Twelve months ago, as the pandemic took hold around the world, students were graduating from high school into an uncertain situation. For many, the pandemic changed the world from what they had expected and for those preparing to start their university years, rather than leaving home and starting a new life abroad it has meant a year of online classes and spending hours in bedrooms at home. As a new cohort of students prepare to graduate, what will the new academic year bring?

As new strains of COVID 19 appear in different areas of the world the policies of different countries change. The information in this article is correct at the time of writing but you should check the most up to date information from official Government sources of the country you will be travelling to.

The United States

Across the United States colleges and universities have been setting out their plans for restarting in person fall terms after a year of teaching online. The full details are still being worked on, but many colleges are indicating that nearly all aspects of college life will return this August.

The return of students to campuses does not mean a full return to college life as it was pre-pandemic, students are still likely to need to social distance, ware facemasks and take regular COVID tests. A steadily growing number of colleges, particularly private, are making it a requirement that students are fully vaccinated before being allowed to return to lectures, dorms and dining halls.

Some colleges are being more cautious and are proposing to use a hybrid model of both in person study, particularly for subjects that are more practical, and online sessions.

The US Government has been easing its travel restrictions of students travelling to the United States for college, when recently they announced a ban on people arriving from India, they made an exemption for students commencing their studies, provided they have been vaccinated.

Read More: Class of 2025: The Bigger Picture

The United Kingdom

Last autumn, universities in the UK welcomed new students back into halls of residence but as the second wave of COVID grew during the following months, students were moved back to home and online learning. Since then the vaccination programme is continuing apace with the expectation that all people in the UK, over the age of 18, will have been offered a vaccination by the summer. From mid May 2021, universities will reopen for all students to attend in person and the expectation is that university life will be near normal for those starting this coming September.

Like colleges in the US, not all lectures will be in person and so some learning will be done by students in their college accommodation.

Travel to the UK remains open although there is a requirement for all arrivals to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival.

Canada

Universities in Canada are also planning to welcome students back, in person, in the fall, however there remains a higher level of uncertainty as to just what this will look like. Most universities are suggesting that it is unlikely teaching and on campus activities will return to pre-pandemic levels and that some online teaching will remain.

Recently Canada has seen an increase in COVID cases which is causing universities to tighten restrictions and move more courses online, how this will impact on plans for the fall remains to be seen.

Throughout the pandemic, students have still been able to travel to Canada, if they are studying at a designated university. All students arriving are required to quarantine for fourteen days, three of which are in a designated quarantine centre. You will also be required to take two COVID tests.

Australia and New Zealand

With their different timing of the academic year, it is still too early for colleges and universities to confirm their plans for students start their university studies at the start of 2022. Some of the most popular institutions for international students in Australia accepted a record number of students in the last few months, however they have had to commence their studies virtually. Both countries have had some of the strictest boarder restrictions in the world ranking and the respective Governments have told institutions that it may be well into 2022 before most international students return to in person teaching.

In Australia some colleges have been offering refunds of up to 20% to encourage international students to enroll while boarders a closed, but many observers believe there will be a significant fall in student numbers for the next academic year.

Final Word

It’s fair to say that institutions around the world are keen for students to return to campuses as soon as possible. With this in mind, tentative plans are being put in place but prospects for students are looking significantly better than twelve months ago.

At the start of January this year I wrote a piece where I looked at what had happened in the early round of college applications for the class of 2025. Since the start of April colleges have been releasing statistical information for the whole application round, including the numbers of applications they have received and the all important admit rate. From this information, we can gain a better understanding of what has turned out to be a truly unique year.

The numbers

The Common App has reported an increase of 11% in the number of applications to colleges over the 2019/20 round, however, there has only been an increase of 2% in the number of students making one or more applications. This indicates that while there has been a comparatively small increase in people applying to college, each student is submitting applications to more colleges.

Part of the overall increase in applications is due to a significant increase in applications from international students. The Common App has seen an increase of 13% in applications over the previous year.

This increase in the number of applications has not been shared equally across the higher education landscape. Applications to attend more selective colleges and universities across the United States have seen a considerable increase in the number of applications. Increases reported by individual, highly selective colleges show some truly huge surges in applications. Cornell received over 17,000 more applications this year than last, an increase of around 25%. This figure is dwarfed, however, by Colombia, which recorded an additional 51% of last year’s numbers. Even this growth is overshadowed by Colgate University in New York state, which reported a 103% increase in the number of students applying to the small liberal arts college.

Such increases in the number of people applying are good news for colleges, which do everything they can to encourage people to apply to them, as this acts to push down their application rate. Colleges like to make a feature of just how selective they are, for many people, a more selective college is the same as a ‘better’ college. Below are admission rates for some of the colleges popular with Ivy Central students.

·      Boston University – 18.3%

·      Brown University – 8.8%

·      Columbia University – 3.7%

·      Cornell University – 8.7%

·      Emory University – 20.4%

·      Harvard University – 3.4%

·      MIT – 4%

·      New York University – 12.8%

·      Princeton University – 3.9%

·      UPenn – 5.7%

·      University of Southern California – 12%

Other popular colleges, such as Stanford and the UC’s are yet to release their admit rates for the class of 2025.

What sits behind these numbers?

To see such huge increases in the numbers of applications, specifically to more selective institutions makes this year’s application round stand out from any that have gone before. It will take time to truly evaluate the data but early indications and anecdotal evidence suggest that the move to test optional applications, in response to the pandemic, is the main reason behind the changes.

It would appear that, without the need to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of the application, many students decided that they would submit an application to colleges that they would normally have considered to be out of their reach. Such a strategy would explain why there has been such a significant increase of applications to selective colleges but less to those with higher admission rates. It also suggests that without the stark figure of a test score, students and those advising them find it difficult to realistically judge the value of their academic year for student performance and extra-curricular activities within the holistic assessment process. Colleges have so far been largely silent on the number of applicants who have not submitted test scores and been accepted but figures from the early application rounds at both UPenn and Georgetown indicate that those students that did submit test scores held a statistically significant advantage in the admission process.

What does it mean for the future?

While most colleges have already announced that they will not be requiring standardised tests for the coming application round an increasing number have announced that they are either going test optional for the following year as well or in some cases dropping standardised testing for good.

With the more selective colleges having gone through the process of restructuring their application evaluation process, to account for not having, what had previously been, one of the key benchmarks of performance, it is difficult to see them going back to their old ways. The test optional application has resulted in the very influential elite colleges receiving even more applications than before the pandemic causing them to appear even more selective.

Read More: What is a Research University

Critics of standardised testing have often asserted that the tests favour students whose families can afford test coaching. The move to test-optional applications has increased to students from traditionally disadvantaged groups applying to selective colleges. A recent New York Times article reports that colleges, including Harvard, NYU, and USC, have seen a jump in admissions from students with Black, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. In the context of the social challenges experienced in the US, particularly in the last year, such change is good news for colleges and another reason for test-optional applications to remain a feature for some time to come.

The Times Higher Education have just released their rankings of the worlds universities according to their reputation. The rankings are devised by asking just over 11,000 senior academics from 132 countries to name the universities that they believe are the best for research and teaching in their subject area in this academic year.

The United States is the most represented country in the ranking list with sixty colleges including Harvard, topping the list for the tenth year in a row, and seven of the top ten. The United Kingdom comes second with twenty five colleges while Germany has moved up to third place.

In total, institutions in 30 different countries are included in the top 200 universities.

The top ten are:

·      Harvard University – USA

·      Massachusetts Institute of Technology – USA

·      Stanford University – USA

·      University of Cambridge – UK

·      University of Oxford – UK

·      University of California Berkeley – USA

·      Princeton University – USA

·      Yale University – USA

·      University of California Los Angeles – USA

·      The University of Tokyo – Japan

You can read the full list here

Working with study abroad consultants, overseas education consultants, or, as more commonly known, college counselors, can help you plan ahead and make those high school years count. Ivy Central offers exceptional focus to help you prepare for college admissions throughout the high-schooling years. Start today!

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