For more than a year now I’ve been asked more times than I can count how exactly the Covid-19 crisis will affect the college admissions process. With the 2019-2020 admissions cycle complete, one thing is crystal clear: applications are through the roof for almost every tier of school. At the top schools, the numbers are truly incredible: Harvard’s acceptance rate dropped from 4.6% to 3.4%; Yale received almost 47 thousand applications, an increase of 33% from the previous year. We can attribute this spike in applications and the resulting unusually low acceptance rates to the increasing number of schools who went test optional and those who slashed application fees, both with the intention of not wanting to unfairly favor those, mostly more affluent, students who were largely more insulated from the affects of the pandemic. Let’s make one thing clear: this all worked out quite well for the most competitive schools. There’s never any downside to a lower admissions rate, which of course the general public interprets fairly literally as a marker of prestige. We can quite rightly say that it has never been more difficult to get into American colleges. But this hides an important fact: not only were many of the admission spots already taken, so to speak, by those previously accepted students who had deferred their matriculation, the dramatic increase in applications can largely be attributed to students who are, for lack of a better phrase, “first read rejections.” Without having to submit a test score or pay an admissions fee, the thinking is “why not, what’s there to lose?”
So what has actually changed in the light of Covid 19? As with so many other situations, one must learn to distinguish between what is said and what the reality of the situation is. “Test optional” never really means “test optional” — at least not for all prospective applicants. In practice, if you are an international applicant, you are expected to submit a test score. Your application is suspect without it. And here is another fact no college is willing to admit: your excellent test score carries even more weight the more an applicant pool embraces these more lenient testing policies. Let’s face it: the rarer something becomes, the more valuable it is. Schools must continue to attract high scorers (hey, they’ve got their “middle 50” numbers to look out for for publications like US News) and they must also look out for their bottom lines. The pandemic has forced certain prestigious schools to prioritize applicants able and willing to pay full freight. This naturally works in favor of many international applicants. Despite all the chatter and speculation, it’s hard to believe that there will be any significant long-term effects of the pandemic on college admissions. Admissions rates at the top schools will likely return back to normal pre-pandemic levels, and the formula for achieving a spot in their incoming freshmen classes will remain the same.