Don’t panic. Let me assure you right up front that it’s not too late. You’ve still got plenty of time before schools reopen full-time to do something worthwhile in the college admissions game that you can point to with pride when it comes time to apply to college—whether that’s next fall or four falls from now. You can still redeem yourself in the eyes of college admissions officers and impress them, even if you’ve spent most of every day since mid-march on the couch binge-watching Netflix or becoming King of the Xbox universe.
If you prefer, here’s a glass-half-full title for this post that puts a much more positive spin on the very same situation in which many high schoolers currently find themselves: “Making Lemonade from Lemons: Dr. Yo’s Prescription for Using the COVID-19 School Closings/Hybrids as an Opportunity to Brighten Your Academic Future and Increase Your Chances for College Acceptances.” Definitely more positive, but, yes, just way too long.
No reasonable adult can blame a healthy teenager for feeling like the school closings for the entire last quarter of 2019-2020 and the hybrid openings in the fall of 2020-2021 have gifted them an unexpected multi-month vacation. The academic expectations of even the most dedicated teachers have, just admit it, felt like recess compared to the daily grind you’re used to at school. And extracurricular activities and sports and community service and commitments to organizations? Cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, and cancelled.
If you visit just about any faculty room in September of any given year, you will hear teachers lamenting over all the lost ground among their students since June. “My Algebra 2 students,” I remember a colleague once shouting out in pain, “just told me their Algebra 1 teacher never once mentioned factoring! They all stared blankly at me and claimed the whole concept was a complete mystery!” It’s a well-documented fact that most students, particularly in the U.S. where we have especially long summer breaks compared to those of other countries, slide backwards over the ground in just about every arena in and out of the classrooms they worked so hard to cover from September to June. Assuming schools open for business next fall after a FIVE-MONTH hiatus, I for one don’t want to be anywhere near a faculty room.
And with respect to the college admissions game, in particular, it is safe to predict that most students will move backwards in every sphere of activity admissions officers tend to value, from academic studies to idiosyncratic hobbies. It would be easy to rationalize becoming a COVID couch potato: it’s clearly not your fault a lethal virus caused a global lockdown, preventing you from engaging in any of the daily routines you’ve come to know and expect. But such a rationalization, while perhaps assuaging that tinge of guilt you feel about your sudden bout of laziness and all manners of entropy, would prevent you from seizing a golden opportunity to distinguish yourself from countless others college bound students and significantly increase your chances of acceptance in the most competitive admissions era in U.S. history.
And such a missed opportunity would be especially sad given that an investment of as little as ONE hour a day in the pursuit of anything that can push your college admissions candidacy forward (and before you start arguing with me, compare that to the demands on your time every single day when school’s in session), you could leave a huge chunk of your competition in the dust. And guess what? That would still leave 23 hours to jump through simple online hoops your teachers have set up for you (with apologies to the few notable exceptions) and still feel like you’re on a carefree vacation.
You heard it here first: I think the most commonly asked college interview question for years—”So, do you have any questions for me?”—is going to be given a run for its money by a brand new question in 2020, birthed by the Coronavirus: “So, tell me about how you spent your days during the school shutdowns last spring?” Don’t even think about uttering the words Netflix or Xbox! Imagine, instead, being able to say something like, “Well, I had been curious about Sociology for a couple of years, which I knew absolutely nothing about until my older sister came home from her freshman year in college raving about how Sociology is the most interesting subject she’s ever encountered in any school and is now majoring in it. With all the extra time on my hands, I read three books she recommended from her Intro to Sociology syllabus, and now I understand what all her excitement is about…” Or, “I used to dream about having enough time to learn some new computer coding languages to improve the quality of my web designs, and so I….” Or, “I set a goal to improve my long-distance running time by x seconds this year, and I wasn’t going to let some microscopic death troll stand in my way, so I….” Or, “Ever since I first heard Louis Armstrong end tunes with his signature high C, I’ve aspired to play that difficult note in the upper register of the trumpet. But I never had the necessary time to invest in daily practice to reach that goal. Well I can play a high C now!”
But what if I don’t have any interviews? I can hear you objecting. What’s to stop you from reporting any laudable use of your lockdown time on your Activities list or one of the application essays or short-answer questions? Why, nothing at all, and in doing so, you’d distinguish yourself from countless other applicants who are taking a five-month vacation.
Here are three key areas in which any high schooler can improve his or her college admissions standing, and , and a fourth for rising seniors:
- Work on Academics: GPA is the single most important factor in juist about every college application. Examples:
- Revisit topics, chapters, or units in a class that proved challenging or perhaps especially interesting, particularly surrounding material you’ll see again in a subsequent course down the road
- Enroll in an online course or work through a set of Kahn Academy videos in a subject you like and might pursue in college
- Read three sociology books from your sister’s college syllabus 😉
- Move on to material you’d be learning in a class or two if school were in session. Again, best to focus on subjects you may pursue an an undergraduate
- Study for a standardized test
- Dedicate a non-negotiable hour leach day to strandardized test prep and earn much higher scores on the SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, and/or AP Exams\
- Improve your Skills, Participation level, and Leadership potential in Activities
- Maintain a rigorous health and fitness routine to raise your game in a sport or simply for your, um, health and fitnessa
- Practice your instrument
- Memorize a soliloquy and work an a dramatic performance of it to improver your acting skills
- Plan club meeting or events or make posters for future campaigns to hit the ground running when schools reopen.
- (For rising seniors) Move forward in the College Admissions Process from wherever you are now.
- Research colleges online and start refining you list
- Send emails to teachers who know you well and have praised your academic work to ask for letters of recommendation
- Buy and read Dr. Yo’s CommonApp Handbook in preparation for writing you whole CommonApp and as many Supplement essays and short answer questions as you can over the summer.
Of course, the sky’s the limit when it comes to pursuing worthwhile goals, so these examples barely scratch the surfacer of possibility. Just be true to yourself and invest a modicum of time and energy every day in something you actually care about (outside of Netflix and Xbox). Carve out one hour (or more :-)) ever day as a small, short term sacrifice during the COVID affliction. You’ll have a much better chance of spending four years at a college of your choice feeling proud and grateful that you did.