I do believe that the coronavirus will affect the students enrolling for the fall of 2020 as well as for those applying this fall for 2021.

Many colleges have pushed back their decision deadlines from the universal May 1 Candidate Reply Date to June 1 (or later). I think this will mean the colleges aren't going to have as good of a handle on their fall numbers as they typically have and summer "melt" (number of students who cancel enrollment) might be bigger than expected. Students who typically visit colleges in the spring will have to get by using virtual visits in order to make their decision. There have been some recent surveys that report more students are planning to stay closer to home in the fall. I see more uncertainty in decision-making from my students than in previous years in terms of where they will enroll.

The impact of students staying closer to home and taking longer to make their decisions will also impact the use of waitlists by the colleges. I think some colleges will go deeper into their waitlist than they have in previous years, which means students will have more options that come later in the spring and may affect initial decisions.

Financial aid offices are also going to receive more requests to review financial aid packages in light of families' changing financial situations due to the pandemic. I think finances will be an even bigger factor in where students end up enrolling this fall because of the economic crisis unfolding in our nation and the world.

As for current juniors who will apply to enroll in the fall of 2021, we are already seeing colleges making changes to their admission requirements for fall 2021. There are almost daily postings of colleges going test-optional for those applying for fall 2021 and in some cases, beyond. I think colleges that consider things like demonstrated interest will also need to make changes to how they assess interest in the admission process.

There are many more changes that could be unfolding in the upcoming months as we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. There are so many unknowns at this time that both colleges and students will need to remain as flexible as possible.

Feel free to contact me for further information.

Thanks,

Cathy McMeekan

Spring of your junior year is an excellent time to start researching your interests (i.e. for college majors/interest areas) and to reflect on what you want out of your college experience. Once you know sort-of what you'd like to study and some other particulars that you want in your college (beyond location and size), then you can start researching colleges. A great website to start this process is www.bigfuture.org, which is the College Board website. If you can go into the summer before your senior year with an evolving list of colleges you are considering applying to, then you can get a jump start working on college applications before the hectic senior year begins.

Also, spring is a great time to take an ACT or SAT test, and you can use the free resources provided by both those companies to do practice tests and test prep.

There are obviously more things you can do during the spring of the junior year to prep for the college process, but these are the bigger items to concentrate on first.

I'm happy to answer other questions either through email or you can schedule a call if you want to discuss further.

Good luck with the spring semester!

Cathy

Thank you for your inquiry. Yes, I do work with students from China, but most of the Chinese students I am working with are currently studying for their high school years in the US. Please feel free to request a call if I can answer more specific questions.

Thanks,

Cathy

Karen,

Thanks for contacting me. The number one source of college funding is from the colleges themselves, so doing a targeted college search based on your daughter's needs (including financial aid) would be the best place to start. Is your daughter intending to dance in college as an activity or pursue a dance major? That could be an additional source of funding at college as well, if she were to pursue dance in some form. Did she graduate from high school, get a GED or attend any college while dancing for the Cleveland Ballet?

I do work with families where financial need is a driving factor in the college search and have also worked with students applying to schools in the UK through the UCAS system. I would be happy to chat with you to discuss your situation and see if I can assist, or provide you with names of other consultants as needed.

Cathy McMeekan

Thank you for your question! I encourage students even before their senior year of high school to start looking for scholarships for which they might be eligible when they become a senior. This gives them a head on finding scholarship opportunities. They can bookmark those scholarship webpages, or use scholarship websites that allow they to create an account and save those scholarships for future. Students should start applying as soon as those scholarship applications open for them in their senior year (or earlier). There are scholarships that are open to even younger students so it doesn't hurt to start looking early! Some places to start looking for scholarships are www.bigfuture.org or https://www.cappex.com/scholarships/. For information on need based finacial aid, www.studentaid.gov is great resource.

One caveat that students need to know is that when looking to fund a college education, only a small percentage of the total financial aid funding comes from outside sources, so spending time developing a college list that has schools that are generous with need-based or merit aid is more important than spending hours searching for smaller outside scholarship dollars.