Speaking from personal experience, I think it’s safe to say that being a senior sucks right now. We may never see some of the people we grew up with ever again, graduation might be online, and the best semester of high school is spent at home in front of a computer for hours a day. On top of all of that, we still had to apply to colleges and anxiously wait for our decision letters. Of course, the college application and admissions processes have also changed drastically from that of previous years. Students couldn’t continue many of the extracurriculars they did before the pandemic and almost all of the college tours were virtual. While this allowed for students to tour schools without having to travel to the campus, it was hard to get a sense of what the environment was actually like through pictures shown on someone’s shared Zoom screen. 

Statistically, getting into college was harder this year than it was in past years due to the increased number of applications colleges received. The University of California (UC) schools had a 16% increase in applications system wide, and Harvard’s number of applications increased by 42% from their previous years. Why the sudden increase? Almost 1,000 schools, including many top schools and all Ivy Leagues, went test optional/didn’t accept standardized testing this year. This means that they either made standardized tests optional or didn’t take them into consideration at all, when they are usually required and are a large part of a student’s application. More often than not, if a student scores “low” on a standardized test, they don’t apply to top schools because they don’t think they have a chance of being accepted. However, with standardized testing being optional this year, students think that they have a higher chance and apply to schools that they would not have applied to if standardized testing were required. Also, many people in the class of 2020 decided to take a gap year so they would not have to pay tuition to do school online, increasing this year’s application pool. All that being said, the number of people colleges accept likely hasn’t changed – just because more people are applying doesn’t mean that colleges will have an increased number of seats available. This means that this year’s acceptance rates were lower and the application process was much more competitive.  

Did the pandemic help applicants in any way? Anjuli Niyogi (12) and Nicholas Shek (12) both agreed that the pandemic gave them more time to work on their applications, and Shek added that having our second semester of junior year be credit/no credit made his grades appear better. There is no doubt, however, that the pandemic also added lots of uncertainty and stress when it came to the application process. Niyogi stated that there were many changes at once, with colleges going back and forth with being test optional and simply not knowing what to expect. Chloe Xu (12) also mentioned that she spent a lot of time and money on SAT prep, so she was disappointed and felt that all of her hard work was for nothing when the UC schools announced that they would not consider standardized testing scores. 

While I agree that the pandemic was not ideal, I don’t think I would have been accepted into my top school, New York University (NYU), if the pandemic hadn’t occurred. For a while, I was able to maintain a relatively high GPA. During the second semester of my junior year, however, my grades started slipping and my GPA was the lowest it has ever been. But the district decided to change grades in that semester to credit/no credit, saving me from having to submit grades I weren’t proud of. Although I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to SAT prep classes, my SAT score was nowhere near NYU’s average score. If I had to submit my SAT score, I can almost guarantee you that I would not have been accepted to NYU. The pandemic also gave me a lot of time to focus on things I wanted to do, but never had the time to do so. If someone asked me in February 2020 what I wanted to be when I grew up, I probably would have said an orthodontist. But things have changed and I will be a business major in the fall. In March of last year, I decided to start a business. It was something I always wanted to do, but never had the time to do so. It ended up being one of my biggest passions and I decided to major in business instead of biochemistry, my original plan. As it turns out, I really don’t like biology or chemistry, so I would have ended up in a major I wasn’t interested in at all. I also wrote my CommonApp essay on my business, and I think NYU liked that I took initiative in something I was interested in, especially since it was my major. So, if it weren’t for the pandemic, I would likely be a biochemistry major with a low SAT score and GPA, not going to NYU. 

To the class of 2021: this year, especially with college admissions, was rough. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “You just talked about how the pandemic helped you get into your top school – what do you know about college admissions being hard this year?” And although I cannot exactly know what you’re going through, I sympathize with you. But just because you didn’t go to the college you expected to go to doesn’t mean that your dreams won’t come true. There are many amazing people who don’t go to the top schools, and a lot of them end up in the same jobs with the same paychecks as someone else who went to an Ivy League. You will be okay. Trust me when I say that wherever you go, you will do great things.