What Matters in the 2020/2021 Admissions Cycle: 315 College Admissions Deans Issue Joint Statement

This week, as part of the Turning the Tide in college admission initiative, Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, released a collective statement, endorsed by 315 admissions deans, to communicate to students and families what colleges value in applicants during this unprecedented time. For those looking for guidance on what students should focus on, this document is a much welcomed affirmation of what is truly important: self-care, service, and contribution to others.

Signatories include Deans of Admissions from every Ivy League institution, Stanford, MIT, University of Chicago; from top liberal arts colleges such as Bowdoin, Colgate, Davidson, Haverford, and Williams Colleges; and from public universities such as the University of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

For all of the students anxious about inability to take standardized exams, pass/fail grades, or cancelled extracurricular activities and summer internships, this statement helps to clarify what schools value, and helps give students the time and space needed to attend to family and other obligations that have completely reshaped their lives during Cov-19.

Below is the 5 point excerpt directly from the “Care Counts in Crisis: College Admissions Deans Respond to COVID-19” document. Full pdf can be downloaded HERE.

 

1. Self-care. Self-care is of high importance, especially in times of crisis. We recognize that many students, economically struggling and facing losses and hardships of countless kinds, are simply seeking to get by. We also recognize that this time is stressful and demanding for a wide range of students for many different reasons. We encourage all students to be gentle with themselves during this time.

 

2. Academic work. Your academic engagement and work during this time matters to us, but given the circumstances of many families, we recognize that you may face obstacles to academic work. We will assess your academic achievements in the context of these obstacles. In addition, we will assess your academic achievements mainly based on your academic performance before and after this pandemic. No student will be disadvantaged because of a change in commitments or a change in plans because of this outbreak, their school’s decisions about transcripts, the absence of AP or IB tests, their lack of access to standardized tests (although many of the colleges represented here don’t require these tests), or their inability to visit campus. We will also view students in the context of the curriculum, academic resources, and supports available to them.

 

3. Service and contributions to others. We value contributions to one’s communities for those who are in a position to provide these contributions. We recognize that while many students are not in this position because of stresses and demands, other students are looking for opportunities to be engaged and make a difference. This pandemic has created a huge array of needs, whether for tutoring, contact tracing, support for senior citizens, or assistance with food delivery. We view responding to these needs as one valuable way that students can spend their time during this pandemic.

We also value forms of contribution that are unrelated to this pandemic, such as working to register voters, protect the environment, combat racial injustice and inequities or stop online harassment among peers. Our interest is not in whether students created a new project or demonstrated leadership during this period. We, emphatically, do not seek to create a competitive public service “Olympics” in response to this pandemic. What matters to us is whether students’ contribution or service is authentic and meaningful to them and to others, whether that contribution is writing regular notes to frontline workers or checking in with neighbors who are isolated. We will assess these contributions and service in the context of the obstacles students are facing. We also care about what students have learned from their contributions to others about themselves, their communities, and/or their country (Please see Turning the Tide for additional information about the kinds of contributions and service we value). No student will be disadvantaged during this time who is not in a position to provide these contributions. We will review these students for admissions in terms of other aspects of their applications.

 

4. Family contributions. Far too often there is a misperception that high-profile, brief forms of service tend to “count” in admissions while family contributions—which are often deeper and more time-consuming and demanding—do not. Many students may be supervising younger siblings, for example, or caring for sick relatives or working to provide family income, and we recognize that these responsibilities may have increased during these times. We view substantial family contributions as very important, and we encourage students to report them in their applications. It will only positively impact the review of their application during this time.

 

5. Extracurricular and summer activities. No student will be disadvantaged for not engaging in extracurricular activities. We also understand that many plans for summer have been impacted by this pandemic, and students will not be disadvantaged for lost possibilities for involvement. Potential internship opportunities, summer jobs, camp experiences, classes, and other types of meaningful engagement have been cancelled or altered. We have never had specific expectations for any one type of extracurricular activity or summer experience and realize that each student’s circumstances allow for different opportunities. We have always considered work or family responsibilities as valuable ways of spending one’s time, and this is especially true at this time.

 

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