Dear Seniors and Parents,

I have waited longer than usual to write this letter of congratulations to my outstanding seniors simply because I wanted to gather more information about institutional plans for the fall of 2020.  

But first things first: I am so proud of each one of you. Congratulations on all the hard work you put into your college search/applications and your dedication to doing well academically in your high school classes. I think each of you has found a college home where you can be happy and prosper in every way.

As you look to the fall, I know there is a lot of uncertainty that frankly is beyond your or my control. We don’t know what will happen in three weeks, much less by the end of the summer. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve read a lot of articles and participated in webinars with admissions officers around the country addressing the effects of the pandemic on higher education and plans for fall 2020.  

Most admissions officers compare their plans to “building a bridge as we walk across it” or “building an airplane that is already in the air.” While every college is wrestling with a multitude of “what if” scenarios and strategies, here are some general observations I have heard from admissions officers across the country:

• College openings in the fall will be dictated by state, federal, and public health guidelines first and foremost. In some states, it will be easier to open campuses than others. Of course, institutions in New York City are likely to have the most difficulty in opening schools.

• Smaller colleges, particularly those in more rural areas, are more likely to open their campuses with a variety of social distancing measures in place. These might include single dorm rooms, classes staggered in terms of start times to control student traffic on campus; larger introductory courses conducted virtually; the requirement to wear face masks on campus, and so forth. 

• Many campuses have already decided to have all classes conducted remotely (California State University campuses, for example) with no students on campus. For now, other colleges plan to have students on campus and offer only remote classes. Still, others will conduct smaller, in-person courses, and larger, introductory classes will be provided virtually. 

• Residential housing will be the most challenging because most college campuses have limited single rooms, and dorm rooms will need to be reconfigured to allow for social distancing. Some universities may limit on-campus residential housing and choose to house students in hotel space and other off-campus housing. 

• Notre Dame and several other schools publicly announced plans to bring students to campus, but start the school year in early August and end by Thanksgiving. Then, depending on public health concerns, remote classes could be offered in the second semester.

• This year, the waitlist is likely to be very active and fluid on most college campuses due to the pandemic and families facing financial difficulties or worried about the safety of a student attending college in some regions of the country. Some suggest that the waitlist could be active until 8/15 (the NACAC deadline). 
  

For those on college waitlists, think carefully about accepting an offer of admission off the waitlist late in the summer. If you have given careful consideration to the reasons you chose your current college home and are happy with your decision, don’t change your plans at the last minute.

I know it is difficult to deal with the uncertainty you all face right now, but I encourage you to be flexible, patient, and guardedly optimistic. The next year is excellent training for life and how to deal with adversity in its many forms. I know all of you eventually will have an amazing, but different college experience. Someday, you’ll be able to tell your kids about the Pandemic of 2020 and how it changed your life and made you dearly value your family, friends and appreciate the important things in life. 

You are all rock stars, in my opinion. I look forward to hearing about your accomplishments and endeavors in the future.

Be well, be good, and be ready to take your college journey—however different and challenging it may be. Again, a big heartfelt congratulations to the class of 2020.

Best,
Kate

My best wishes and congratulations to my graduating seniors—now the class of 2023. It was my pleasure and honor working with all of you. I’m delighted to report that my College Match Plus seniors were offered more than $4.2 million in four-year need and merit-based scholarships this year. Annual scholarship offers and college acceptances listed below. So proud of my rock-star seniors:

California College of the Arts (full tuition and fees $65k merit scholarship)

Goucher College ($40k need-based scholarship)

Loyola University of Maryland ($37k merit scholarship)

Rochester Institute of Technology ($32k and $13k merit scholarships)

Hobart and William Smith Colleges ($32k merit scholarship)

University of Alabama ($28k full tuition scholarship)

Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) (3 students received need and merit scholarships of $24k, $14k, and 10k)

Washington College ($29k merit scholarship)

McDaniel College ($28,000 merit scholarship)

Pratt Institute of Art and Design ($26k merit scholarship)

Westminster College ($26k merit scholarship)

University of Rochester ($25k scholarship, plus $4,500 research stipend)

Stevenson University ($25k merit-based scholarship)

Case Western Reserve University ($23k merit scholarship)

Morgan State University ($23k need-based scholarship)

Delaware College of Art and Design ($23k merit-based scholarship)

Johns Hopkins University ($22k need-based scholarship)

Gettysburg University ($20k merit scholarship)

University of South Carolina ($15k merit/need-based scholarship)

Maine College of Art & Design ($14k merit-based scholarship)

College of Charleston ($12.5k merit scholarship)

Watkins College of Art ($11k merit scholarship)

Brandeis University ($10k merit scholarship)

University of Tampa ($10k scholarship)

Towson University ($7k need-based scholarship)

Davidson College ($5k scholarship)

University of Maryland, College Park ($5k merit scholarship and 2 College Park Scholars)

Mass College of Art & Design ($4.5k merit scholarship)

Union College

George Washington University

University of San Francisco

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Lafayette College

Barnard College

Fordham University

Villanova University

Georgetown University

Miami University of Ohio

Syracuse University

Virginia Tech

Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Camden

Bucknell University

Skidmore College

The New School

Rollins College

As students sort out their admissions decisions far too many may be wondering “What should I do if I’m waitlisted?” Does a place on the waitlist mean you’re more likely to be admitted to a particular college? Truthfully, the answer is a resounding no. It’s not that students don’t get off waitlists—they do. But there is no guarantee so students need to hedge their bets.

Here’s a case in point. A friend’s daughter recently found out she was waitlisted at Harvey Mudd—a small liberal arts school with top programs in engineering and science (part of the Claremont College Consortium) and an undergraduate enrollment of nearly 900 students. According to the college’s most recent admissions statistics (for students entering in the fall of 2016), Harvey Mudd offered 528 students a place on its waitlist, 342 accepted, and only 12 eventually were offered a place in the incoming freshman class. While this number varies from year to year,  it underscores why relying on the waitlist to get into your dream school is a gamble.

So what should you do if you find yourself on a college’s waitlist? My advice, if it’s a school that remains your first choice or the next most desirable college where you applied, take these steps:

• Contact your regional admissions representative and ask where you are on its waitlist—at the very top, in the middle, or the bottom third, for example. A college may not provide this information to you, but ask anyway. If you learn your name is high on the wait list, then go ahead and make your strongest case for why the college remains your first choice and what you can contribute to its community.

• Let your regional admissions representative know that if the college takes you’off its waitlist you’ll enroll and again communicate why the school remains your first choice. The key: make the commitment to enroll there.
  
• If you’ve communicated with schools where you’re waitlisted and haven’t heard by May 1 (the candidates reply date), send in your deposit to the school you’ve selected among those where you were admitted. A domino effect tends to occur as institutions hear from students who plan to enroll and those who plan to enroll elsewhere. Ultimately, this may result in institutions having additional space for students and going to the waitlist in late spring or summer. In enrollment circles this is known as the summer melt. For example, a student I knew sent her deposit to one institution on May 1 and received an email from Wake Forest in late June asking if she was still interested in attending Wake. She made the commitment to enroll at Wake Forest and got off its waitlist.

What’s the best waitlist strategy?  Hedge your bets, make your best case for admission to the institution where you’re waitlisted, and then see what happens over time.

Most juniors and seniors have heard the warnings from high school college guidance counselors, parents, and other adults about the importance of scrubbing social media pages of questionable photos and language — no red solo cups, obviously, no wild party photos or other questionable comments that could get into the hands of admissions officers and negatively impact an admission decision at a particular college. Almost half of admissions officers do pay attention to social media sites so heeding this advice is a no-brainer.

On the flip side, maybe it’s time for students to be more proactive and creative about using social media as a tool to market themselves to colleges. A news segment on NPR’s Here and Now, Does Social Media Help Students Stand Out To Schools?, made what I think is a compelling case about students using social media to shed a brighter light on their specific talents, interests, background, and personal experiences than what is possible through a college application or essay. For example, if you’re doing summer research, why not talk about the experience, what you’ve learned, or the paper or abstract you wrote via a post on Facebook. The bottom line: use social media as a tool to positively market yourself to college admissions staff.

Recently I worked with a student who wanted to transfer after her first semester at a large public university to a smaller college in Texas.  If you plan to transfer to another college, here are some important considerations to keep in mind:

• Your high school grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities will factor more heavily in the admissions decision if you plan to transfer after only your first or second semester in college. While your college grades will be taken into account, your high school record will matter equally if not more.
• You can and should retake the ACT or SAT if the score you submitted as a first-year student was lower than you anticipated and you are applying after one or two semesters of college. At many competitive colleges transfer applications are due in March or April. Plan to take the ACT or SAT test in early winter or spring to ensure your scores reach colleges by the transfer application deadline.
• Your college grades and activities will be the most important factors in the admissions decision if you attended the institution for two years or more.
• Take time to visit campuses, search college web sites, and talk to admissions officers and other college faculty and staff. Make sure you have done due diligence in finding the right college that is best for you in terms of the size, culture, academic offerings, and so forth.
• Make sure you find out the extent to which your academic credits will be accepted at transfer schools and what that means in terms of tuition costs and degree completion time.

For juniors who want to put in the good thinking and reflection it takes to write an effective Common Application essay, here’s your chance. In February, the Common Application announced the essay prompts for students applying to college during the 2017-2018 admissions year.

While you’re probably not ready to start writing, this gives you plenty of time to think deeply about the experiences, challenges, events, and other aspects of your life that best reveal something meaningful about you to college admissions officers.  If you do the good thinking now, chances are you’ll have a solid draft of your Common App personal essay completed by mid summer with time to begin focusing on supplemental essays required by many colleges.

An article in the Huffington Post provides some good information about these changes and practical advice for students as they consider what to write about.

A recent New York Times article, 5 Ways to Make College Tours Fun Instead of Grueling, offers some great advice about planning and actually visiting college campuses. For families with sophomores and juniors this is advice to take to heart.

While many students are not really dialed into the college search process until spring of their junior year, it does make sense to take students to campuses that are near places where your family will be visiting or are an easy drive from home and offer other attractions students (and other members of the family) will enjoy.

Another good tip is not to cram too many college visits into any one trip. For example, a relative scheduled and hauled his two twin sons to 16 colleges and universities over their junior spring break leaving them exhausted (with heads spinning) by the end of the break. Make it fun, always!

Beginning October 1, 2016, a much praised change in the FAFSA (the Free Application for Federal Student Aid) goes into effect. Referred to as prior-prior year (PPY), the change allows families to use tax returns completed two years before (prior-prior year) rather than 2016 tax returns to fill out the FAFSA. Among PPY’s major benefits:

• Students can file their FAFSA much earlier—as early as October 1, 2016. This will allow them to find out sooner about their eligibility for federal financial aid to pay for college rather than having to wait weeks or even months later.
• PPY allows most students to use the IRS’s Data Retrieval Tool. The data retrieval tool links up with tax data and this data is pre-filled in the FAFSA form. This makes completing the FAFSA easier and more accurate for families and students.

Two articles worth reading about PPY and how it benefits students and families:

• New America: One Small Step for FAFSA, One Giant Leap for Students.
• Inside Higher Ed: A Game Changer for Financial Aid.