(gentle music)
- Hello, everyone, I'm Dr. Steven Mercer
and I've been involved in the world
of college admission counseling, for over two decades,
I've worked in a college admission office,
I've worked in a high school as a college,
director of college counseling.
And now in addition to being an instructor
through the online classes,
leading to a college counseling certificate
through UC San Diego extension,
I'm also an independent educational consultant,
which means I'm a private college counselor
and families and students hire me to help me with
their process of applying to college
and make good decisions and find great places
to go to college.
With the pandemic that we're all suffering through,
there's been a lot of changes
in college admission right now.
And it's a bit of a roller coaster,
even for someone like me where I do this full time.
And I'm thinking about this all the time
and I'm reading and talking to colleagues
and I can only imagine for So many students and families
and for the students and families I'm working with,
I know that people have a lot of questions.
The first thing I wanna say to those questions is
there aren't a lot of answers right now.
And I know that that might be a little bit frustrating.
But I wanna be really encouraging
and let everyone know that they should be patient.
The colleges that are out there trying to admit students
trying to get them to come next year,
thinking about the upcoming applications for juniors.
I wanna assure everyone that they are just as worried
about you, and their college experience
and what's gonna be happening in the near future as you are.
They have just as many questions.
They are not taking this lightly.
And I know for a fact that the colleges,
all across the United States, big and small,
public and private, are working really hard
to try to come up with great answers for the seniors
who are really making some quick decisions right now
about what there might be doing next year,
but also the juniors whose applications are ramping up
right about now, and they certainly will be taking off
in the summer and in the fall.
So I just want you to remember that,
that I want you to be patient.
And I want you to understand that the colleges
care deeply about what's happening to all of you,
whether you're student or a family,
a junior or senior in high school,
and also understand that the colleges right now
are being remarkably flexible.
So some of the questions I'm getting from students
are really specific things
like what's gonna happen with the grades
that I'm receiving this year
with the transition to online learning,
or my tests have been canceled, my SAT and my ACT,
how am I possibly gonna apply to college?
And the biggest message I wanna give right now
and this is coming directly from colleges is,
it's okay, colleges understand fully
that there's just an upheaval in everyone's life right now.
And it's impacting the application process in a big way.
So be patient with yourself
and understand that colleges are gonna be patient
and flexible as well.
I wanna be a little bit more specific though,
seniors are asking me,
high school seniors are asking me a lot of questions about
what they should be doing next year.
One of the biggest questions they're asking is,
is it safe to go to college next year?
You know, obviously, no one knows how long
this pandemic is going to last.
And the changes that are being implemented,
the stay at home orders, the canceled classes,
the limits on gatherings, we just don't know.
But right now,
I think most seniors should assume
that school will continue next fall
in a fairly normal fashion.
And I'm encouraging all the high school seniors
that I'm talking with right now,
to just go ahead and make their plans
as though they're going off to college in the most,
you know, traditional, normal way they were,
as they imagined, you know, just a month ago.
If things are gonna change,
the colleges are gonna communicate to you
very, very clearly.
You know, remember that the colleges and universities
in the United States no matter where they were,
were some of the very first in institutions to,
to take pretty careful and conservative orders
to close and to shut down their campuses
and to close down their dorms in the name of safety
of their students and their faculty and their staff.
So I think colleges across the board
are thinking really carefully about this.
And I don't think they are going to bring students
back to campus in the fall, if they don't believe it's safe.
So you have to stay tuned,
but proceed as though everything is going to be
normal next year.
Now, another big question I'm getting from seniors is,
is it worth it?
If my classes are going to be canceled?
If I won't be able to live in a dormitory?
If I'm gonna be far away from home,
if you're a student, it's considering moving away from home
to go to college, is it even worth doing all of this?
If I'm not gonna have what a lot of people call
the college experience, right?
Moving out, living in dorms, being active on campus,
and that's another big question
that we just don't have answers to right now.
I'd go back to my response,
to what I said about is it going to be safe.
For now, I think seniors should plan on
attending college in the fall.
But let's keep an open mind to what changes
might be going on for the fall.
We'll know more in the next few weeks,
perhaps in the next few months
on what classes will look like
and what campuses will look like in the fall.
And we'll know better, what's gonna be really happening.
And, you know, the truth is,
if it's all online learning and if everything's remote,
and if students who had anticipated living in dorms,
being active on campus, moving out of their houses
and being independent and growing into adulthood,
if that's gonna look remarkably different,
it may not be worth going off to college right away.
There's a lot of students talking about a gap year.
And a gap year is something that's becoming
a lot more popular even before this pandemic.
And that's a time off from school,
often after high school graduation
and in between starting colleges
and a lot of students are asking, should I take a gap year?
It's a good question to ask.
I don't think there's answers to that right now.
So I'd say that my advice is to stay tuned,
but proceed as though everything is going to be
on track for the fall.
Now, I'm also getting a lot of questions.
And this is probably the biggest question from seniors
and from seniors families,
how am I gonna pay for college,
with the downturn in the economy,
with the cost of college already so high?
And I'm afraid that there aren't
any simple answers about this.
I do know that colleges are going to be flexible.
Colleges want students to come.
You know, to the extent that colleges are
something like a business that rely on students attending
and paying tuition.
They're gonna need to be flexible
and come up with ways for students to attend
and to pay their fees and to pay their tuition.
I don't know what those plans are yet.
But what I would encourage every family to do,
who is asking really hard questions
about how they believe,
or how, if they're concerned about paying for college
for next year, is to reach out via phone or email
or both directly to the financial aid office,
at the colleges or universities
that they are considering attending,
and have this conversation.
You're not the only one asking the question.
It's what financial aid offices are there for,
like a lot of offices right now,
it might take a little bit of time
for them to get back to you with the
transition to remote work
and the changes that that's throwing everyone.
But I really sincerely encourage you to reach out,
because the more they hear from
individual families and students about individual concerns,
the better able there'll be able to respond
both to you individually,
but also broadly to understand
what their incoming class needs.
So those will emerge by you chipping in
and asking those questions.
Finally, I will say that,
with the downturn in the economy
and the steps that federal governments are taking,
and that the state government's taking,
there's likely going to be a decrease in the interest rates
that students and families
will need to be paying for student loans.
And those interest rate changes
will be happening fairly soon.
Some of that is automatic,
and some of that's gonna be in response to the pandemic.
Now, I don't wanna talk only about seniors,
there's a lot to talk about high school juniors,
traditionally, high school juniors are starting to ramp up
their college application right now.
And there's a long way to go.
There's many months left,
but a lot of students are starting their work.
Starting to visit colleges,
starting to decide where to apply.
And they're certainly involved with a lot of things
related to standardized testing,
and making sure their grades for the end of junior year
are the best they can be,
'cause they know that those are gonna be
presented to colleges in a pretty serious way.
I don't have a lot of answers,
but I know that there's a lot of questions
and I have them too.
You know, in a future episode, I'd like to update students,
juniors in particular on those in more detail
and have some folks come in and give some more updates
on what's going on with the testing
but I'm gonna be really brief.
There's a lot of canceled standardized test dates right now,
this is changing daily.
In fact, I just sent out an email yesterday
to my students and families that I'm working with
in the morning, and two hours later,
that email was completely irrelevant
'cause how everything had changed
with the test dates scheduled
for the June SAT setting being canceled.
So, my advice to juniors, be patient,
there are going to be more changes to test dates,
right now we know that likely there's gonna be
no more testing happening, in person testing,
in any kind of group setting for this school year.
There are possibly going to be take home tests,
there are most definitely going to be
many alternate test dates scheduled,
possibly in the summer, and most certainly in the fall.
And there are going to be a lot more test dates scheduled.
We don't know where those will be.
They might be in schools,
they might be at traditional testing sites.
We're just gonna have to be patient.
Another major change that students are seeing
and I'm seeing, are the huge increase in colleges,
in response to all of these canceled test dates,
choosing to be test optional for next year, or forever.
And test optional is a really new concept
that's been gaining speed in a very significant way,
even before all of this.
And what that means is,
for students that are applying to a college
that are test optional,
it means you do not need to submit your SAT or ACT scores
to be seriously considered for admission to that school.
Now, a lot of students have said to me,
"Great, that means I don't have to take the tests, I'm done.
"I'm gonna give up studying.
"I'm just gonna focus on school or free time
"or whatever it is,
"and that big pressure is now lifted from me."
I wanna be really cautious here.
Whether or not a student chooses to forego
taking an SAT or ACT
and trying to navigate all these canceled test dates
and see when they could take it again
or consider taking them at home,
if that's gonna be made available.
That is an individual decision.
And it requires a bit of thought
before just across the board deciding to go.
And it's something I'm having individual conversations with
different students.
For some students, it makes a lot of sense
just to take a pause, a really big pause,
and not study for SAT or ACT
and just write it out
and possibly go test optional next year.
For other juniors,
who might be particularly strong test takers,
or who might be applying
to particularly selective universities,
I think it makes more sense to stay the course.
Slowly study for your SAT or ACT.
Don't overdo it right now,
because we don't know when it's gonna be scheduled again,
but plan on taking it,
because that's gonna,
a good test score is going to work in your favor
in an application, even if a college is test optional.
Finally, there's been a lot of upheaval to the juniors
who are participating in extracurricular activities
and are aware that they'd like to put those extracurriculars
in their applications,
'cause they wanna show colleges that they're active,
engaged and talented in particular areas
outside of the classroom.
Well, it's really hard to engage in those activities,
now that you're, most of you are,
under stay at home orders.
So, there's a lot to unpack here.
And I'd like to go into more detail on this
in a future update, but what I'd say is two things.
On one hand, be flexible, be creative.
There are a lot of things you can do with digital technology
with zoom, with online,
get your friends together and brainstorm.
And there's a whole bunch of people
that need a lot of things.
And so see what you can do
and see if there's anything creative that pops up.
But the other option that I wanna put out there
and this comes directly from an admission dean
at a very selective University
that's been doing this longer than me,
who said,
"You know, I remember when extracurricular activities
"were something that students did a little bit of,
"but suddenly when summer came,
"they didn't overdo the extracurricular activities.
"Most students had summer vacation."
And maybe this is a little bit of a reminder that
it's okay to take a break.
So key not to beat yourself up
if you're a student worried about your extracurriculars,
and just relax focus on school,
focus on weathering this pandemic in a healthy way
that keeps you balanced and happy at home
with your family and friends.
And take a nice step back
and try to maybe, rethink how many extracurriculars
you're really doing and take the pressure off from yourself
to. you know, engage in more this summer,
maybe engaged in less.
So that's a lot to share with you in this first episode,
I'd like to update you further in the future
and I hope this was helpful.
Okay, bye now.
(gentle music)