Published by The Chronicle of Higher Education
Most rising high-school seniors planning to attend college believe that campuses will be back to normal by the fall of 2021. But many are concerned about how the pandemic has affected their qualifications for admission. Amid continuing disruptions in the standardized-testing process, a sizable percentage of prospective students would welcome later application deadlines.
And though Covid-19 has had a wide-ranging impact, it has hit low-income and underrepresented minority students especially hard, widening the disparities in the higher-education pipeline.
Those findings come from a report on a national survey published on Monday by the Art & Science Group, a higher-education consulting firm. It, worked with the College Board to survey 1,975 collegebound high-school seniors in June. The results provide a snapshot of how Covid-19 has affected the next round of college applicants — and how it could influence their behavior during the uncertain months ahead.
“High-school seniors believe life’s going to be back to normal and hunky-dory by the time they’re ready to apply to college,” David Strauss, a principal at Art & Science, told The Chronicle. “But yet again we see disparities on full display. For the Class of 2021, the students who were already hurting are now hurting even more compared with white students and those from higher levels of income.”
Here are some of the survey’s key findings and implications:
Covid-19 hasn’t dashed college plans. Most students (81 percent) were at least somewhat confident that colleges would be able to hold in-person classes in fall 2021. But confidence in that outcome varied by subgroup. Doubts were more prevalent among low-income students, those planning to apply for financial aid, those attending public schools, and those who hadn’t taken Advanced Placement exams. Asian American students (28 percent) were more likely than Hispanic (15 percent) and white students (12 percent) to express doubt about having a normal college experience in fall 2021.
Many students see holes in their academic records. A large proportion (43 percent) of rising seniors said Covid-19 had affected their qualifications or the strength of their applications. The most-cited examples, especially for white, Asian American, and upper-income students, were an inability to participate in an extracurricular activity (30 percent) and an inability to “show strong interest by visiting a campus” (30 percent).
Black and Hispanic students (24 percent) were more likely than white and Asian American students (17 percent each) to say they hadn’t been able to participate in an educational program, such as a summer program. Black students (21 percent) were more likely than white students (13 percent) to say their grades had been “compromised” by the pandemic. And 23 percent of students from the lowest-income group (households earning less than $60,000 a year) said they hadn’t been able to work to save money for college, compared with 10 percent of students from all other income groups.
Hordes of rising seniors don’t have test scores. Widespread cancellations this spring and summer have prevented many students from taking standardized tests. Two-thirds had yet to take the SAT, and nearly three-quarters had yet to take the ACT. Underrepresented minority students (51 percent vs. 41 percent), low-income students (51 percent vs. 36 percent), and first-generation students (51 percent vs. 42 percent) were less likely than others to have taken the exams.
Timing is on their minds. Although half of the respondents said the pandemic had no influence on their plans to apply early, about a fifth said they were more likely to apply to a binding early-decision program than they would’ve been otherwise. That was especially true of Black and Hispanic students.
Two-thirds of all respondents said they would be more likely to apply to a college that pushed back its application deadline. Half said they would be more likely to apply early to a college that pushed back its early-decision and/or early-action deadlines to winter 2020-21.
“Colleges and universities would do well to note that prospective students are expressing they will likely need more time to complete their applications,” notes a written summary of the findings. Applicants might “want more opportunity to take the appropriate tests, improve GPAs that took a hit in the spring, and possibly visit college campuses.”
The lack of a campus visit isn't a deal-breaker. Nearly 60 percent of college-bound seniors said they hadn’t been able to visit a college during their junior year. (Rates were higher among Black, Hispanic, and low-income applicants.) Though most students expressed eagerness to see campuses in person, 90 percent said they would still apply to a specific college they were considering even if circumstances prevented them from visiting it.
When asked which sources of information besides campus visits would be most helpful, students cited college websites (75 percent), virtual tours (72 percent), personalized emails (51 percent), and virtual question-and-answer sessions (46 percent). Just 9 percent cited digital ads.
Thirty-seven percent of students had attended a virtual information session. Of those, the vast majority (89 percent) said they would attend another session.
Given those and other findings, the written summary says, "it is possible that Covid-19 has created an equalizing opportunity for students to access information about institutions without the often-expensive burden of on-campus visits. Universities who may not have previously had robust virtual resources available are now forced to leverage virtual platforms to reach out to all their students.”
The findings are based on interviews with domestic high-school seniors who had taken a College Board exam. Fifty-five percent were female, and 56 percent were white. The students — 83 percent of whom attend a public or charter high school — reported an average household income of about $90,000. The responses were weighted by income, race, and geographic region to represent the broader college going population. The sampling error is plus or minus 2 percent.