The world is changing all around us. College counseling needs to evolve to meet the needs of students.

Due to COVID-19, colleges and universities are changing their admissions criteria. Some schools, like Cornell University and Harvard University, are waiving the SAT or ACT for admission, due to the difficulties in taking the exam. Some students may not have access to the resources needed to study for the exam or even have a place to take it as test centers around the country stay closed. This change is unprecedented so no one really knows how this year’s admissions will turn out. However, there are still some things that students can do to prepare for this change.

Due to quarantine and reduced school and work hours, students may be finding themselves with more spare time than usual. Staying healthy should be your top priority, especially since the US has higher rates of young adults contracting COVID-19 than other countries. Staying healthy includes taking care of your mental health. In this tumultuous time, it is totally okay to focus on yourself. Colleges and schools will be understanding if you focus on taking care of yourself during this time instead of on your resume.

My choice of friends has had a far greater impact on my life than any other decision I’ve made. My friends have inspired me to pursue my interests, taught me critical soft skills, supported me through difficult times, and most importantly — they continually push me to strive to be the best I can.

Without a doubt, COVID-19 this past year has ravished the world in unprecedented ways. The pandemic has affected virtually all aspects of life, from personal to professional to academic. Many normal behaviors such as handshakes and hugs have now been restricted or disallowed by governments. Although the responses have varied much globally, I am most familiar with what has happened here in the United States. Particularly, I want to focus on what has happened to U.S. universities and how it will affect college admissions for those involved. Mainly, I want to explore the new reality for students applying, how admissions staff will have to respond, and the potential long-term results of COVID-19 on higher education.

It can feel hard to work on your project in the midst of global and local uncertainty. The first thing you should do is recognize that there are no wrong ways to react to the corona virus and that everyone handles stress differently. But there are a few other things to bear in mind...

My first year of high school, I joined the Service-Learning Team, a group that spent Tuesday afternoons at local elementary schools leading enrichment activities and spent Thursday afternoons discussing the socio-political components of our relationship with the students: underfunding of private schools, the cycle of poverty, and so on. I strongly believed in the mission of the group, but the work itself wasn’t for me—I wasn’t very good at arts and crafts or soccer, and I didn’t have a natural rapport with young children. So I made a decision that would ultimately come to occupy the majority of my free time in the next four years: I met with the director of the program, our school’s ethics teacher, and suggested we expand our outreach. In other words, I saw a missing piece, and I suggested how to fix it.