by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.
For school counselors, December break is a little like halftime. While many schools won’t see the semester end until January, schedule changes and midyear grade reports prevent that cherished time from being a chance to look at the big picture—so it needs to happen now.
With that in mind, let’s see what the year has brought to date, and what we can expect in the next few months.
COVID Part 86 The thing we were sure would be over last June is sticking with us closer than the sap of a Christmas tree on your best pair of gloves. Kowtowing to cultural demands to fulfill its role as primary child care provider, schools are once again failing to do what they’ve had several chances to achieve—provide serious training to educators for meaningful online learning—and are instead closing schools on a totally random basis. The result? COVID numbers are higher than ever, many colleges are back to starting (or being) online, and high school students once again get to get up every morning to discover what version of education they will be subjected to that day. Advanced planning could have saved us from all this; expect more confusion to come through May, when the Delta virus is scheduled to finally die down.
Test optional applications with self-reporting grades What started out as two steps designed to make applying to college easier are taking on lives of their own, much like Aunt Gladys’ fruitcake. Volumes of articles exist on how to build a successful “test optional strategy”, largely crafted by test prep tutors who are either drumming up business or trying to create a new one, adding one more piece to the labyrinth of college applications.
The same seems to be happening with self-reporting grades, where students are devoting hours to recording the same set of grades in one application after another. The end result? Two activities designed to make college more accessible have been gobbled up by the college industrial complex, bringing into question all those cries to “think about the kids” in the application process. A few earnest souls are still convinced there are ways to simplify the process, and are clinging to these two components as ways it can happen. Something’s got to give here; stay tuned.
Early Business as Usual Advocates for the status quo are taking comfort in the strong number of students applying Early Action or Early Decision to colleges, as well as the number of colleges adding a round of Early Decision 2 this year. Early programs provide peace of mind to the students admitted by them, but the real winner in Early programs are the colleges, since strong Early numbers lend stability to their financial aid numbers and their bottom line. Rumors of the demise of Early programs are greatly exaggerated. It will take armloads of students reneging on their Early commitments for colleges to lose their appetite for this enrollment machine, and that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
May 1? What’s That? A lesser-known trend showing up this year is the increase in colleges asking for some kind of commitment from students well before the traditional date of May 1. Once the gold standard in our profession, May 1 was seen as a restraint of trade by the Justice Department, and while many colleges are still sticking to that date, more and more are offering scholarship and housing incentives to students willing to commit sooner, while other colleges are simply giving students a tight deadline to deposit, or risk losing their offer of admission. Watch this carefully.
With that in mind, let’s see what the year has brought to date, and what we can expect in the next few months.
COVID Part 86 The thing we were sure would be over last June is sticking with us closer than the sap of a Christmas tree on your best pair of gloves. Kowtowing to cultural demands to fulfill its role as primary child care provider, schools are once again failing to do what they’ve had several chances to achieve—provide serious training to educators for meaningful online learning—and are instead closing schools on a totally random basis. The result? COVID numbers are higher than ever, many colleges are back to starting (or being) online, and high school students once again get to get up every morning to discover what version of education they will be subjected to that day. Advanced planning could have saved us from all this; expect more confusion to come through May, when the Delta virus is scheduled to finally die down.
Test optional applications with self-reporting grades What started out as two steps designed to make applying to college easier are taking on lives of their own, much like Aunt Gladys’ fruitcake. Volumes of articles exist on how to build a successful “test optional strategy”, largely crafted by test prep tutors who are either drumming up business or trying to create a new one, adding one more piece to the labyrinth of college applications.
The same seems to be happening with self-reporting grades, where students are devoting hours to recording the same set of grades in one application after another. The end result? Two activities designed to make college more accessible have been gobbled up by the college industrial complex, bringing into question all those cries to “think about the kids” in the application process. A few earnest souls are still convinced there are ways to simplify the process, and are clinging to these two components as ways it can happen. Something’s got to give here; stay tuned.
Early Business as Usual Advocates for the status quo are taking comfort in the strong number of students applying Early Action or Early Decision to colleges, as well as the number of colleges adding a round of Early Decision 2 this year. Early programs provide peace of mind to the students admitted by them, but the real winner in Early programs are the colleges, since strong Early numbers lend stability to their financial aid numbers and their bottom line. Rumors of the demise of Early programs are greatly exaggerated. It will take armloads of students reneging on their Early commitments for colleges to lose their appetite for this enrollment machine, and that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
May 1? What’s That? A lesser-known trend showing up this year is the increase in colleges asking for some kind of commitment from students well before the traditional date of May 1. Once the gold standard in our profession, May 1 was seen as a restraint of trade by the Justice Department, and while many colleges are still sticking to that date, more and more are offering scholarship and housing incentives to students willing to commit sooner, while other colleges are simply giving students a tight deadline to deposit, or risk losing their offer of admission. Watch this carefully.
Thanks for all of this--so many equity issues and you read my mind regarding how terribly schools/the system bungled it. Can you also address how there was no movement to actually CHANGE how we deliver education? Just back to normal as usual, as if students were totally not impacted by the last 2 years...
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