Colleges Scramble to Fill Classes

The New York Times: "Of some 700 universities with a May 1 acceptance deadline, which include many of the country’s most competitive, about half have already given students an extra month to decide ... Some schools are waiving deposit requirements, particularly for foreign students, who are especially valuable to universities because most pay full tuition. And experts say that the number of wait-listed students who are now getting offers ... shows that even some of the most selective schools are acting more aggressively to fill freshman classes." "The coronavirus pandemic hit at a time when American higher education, which employs about three million people nationwide, was already suffering from a host of financial problems. Many liberal arts colleges have struggled to meet enrollment goals in recent years because of rising tuition costs, concerns about student debt and a shrinking population of young people. Since mid-March, when colleges abruptly shut down campus operations and moved to online learning, schools have announced hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and say that a $14 billion federal aid package will not be nearly enough to keep struggling schools afloat. Executives have taken pay cuts, endowments have shrunk, hiring has been frozen and construction projects have stopped." "Colleges have sent out optimistic letters to try to reassure prospective students that they will get a classic campus experience ... In a Zoom session, Texas Christian University said courses could be held in alternating shifts, with half the class attending live and half online ... At Cornell, admissions officers took 99 students off the wait list last week and extended them offers, said Jonathan Burdick, the school’s vice provost for enrollment. That is a fairly typical number, he said, but the university would usually wait until after May 1 to make that move."

Fall Semester or Still Sequestered?

The Washington Post: "In a different year, incoming freshmen would already have in hand a tightly choreographed schedule for late summer and early fall: the move-in date, the orientation and, finally, the first day of classes. But on the coronavirus pandemic calendar, there are no dates yet for the next academic year. Just scenarios ... The possibilities range from a return to normalcy, which few higher education insiders believe at this point, to a fall semester with dorms shuttered and students taking classes from home until at least January." "U-Va. could start classes on Aug. 25 as scheduled, with students in Charlottesville but under new social distancing restrictions to guard public health. It could delay the semester and plan to open in person some weeks later. Or it could launch the school year without students on campus and teach remotely until circumstances allow a return. Schools everywhere face variations of these choices. All carry a degree of risk. Opening campuses, whether sooner or later, will require a plan for what to do when someone is found to be a carrier or falls ill with covid-19." "The most immediate question is how long higher education leaders can wait to make a decision. Several estimated they have until mid-June. Yale University President Peter Salovey said the school will make the call by early July ... Boston University, a private school with 34,000 students, made waves recently when it floated the possibility of opening campus in January. School officials emphasize they are focused on bringing students back in fall ... BU is consumed with planning to reopen research laboratories, clean dorm rooms, “de-densify” lecture halls and other steps."

Pixel Dust: College Tours Go Virtual

The New York Times: "Virtual coffees with college students for high school juniors. Zoom sessions between applicants and admissions officers. Student guides offering welcoming messages in video selfies and scenic views of university campuses captured by drones. This is what spring college tour season looks like across America, where universities are going to great lengths to show off lecture halls, green space, libraries and laboratories that have all been emptied out by the pandemic, albeit online ... Carefully planned road trips with parents have been suddenly scrapped, leaving many students to wonder how they will experience campuses’s true vibes on the internet." "Some universities are using drone images to offer 360-degree online tours. Vanderbilt University in Nashville is matching high school juniors with current students for virtual coffee meetings. Baylor University in Waco, Texas, is allowing high school students to take online courses this summer and posting dozens of selfies from faculty and students offering personal pitches for the school. The University of Virginia’s website offers virtual dormitory tours and floor plans of residence halls." "One of Yale’s Zoom presentations features a student living with her family in Singapore who stays up until nearly midnight to appear on a panel with an admissions officer living in the United States ... Web traffic has accelerated on independent sites like www.campusreel.org, which displays short, vetted videos submitted by students from 320 colleges, focusing on dorm life, tailgate parties, library study areas and cafeteria food. 'We got the washers. We got the dryers,' Yu Isii, a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, explained on a video tour of her residence hall that included a pass through the laundry room — a scene unlikely to be included in most official tours."