Cut Short: How COVID-19 is affecting High School Seniors

For Angela Xu, the beginning of her high school senior year started normally. She submitted applications to colleges and scholarships to pay for college. She spent time with friends and prepared to soak in all the “last” experiences of high school: prom, senior skip day, her senior trip, and finally, graduation.

Working hard for her grades and in her extracurriculars throughout high school, Xu had everything in place for the last few months of her senior year and her focus was on plans for her next four years.

Like many high school seniors, Xu had not yet made her college decision by the time March rolled around, with the expected commitment day being May 1. Xu planned on visiting colleges after she received her decision letters. Doing this, she thought, would avoid spending more money than necessary. However, what Xu and thousands of other college-bound kids across the country could not have planned for was a pandemic that made college visits impossible.

In Xu’s case, attending Northern Highlands Regional High School in northern New Jersey where COVID-19 is in some of its highest concentrations, she was unable to travel during the month of March to visit her top choice college, University of Southern California (USC).

Xu was faced with the decision of committing to a college across the country without ever visiting the campus, or attending Boston College, which she had visited before.

As is the case with hundreds of other colleges and universities, the virtual visit programs offered by her two options did not provide much help to her decision making. Xu, along with thousands of students like her, are now left to determine what their futures hold blindly in a way.

COVID-19 is causing a major shift in people’s everyday routines, but certain groups of the population are distinctively affected, such as the high school classes of 2020. The students are confused on where the rest of senior year stands. In a way, high school seniors had their last day of high school without realizing it. They are concerned about losing cherished senior year events. They are stressed by altered learning routines due to COVID-19 that are causing difficulty in planning out futures after high school wherever that may lead: college, work or vocational school.

As a result, students around the country are coping in a variety of ways, especially over social media. Students have gone to TikTok, a social media platform that allows creators to upload 60 second videos, to help users choose what college they should attend, and others have logged onto Zoom to connect with friends and family to obtain their advice.

Confusion and Uncertainty

Over 2.5 million high school graduates are expected to attend a higher education institution in 2020. But, high school

seniors are worried that their college decision may not be an informed one.

With the cancellation of many events like admitted students day and traditional college tours, applicants are forced to revert to online resources instead.

Xu received information on the USC and Boston College through Zoom meetings. While Zoom meetings provided information on topics like housing and academic programs, what Xu needed was to see the campus first-hand; this option was no longer available for Xu and other seniors.

Having visited Boston College in person before, Xu’s main concern was to know what USC was like in the same way so she could make an educated decision. USC, like other universities around the country, offers a virtual tour, but Xu claimed it was not anything that couldn’t be seen in a google search.

“It was just like a lot of pictures that they’re showing you of different parts of campus. It wasn’t really that interesting,” Xu said. Xu noted that schools have also been sending emails and virtual brochures to supplement the virtual tour, but she claims that it does not show the school in its entirety. She had to look at pictures online and posts on social media from other students to only get a general idea of what USC looks like.

“For every college I feel like the pictures make it look all nice and stuff,” Xu said. “So when you actually go there it’s entirely different.”

To combat this issue, one college in Upstate New York is transforming a traditional on-campus tour into a virtual one that is expected to be more realistic, with the help of two students and a camera.

John Young, the dean of admissions at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) in Geneva, New York, said that what is missing from most virtual tours is the feeling of physically being on campus with the ability to know where things are.

“What’s missing is just the sense of space,” said Young. “Like, how far is it between here and here? What’s the walk like on this side of the quad? How far is it from my residence hall to the dining hall.”

To provide this sense of space, a student who is usually employed as a tour guide will live stream a tour and share it to prospective students.

“We just got one of his buddies following him about eight feet away with an iPhone as Sam walks around campus and shows it for themselves,” Young said. “You can see it. That’s only one of your senses, and when you’re on campus you can feel it. You’re smelling it. You’re hearing it. It’s more engaging, so hopefully this will accomplish some of that.”

But above the new approach to a virtual tour and the updated admitted student website, Young placed a heavy emphasis on the admissions staff at HWS to listen to students’ needs rather than speculating their needs. With that in mind, the admissions staff called each accepted student individually to see what information they need from the school to make their college decision more confidently.

Rather than telling his staff what talking points they should use when calling students, Young simply said, “Shut up and listen.”

“Usually this time of the year we’re communicating with students and we’re marketing. We’re selling, we’re telling all the things that are great about the institution,” Young said. “I think after we advised the staff, especially after a couple of these phone calls, don’t sell so much...Find out what roadblocks are getting in students’ way from making a decision.”

“Most people’s instinct is to push the rock...when in fact there could be these little pebbles that are getting in the way,” Young said.

To help overcome the “little pebbles,” Young states that many students were directed to Zoom meetings or phone calls with departments that are specifically geared towards a specific concern a student may have. Young also highlighted the importance of following up with a student to build a connection and ensure that their needs are taken into consideration.

With students taking more time to research their schools than anticipated, hundreds of colleges around the United States have extended their deadlines until at least June 1.

However, HWS has decided not to extend their deposit deadline. According to Young, students may request an extension, however, after May 1, housing assignments and class registration will begin.

Among those schools that extended their deposit deadline is the University at Buffalo (UB) in Buffalo, New York, where Delaney Reh, a senior from Long Island, New York, committed in early April. Like HWS, UB also offered Zoom meetings to learn more about the school as well as a virtual tour. Having visited the campus in February, Reh was able to take pictures and share it with her peers who were also looking at the same school.

Despite not having to struggle as much as other students in the college decision process, Reh fears that orientation and possibly her first semester of college will be online. Several schools like the University at Buffalo, Texas State University and Seattle University have declared that their freshman orientation programs will be online for the incoming freshman class of 2024.

While many are worrying about the potential effects COVID-19 may have on their college decision and experiences, others are not. Mike Sadowski, a senior from Liverpool, New York, who is planning on attending Onondaga Community College, has taken a relaxed approach to the pandemic’s effects on schools.

“Losing the first semester of college would stink because you don’t get to meet your new teachers for the new year.,” Sadowski said. “But, we just have to take it day by day.”

While being quarantined, Sadowski discussed how he is spending more time connecting with his body and doing things he didn’t have time for before COVID-19, like exercising regularly outside of sports and practicing the drums.

“With every negative you got to take the positive out of it,” said Sadowski. “You can’t just sit in the corner and start crying because you know it’s not a good way to pass the time.”

“TikTok, Choose my school!”

Along with researching potential colleges and universities, high school seniors have turned to a viral method to help ease some of the confusion caused by COVID-19. Users of the popular social media platform, TikTok, are using the application’s algorithm to help them make the decision of what to do for the next four years.

TikTok, an app released in 2016, allows users to create and share videos on a variety of topics, from cooking to comedy. In up to 60 seconds, users are able to share whatever they desire and can make videos with others using their audio, or with a duet feature on the app.

Under the “For You” page, users are able to see a multitude of videos that the app thinks they will enjoy and are tailored to fit their interests. The trend of high school seniors using the TikTok “For You” page to help them pick their college has gone viral.

In order to “choose a college,” high school seniors just simply ask that the user “like” whatever video appears on the “For You” page first.

The video itself often contains information about one school that they are considering going to, such as the cost, the reputation of the school, and the surrounding area. Whichever post receives the most likes is the school that they intend on committing to.

Xu claims she made the TikTok only because she wasn’t able to visit USC. “I just kind of wanted to see what people commented and what advice people had,” Xu said.

Xu states that many of the comments she received were people telling her “to go here or to go there.” Other advice that she received dealt with financial aid, her area of most concern when deciding where to go for school.

“When I made the TikTok I got a full ride from BC [Boston College], which is why people are commenting saying I should go there just because I won’t have any debt and stuff,” Xu said. “It’s basically just people giving me their own advice.”

Other seniors like Chris Ly, a senior from San Diego, California, also hopped on the trend to see where others would like him to go. However, Ly made his video as a joke.

Ly’s TikTok video was about the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was denied admission and his rejection was listed as a con in his video. He describes the reaction to the video as “mainly just like laughing.”

“I wasn’t really going to let people fully decide because I did it as a joke,” said Ly. “I didn’t really post all of my acceptances, though I was thinking about it. But no, I wasn’t going to actually let it decide where I was gonna go.”

Ly ultimately decided to go to San Diego State University, approximately 15 minutes from his home.

While some are going online to let others help choose a student’s next four years, others are just enjoying the videos rather than making them.

Ciara Curtin, a senior from Falls Church City, Virginia, is one of many who watch TikTok videos about seniors and their college decision process. “I think it’s a funny idea,” said Curtin, when talking about the trend. “I’ve been thinking about it because I think it could generate some good content.”

While she researches colleges on her own, Curtin does not have any intentions of having TikTok users make a decision for her.

Online Learning and a Community Giving Back

For students in New York, the remainder of their senior year will now be online, with no chance of returning to in-person instruction. This comes after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo mandated that K-12 schools and colleges remain closed for the rest of the academic year.

While students are completing their assignments online, not everyone is able to complete their required tasks.

Lydia Wagner, a senior from Liverpool High School, faces difficulty in completing her requirements needed by the Boards of Operational Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES. Wagner is studying the cosmetology program with BOCES, where students need to complete a minimum of 1000 hours of practical work in order to be licensed by the time graduation rolls around in June.

According to Wagner, she is no longer able to work and get her hours, and she’s not sure how online learning will work.

“You need half of it to be theory work, and half of it to be actual hands-on work, like doing hair. That’s the main thing,” said Wagner. “Just recently, I was able to get on Zoom with my teacher, but there have been a lot of problems.”

According to Wagner, some of her teachers are not as “tech savvy” when it comes to virtual learning. Wagner also noted that not all students in her district and the country have access to the internet.

Chris Dier, the 2020 Louisiana Teacher of the Year, has also noted this struggle in his community.

“Unfortunately, I do have students that don’t have the internet. So I call them to try to get them the lessons,” said Dier.

“A lot of us don’t really have the infrastructure for online learning. Certain districts can give students all the work in the world and they can go home and take care of it… Unfortunately, that’s not the case for everybody. And I think the pandemic exacerbated these inequities.”

Although resources are being allocated towards his school, they are only “trickling in.”

Along with no access to the internet, Dier also mentioned that there is also the issue of some kids not having access to meals. Dier and his colleagues were some of the hundreds of volunteers who helped distribute food.

“On March 13, Louisiana teachers around the state and administrators and so many people involved in education, scrambled to get all of the food distribution centers set up,” said Dier. “My particular school distributes meals for thousands… And they don’t just distribute meals to students, they distribute to all sorts of people in the community who need it.”

Dier acknowledged the difficulties that seniors across the country and world are facing, having dealt with a similar situation himself, when his senior year was cut short due to Hurricane Katrina.

Along with access to food and internet, Dier understood what the senior class was going through, and to show them his support, he wrote an open letter on his blog to state that the class of 2020 is not forgotten during the coronavirus pandemic, and that he cares and understands their feelings.

“There really wasn’t anything in the news or the media about seniors and their senior year, like it didn’t seem like anybody was doing anything,” Dier said. “The day schools were closed, [seniors were] concerned about whether they were going to go to prom or whether they were going to have their senior trip, and whether they were gonna do the things that we traditionally do for seniors.”

Dier wrote an open letter to the class of 2020 on his personal blog to let them know that they’re not forgotten, stating “people don’t realize how important senior year is until it’s calling.”

Dier’s letter quickly spread around the globe, with his letter receiving over 2 million views on social media.

He stated that it was surreal to see how many people were impacted by the letter, and that he was happy to know that seniors could read it and resonate with it. Along with the letter, Dier’s co-workers and colleagues made an “Adopt a Senior” program where one member of the faculty and community honor the achievements of one or two seniors over the past four years.

With the ongoing pandemic, Dier noted that as students, seniors and underclassmen combined, undergo new changes to their routine, this historical event will shape their identity.

“They’re more resilient than a lot of older people give them credit for,” Dier said.

Some advice Dier gave to students of all grades was that “this is a tough time.” The way one reacts to this will define who they are, and students should always try to do something new and different, and to always learn.

“A classroom is an environment for learning, but it’s not the only environment for learning,” Dier said. “Learning can happen anywhere.”

What’s Next?

Across the world, high school seniors face the same issue: Uncertainty. No one knows what the next year will look like.

As for Xu, she decided to put down her deposit at USC after receiving a scholarship that made the college financially viable for her. Xu defied what TikTok told her to do, and made a leap toward the unfamiliar.

She is going into her freshman fall semester only knowing the USC campus from hour long Zoom sessions with admissions and a virtual tour that could easily be supplemented with a few short google searches. Despite all the unfamiliarity, Xu is keeping a calm and optimistic demeanor about everything happening in the world.

Xu lost the traditional college decision process and her senior year, but regardless, she trusted her gut and is looking forward to her uncertain future along with the rest of the class of 2020.

This story, as well as all graphics and visuals, were made by Eleanor Kay, Desiree Holz and Andres Rendon. Visit Desiree's and Eleanor's websites to read the story on their page, and to view their work as well.

This publication recognizes the issues that have risen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this publication also recognizes that popular media outlets are not telling every story, including, but not limited to, that of the high school senior class. By sharing how the pandemic is affecting the class of 2020, "The Rendon Report" continues to practice its firm belief that all news should be shared to everyone.