With seniors starting to receive college admissions decisions, they now have a month to weigh schools and decide where they want to go.
“I predict a lot of students will be wait listed as colleges try to figure out how many students will decide to go to their college this spring,” Associate Director of College Counseling Britten Nelson said.
COVID-19 has completely changed this year’s application process, causing the halt of in-person college tours and limiting standardized testing.
“[I had to look at] all the schools I ended up applying to online. Some of them did ‘Q and A’s’ and virtual tours,” senior Liam Reese said.
Senior Joseph Yeung was lucky enough to visit some colleges before the pandemic hit.
“I’ve committed to the University of Chicago. Luckily, I was able to visit two years ago in November, right before COVID,” Yeung said.
Students have had mixed feelings about the pandemic’s impact on the application process.
“COVID was very stress-relieving for me, as colleges didn’t require standardized tests,” Reese said.
Nelson felt sorry for the students that weren’t able to visit colleges before committing.
“You lose a lot of the student life you would normally see when visiting in person,“ Nelson said. “To combat this, about a year ago we reached out to alumni that are currently enrolled in colleges that are happy to talk to current UPrep students about their college.”
Current seniors want to pass down the lessons they have learned in this modified college’s process to UPrep’s younger students.
“After January first it will be very relieving, but before then it will be a stressful lot of late nights,” Yeung said. “But at the end of the day, college does not define who you are, and just applying to all these different colleges shows how strong you are.”