BOSTON — Admissions officers at many local colleges are buried under an avalanche of applications.
For example, Northeastern University and Boston University both set records for the number of students who want to enroll.
One reason for the spike was the reliance on virtual tours. Most schools canceled online tours as a result of the pandemic.
“A lot of them seem basically the same thru Zoom,” said Alex Vandendries, a senior at Brookline High School.
This led many students to hedge their bets and apply to more schools than they would have otherwise. “I did apply to quite a few schools and a lot of them, I probably wouldn’t consider going to honestly,” said Vandendries.
Gregg Cohen, founder, and president of Campus Bound says the surge was felt across a wide swath of schools, including flagship public universities like UMass Amherst to the University of Maryland, which saw a 25% increase. “Harvard saw a surge of applications of 42% this year, and a lot of the other highly selective schools saw a double-digit increase in their applications.”
Boston University was up 24%, attracting a record-setting 75.559 applications.
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect out of a COVID admissions cycle,” said Kelly Walter, SVP and Dean of Admissions.
Walter believes establishing an early track record managing the coronavirus is a big attraction. “We opened our residential campus in the fall for in-person learning. We continued in the spring. We developed our state of the art COVID testing facility.”
B.U like many schools also dumped standardized testing requirements. Other schools waived their application fees.
“We see a lot of students are just trying to shoot for the stars, if they have good grades but testing isn’t their thing. They said they might as well throw their hat into the ring,” added Cohen.
Cohen says schools will now be making more subjective decisions, meaning there could be surprises for students. “We’re already seeing some atypical variability in the review process, so students that sometimes we don’t think are going to get into these schools are getting in. It’s surprising on the other side as well.”
Regina Sohn, Alex’s mother, said the process this year is scary and nerve-wracking. Four years ago, her daughter Gabby got into Bowdoin College and she feels good about that decision. This year with Alex is much different.
“We missed the whole opportunity to visit the colleges, to go walk around, see the people, see the classes and actually sit in the classes,” added Sohn.
Fortunately, Alex doesn’t seem to worry about the situation. “Among the people I know it’s mostly like we’ll figure out what happens.”
Cohen says parents should talk about the benefits of all the schools their children apply to so it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition come decision day.
Dean Walter says schools will be dependent on waiting lists because there are so many moving parts this year. Adding with a smile, “After all, we are trying to predict the behavior of 18-year-olds and that is a pretty tough job.”
Download the free Boston 25 News app for up-to-the-minute push alerts
>> Complete local and national coronavirus coverage here
RESOURCES:
- Complete local and national coronavirus coverage here
- Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Watch Boston 25 NOW
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
