Learn to appreciate
YOUR SAFETY SCHOOLS Zachary Khouri “Have you received a word back from any colleges yet?” After months of hearing this question come out of everyone’s lips, the class of 2021 may finally have a definite answer. However, the journey has been far from a typical one. Between the incredible increase in college applications for schools nationwide, including a 28% growth in applications reported by both UC Berkeley and UCLA, as well as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, applying to college has provoked high stress for seniors of all backgrounds. Colleges have managed to innovate the application process despite pandemic isolation, such as by conducting interviews through Zoom, taking into account the financial and academic toll induced by quarantine, and shift-
ing the status of SAT and ACT scores from required to optional. Many have come to suspect that the last of those three changes will continue beyond the pandemic. In fact, according to the New York Times, waiving test scores was the main reason why top schools across the nation, such as Cornell, Swarthmore, and Penn State, evaluated an unprecedented number of applications this year. Smaller schools, on the other hand, failed to experience the same trend. Instead, these institutions, which had already been struggling financially due to the pandemic, saw a decrease in applications. For most of us, the schools we must now decide between may not be what we expected. It’s no surprise that a rise in applications causes a drop in acceptances. Regardless of how these unexpected
developments have shaped the process, students will still have to confirm which colleges they will be attending within one month. We seniors have many scales to balance in the coming weeks, including affordability, opportunity, and location. Hopefully, you applied to safety schools in case you didn’t get into your top choice. If that is the case, I implore you to start researching those safety schools and learn to appreciate those institutions’ numerous opportunities. Unfortunately, safety schools have a reputation for not being as worthwhile as their more prestigious counterparts, but it’s time to put it into perspective. If a school has a 10% acceptance rate, 90% of applicants face rejection. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are inherently less intelligent or unworthy of attending one of these prestigious institutions; it merely reveals that the road to
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