things will become a lot more clear
in the next days and weeks,
and I'll continue to update you.
And stay tuned, high school juniors,
I'd like to talk with you next time,
in more detail, about some of the things I'm seeing,
and some of the recommendations that I have.
Until then, I'll see you next time.
Bye.
(ethereal music)