College visits and admitted student days are being cancelled as campuses remain closed.
Advice: If you were relying on those to help you make your decision, you should seek alternative ways to evaluate your options. Follow the colleges on your list on social media, look for virtual college tours to give you a sense of the campus environment - and if you can, connect with current students at a college, they are likely to be home and willing to speak with you about their experiences.
Admitted students may have more time to make their college decisions as colleges are changing their deposit deadlines in light of all of the disruptions. You may have more time to decide where you’d like to go - at least a month extra in many cases.
Advice: If you haven’t committed to a college yet, you’ll probably want to wait until you understand how they are responding to the coronavirus events and until you have more information about your own personal situation (see below). Keep track of new deadlines in a spreadsheet as you hear about them.
Experts say we may see impacts of the coronavirus into the next academic year.
Advice: If you do plan to attend college in the fall, be prepared for the possibility that it will not be business as usual. You may not even be on campus. Do some extra due diligence about your university’s capacity to support online learning. You can find this information online (Google “[college name] online” and look for results from the official university .edu website) or by calling the admissions office. Ask what percentage of students historically take online courses in order to get a sense for the depth of experience. You can also look for professors at the college on Twitter, many of whom are sharing their experiences of transitioning courses online.
There is great economic uncertainty right now, and there is likely to be rising unemployment in some industries (e.g. service industries, small businesses, retail). Your family’s finances may well be impacted in the near term depending on your employment situation and where the money for college is coming from.
Advice: There is no official guidance yet from the federal government about how federal financial aid might be impacted by the economy. It’s likely that colleges’ financial realities will shift in light of other changes -- meaning that the money they have set aside for financial aid and scholarships could be impacted. Even if your finances and employment are stable now, it’s possible your family’s financial situation may change. If you know of any concrete changes to your employment or income now which will impact your ability to pay for school, you should reach out to the financial aid offices at the colleges. This may take the form of a financial aid appeal.
