I have always preached that the college search and application processes shouldn’t be just about admission to college but also readiness for college. In a perfect world the process of applying to college would test the very qualities required to be a successful college student—independence, self-knowledge, organization, maturity, and persistence.
We don’t live in a perfect world, of course, but graduates in the class of 2021 have lived through a world during the past sixteen months that has been even more flawed than normal. They have lived during their final three semesters of high school through a time of global pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and attacks on the U.S. Capitol and democracy itself.
That doesn’t count the upheaval in their education. The fortunate ones have experienced school in person complicated by masks and social distancing, but many students haven’t had a true school experience for more than a year. Virtual learning and Zoom meetings are exhausting, and we won’t know for several years just how much academic learning and progress has been lost, much less the emotional toll of what we’ve lived through.
How ready are they for college? And how ready are colleges for them?
Recently long-time ECA reader and London correspondent Anne Richardson raised some important questions and concerns for college faculty and student life professionals. She described it as a “rant”; I see it as on the money.
Anne wrote, “I am really hoping that all of these institutions are thinking carefully about how to deal with the Class of 2021 when they arrive on campus next fall. It is a class that has been out of traditional classrooms for months. The students have been away from friends and isolated in many ways. They are all over the place academically, and many are disillusioned about education. This may be the most diverse group ever to set foot on campuses in every sense of the word. What kinds of support will all of these students need (and they will need support in multiple ways), and how are residential life and faculty preparing?”
Anne might actually be understating the issue. It’s not just an issue impacting new college freshmen.
Last fall I was part of a debate with several colleagues about which college students were going to be most adversely impacted by the pandemic. Was it seniors, who were going to miss the sense of completion and closure to the college journey that the senior year should bring, and who are entering a workforce with diminished employment opportunities for recent college graduates?
Or did college freshmen, who entered a campus environment that was either virtual or isolated by COVID restrictions, have the greater challenge? The freshmen didn’t have anything to compare their college experience with, but in a very real sense they haven’t had a true orientation or on-boarding to campus culture. As disruptive as the academic part of their education has been, their ability to experience the social side of college, the connection with both students and faculty, has been even more disrupted.
We have certainly seen it at the secondary level. I have had several conversations with families of students who changed schools this past year who never felt like they connected with classmates outside of class in an environment where sports and clubs were diminished or shut down entirely. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s fault, because schools were challenged just to be open safely, but in retrospect I’m not sure that the schools recognized the special challenges faced by new students during a time of COVID restrictions.
I have to believe that the same is true of the students who entered colleges in the fall of 2020. Is it coincidence that a larger number of my 2020 graduates seemed to think about transferring, with many of them referencing a perception that the grass was greener at colleges and universities other than the ones they had chosen? Whatever the answer, colleges need to be prepared to deal with more significant academic, social, and emotional issues not only with first-time freshmen, but with returning students as well. In a sense there are two full classes of “new” students on most college campuses who will be transitioning to the college experience.
It’s also not a short-term issue. Back in April I was asked to serve as moderator of the closing session at the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admission Counseling virtual conference. Our assigned topic was “Getting Back to Normal or Planning for a New Reality?” One of the panelists, a counselor at an urban public school, made the point that the legacy of COVID will impact students for at least several years going forward. The impact was not just on high school seniors but on younger students as well. Their development and preparation for college was also thrown off track, and they will bring a different set of issues, both academic and mental health, with them for several years to come. That’s not even to speculate on what kinds of impacts there have been on students currently in elementary school.
How ready are colleges for these students? A colleague who has been on a number of Zoom calls with colleges recently and has asked that exact questions hasn’t gotten the sense that many college campuses have thought about it more than superficially. I’m sure it’s the last thing colleges want to think about when they are already dealing with lost revenue during the pandemic and also have to worry about their own campus-wide staff exhaustion and mental health. And, of course, we don’t have a good handle on what the issues are and in what ways they will manifest themselves.
But ready or not, here they come. Our students will enter and return to college with significant academic and personal issues that will need to be addressed. We all want access to educational opportunity, but that access is hollow without opportunity and tools for success.