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Success & Peaceful Coexistence During Covid: Strategies for College Admissions and Standardized Testing

Published on: August 28, 2020

Expert Admissions co-hosted a webinar entitled, “Success & Peaceful Coexistence During Covid: Strategies for Parents & Students.” The webinar provided tips for families of high school students embarking on the college application process as well as advice for families with college students and younger students living and learning at home.

We shared helpful tips for high school students and their families who are about to embark on the college application process.  Here are some of the highlights:

    • Approximately ⅗ of all colleges in the US are test-optional for this upcoming application cycle, from every Ivy League school to schools at every selectivity level. Dr. Norman reminded students that test-optional doesn’t mean test-blind. So if you are able to test, test. But if you can’t– don’t worry about it this year.
    • Remember to keep your grades up. Unlike last spring, when many high schools went Pass/Fail, there are most likely going to be grades this fall semester. Even though it can be challenging to stay motivated while learning remotely, it’s important to do your very best work.
    • Letters of recommendation will matter more than ever. Work on building your relationships with your teachers right away this year.  
    • Personal essays have always been important and essays will continue to be extra important this upcoming application cycle. In the absence of test scores, your essays “speak” even louder.
    • More students are requesting deferrals as more colleges are saying there will be no residential component this year. This will have an impact on the graduating high school class of 2021. As an example, Harvard said a few weeks ago 20% of the Class of 2024 was deferring.

We also shared some important reminders regarding testing and have included some of the highlights here:

    • It’s important for rising seniors to make sure they’re doing everything else they can (academically, extracurricularly) this school year because we are not confident testing will happen this fall for seniors.
    • The ACT and the SAT are still trying to roll-out online testing. It was backtracked for this fall, but they are actively exploring how to offer that option for the future.
    • It’s important to reassure seniors, who are working so hard on test prep, that while they ultimately may not be able to test, their hard work has not gone unnoticed! Even if they can’t show their testing progress to colleges, they can show it to themselves. That’s a big deal and it’s a good life lesson. 
    • What can we do as parents? We can acknowledge that we want our kids to be motivated all the time but also know that they aren’t always going to feel motivated. The same goes for us. So we need to meet students where they are.
    • It’s important for us as parents and educators to acknowledge the disappointment of the situation that our students are facing. 

To read more from the webinar about coexisting, see our next blog post. For specific questions on the admissions process, essay writing, or testing advice, please reach out to Expert Admissions for more information.  

Article by Expert Admissions / Application Process, Covid, Fall 2020, Standardized Testing, Test-Optional Leave a Comment

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