Huguenot High senior Dwight Baldwin will write about his leadership experiences in band and student council in his college application essays. (Photo by Julianne Tripp)
Huguenot High School senior Dwight Baldwin is planning for his next steps after graduating next spring. He’s involved in student council and the school band and excels in science. This summer Baldwin practiced his baritone horn, worked at TJ Maxx and wrote essays required by the colleges he is applying to.
“My top school I want to attend at this point is North Carolina A&T, for the band and because they have a good engineering and computer science program; my second choices are Hampton University, Howard University and Virginia Tech,” says Baldwin, who is in Huguenot’s Early College Academy.
Baldwin is confident about his leadership experiences in high school and his grasp of the college application process. He is writing about an accomplishment that sparked a period of growth, focusing on the experience of being the vice president of the Student Council Association and a drum major in the school marching band.
“I’m going to write about how you have to be there for all the band members, be friends and know everyone,” Baldwin says.
A Different Year
Baldwin’s college application process has been supported by his family and his school counselors. Ryan Hannifin, the school’s future center coordinator, works with all students to walk them through the process. Hannifin’s colleagues at Richmond’s five comprehensive high schools offer SAT and ACT test prep, college tours, essay writing workshops, and financial aid assistance to help students tackle the yearlong college application progression.
“We have different resources to provide families regarding college material, including pointing them in the right direction, where to apply, including putting together the best application,” Hannifin says, “but this year is a lot different.”
The most glaring changes due to the coronavirus pandemic are the total cessation of in-person college tours and standardized tests being canceled, high school classes changing to remote or online formats, and grades shifting to pass/fail at many schools. Hannifin, who brings a decade of experience working in the admissions office at Virginia Commonwealth University, assures families that colleges are aware of the challenges that the pandemic has wrought on the application process. To prepare students for the task of applying to college, the center shifted its annual summer boot camp to an online format and will continue to reach out to students and their families electronically.
Applying to college can be confusing during normal times, but now, the distance from school counselors makes applying even more challenging. Renee Shimko-Daye, mother to Isabella, a rising senior at Monacan High School in Chesterfield County, agrees.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Shimko-Daye says. “Isabella’s been researching schools, but she’s also indecisive. She’s interested in occupational therapy or school counseling or school social work. We need to see what’s out there.”
The inability to tour schools has increased the up-in-the-air feeling of her daughter’s future path, Shimko-Daye says.
Standardized Tests
The normally required SAT and ACT standardized tests were canceled in the spring and summer. As a result, University of Lynchburg will be test-optional for Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. Southern Virginia University will go test-optional for the fall of 2020. University of Virginia, Randoph-Macon College and the University of Richmond are also joining the test-optional ranks this year. It was a move that was already afoot for many institutions.
“We’re getting a lot of concern about testing,” says Rebecca Buffington, senior associate director of admission at the University of Richmond, “but the SAT and ACT have not been available.”
UR is also test-optional for merit scholarships. Buffington says she is also hearing concern from applicants about how grades were recorded in the spring semester, from pass/fail to letter grades, from credit to no credit.
“We won’t hold that against students,” Buffington says. “Recommendations from teachers and counselors give a different view of the student. We want to know how they were involved academically. We’ll take more time with each application. We’ve always been thoughtful and methodical. But with these current circumstances, we are working with what we have access to.”
Her team will “pull a narrative out of each application” with an understanding of each school environment.
Buffington says the application gives space where students can provide a context to their pass/fail grade and that those choices won’t be held against them. She explains that admissions officers understand many students are facing difficult situations with insufficient materials in the quick pivot to remote learning.
“This is new territory with new questions coming up.” —Caroline Leone, Chesterfield Career and Technical Center high school counselor
Virtual Visits
For Baldwin, the senior at Huguenot High, spring college visits were not an option because of closures and COVID-19 dangers.
“The biggest downside to not being able to go to campuses in person is being able to see if it has a homey feel to it. I really wanted to go in person to hear the bands and to eat the food and to see the atmosphere,” says Baldwin, who was lucky to have absorbed an impression of many university bands by attending a band battle. “I saw videos of people on tours and people talking about the [cafeterias], but I had to rely on other people’s opinion rather than my own.”
Greg Roberts, University of Virginia dean of admission, says the inability to give in-person tours due to COVID-19 precautions has been a challenge with a silver lining.
“UVA is a beautiful place. If students visit, they are more likely to apply here,” says Roberts. “How you replicate that is not easy.”
A virtual tour guide leads students and parents around the University of Virginia on the school’s website. (Image courtesy Office of Undergraduate Admission/University of Virginia)
Colleges across the country are creatively developing online materials to show prospective students around. Current students appear at virtual information sessions to give prospective students a sense of college life. Roberts says these efforts have also leveled the playing field for those who normally would not be able to visit.
“Those virtual tours are now available to those who cannot travel here because of finances or distance,” Roberts says.
When Randolph-Macon College in Ashland opens up for tours again, they will look very different, with one tour guide per family. And Buffington’s office is willing to connect curious applicants to current students to learn about campus life.
Reassurances
Chesterfield Career and Technical Center high school counselor Caroline Leone assures parents like Shimko-Daye that Chesterfield’s college counselors will communicate this semester with the students learning remotely and their families, to help them as best they can using technology in place of face-to-face meetings. Families and students can sign up for reminder messages from counselors like Leone to be notified of important deadlines and opportunities.
“This is new territory with new questions coming up,” Leone says, “but we counselors are in a position to help. My best advice is to reach out. Students should reach out to other people close to them to ask them what they think are their strengths because sometimes it’s hard to see them in yourself, and ask how you can best showcase them in the application.”
Richmond native Tamara Baptiste is an independent college counselor with College Application Specialists based in Maryland. She says the Common and Coalition Applications, two online services that try to streamline the college application process, both announced a “COVID-focused essay question” where students can inform colleges of how their life and learning were affected by the pandemic.
“I handhold and walk students through the process,” Baptiste says. “I do a lot of research. My recommendations are not based on, ‘My aunt went there,’ but what is a good fit? Where are you comfortable, and what matches your academic talents and comfort?”
Not optional are the financial obligations to pay for higher education. At 90 schools in the Richmond area, the GRASP (Great Aspirations Scholarship Program) organization provides workshops and assistance with financial aid applications, helping students and families to obtain funding for post-secondary education. With virtual hours and by appointment, Patti Feyerabend, assistant director of advising at GRASP, says the service will be able to reach more students.
“We’ve talked to so many families about job loss and wage reduction,” she says. “Families are going to use the 2019 tax forms, and we can help them explain about special circumstances and to file an appeal for funds, as well as help families locating scholarships.”
At Randolph-Macon College, David Lesesne, vice president for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid, says the school wants to relieve some of the anxiety applicants may be experiencing and meet students where they are. This means less of a focus on standardized test scores and more on high school records.
“We try to understand the context that a student is in. We deal with students in different localities, with different educational opportunities,” he says. “It’s not fair to compare someone with few opportunities to another applicant with a lot of opportunities.”
Lesesne says admissions counselors will act with empathy if students made the best of an opportunity amid the pandemic, with an eye to the usual question about what the student is passionate about.
“We’re telling students: You can only control what you can control,” UVA’s Roberts says.
