Life Kit - Here's How To Pick A College During Coronavirus

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is making college decisions more complicated. This episode answers the burning questions: How do I get a hold of final transcripts if my school is closed? How do I decide on a school I can't visit? What if I need more financial aid than I thought I did?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes, and home prices. The S&P 500 biggest post-election day spike ever. Follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Make America affordable again. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. Hey everybody, before we start today's show, I want to say here at LifeKit, we know this is a really difficult time for everyone.

Things are uncertain and stressful, but we're grateful to be able to bring you the tools you need to navigate life right now. One of the reasons we're able to bring you tips about money, family, and health during this time is because of our listener donations. So please, if you're able to, give what you can to your local NPR station today. Head to donate.npr.org slash life to get you started. Good morning, Life Kit. This is Sophia Aguilar. My husband and I, Edmundo, we have a pack on exercising. We live in California. We have a two-story house.

And so what we do is we do our stairs every day, three times a day. And so what we do is my husband stands on the top of the stairs. I stand on the bottom of the stairs. And we pass each other. And so as we go up and we come down, that's one. And so we do it five times, three times a day. We've given a whole new meaning to the stairs in our house. We used to just see them as getting from one floor to the other, but now that is our exercise routine. How are you coping right now during this pandemic? Leave us a voicemail with

your tip about how you're making your day a little easier at 202-216-9823. Again, 202-216-9823. Say your full name, where you're from, your tip, and the number where we can reach you. You can always also email us at lifekit at npr.org. And thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye. This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Shereen Marisol Maragi. I've been searching for things to lift my spirits these days, and nothing beats watching online videos of high school kids getting their college acceptance letters. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like this one of Jada Wiltz. She's surrounded by classmates and loved ones.

Everyone's waiting nervously for the big reveal. Will she get in or won't she? Obviously, she got in. Everyone's screaming and hugging. The entire scene is pure joy. And moments like this are usually abundant this time of year because this is when colleges send out their decisions. But as you all know, this isn't a typical year. This is the year we're all figuring out how to live our lives during a global pandemic. And all this uncertainty has college-bound seniors wondering, how do I get a hold of final transcripts if my school's closed? How do I decide on a school I can't visit? What if I need more financial aid than I thought I did? LifeKit is here to help. Students need to know that admissions

folks and their school counselors are here for them. Colleges know that things are so up in the air. And so things like this transcript getting in or this email not being sent, like there's going to be generosity of spirit. Hopefully hearing that will put people at ease. And here with more advice is NPR's Alyssa Nadwurney. She reports on education. Hey, Alyssa. Hey, Shereen. All right. So we've established that these are not normal times. When do you think students are going to hear back from colleges? So this is actually the thing that hasn't really changed amid coronavirus.

So the majority of schools are still on track to admit or deny basically this week and next. I mean, it's the end of March, early April. A lot of schools already sent out admissions decisions, right? Because like schools are rolling. So students could have found out as early as mid-winter, really. But like this is the part that's kind of on track. Marie Bingham, she works for a nonprofit called Accept. They work with admissions officers to try and keep things equitable.

They focus on racial justice. She's the tape you heard at the top. Here's what she says. One thing the colleges are doing to highlight is they are staying on track in a lot of ways. I've not seen a single college say, hey, our admissions decisions or financial aid decisions will be delayed. I've not seen a single college say that. If anything, I've seen colleges say, hey, we know this is on your mind and we're going to make sure we're on track. Okay, that is positive news. Not so positive is the fact that this crisis is already taking a financial toll on families across the country.

And I'm wondering if families can apply for more financial aid if they need it. Yeah, so this is definitely an option. And honestly, this happens in normal years too. And I think a lot of students maybe don't know that, but you can ask the colleges that you've been accepted to that have given you your financial aid package. You can basically apply to have that increased. If something in your family has changed, if a family member has been laid off or you've lost your part-time job, if in your family has changed, if a family member has been laid off

or you've lost your part-time job, if a financial situation has changed, you need to reach out to the schools that you've been accepted to and let them know. Often schools will have forms on their websites. I think this is also a ripe opportunity to start having those kind of conversations with your family. I mean, you're all kind of packed into your apartment or your house right now. Money can be super tricky to talk about. It's also really important to know that colleges are being really flexible right now. Like they know it's super hard for students

to get transcripts, to get final grades because high schools are closed. The University of California, which is one of the nation's largest college systems, they announced that they'll waive grade requirements for incoming freshmen and the number of pass-fail classes for transfer students, so folks who are coming from another college, those have been waived. So, you know, they know that this pandemic is affecting everything, testing, transcripts, AP credits, financial aid. So they're going to be super sensitive to that.

And then once you get these various financial aid packages from colleges, normally this is a very stressful process trying to compare and contrast and make your decision. And so how is this process different now that everything is happening remotely? Are there online resources to help you out? Yeah, so there are a lot of tools. We have one on our website at npr.org. There are school districts that have them. They basically allow you to compare your financial aid offers. And remember, these are not apples to apples because schools do their own letters. They do their own calculations. Sometimes these documents will include loans. So you got to be really careful about that and not get distracted by that big bolded number on the bottom because schools, every school costs a different amount of money to

go there. So like you can't just compare, oh, I got this big sum of money from this school. This is also an opportunity to kind of experiment with some digital tools with your guidance counselors. So Sanjay Mitchell is a guidance counselor in D.C. He works with students prepping for college, and he's working with students remotely to analyze those financial offer letters. For example, I've had a student send me their financial aid award letter, and then I put it on my screen.

And so I share the screen with them and just go through it line by line as if they were sitting in my office. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. In life, you plan for many important things like weddings, retirement, and your children's education. A celebration of life is really no different. Planning and paying for your celebration of life in advance protects your. Planning and paying for your celebration of life in advance protects your loved ones and gives you the peace of mind you deserve. It's truly one of the best gifts you can give your family. Dignity Memorial will help you take

care of every detail with professionalism and compassion. For additional information, visit DignityMemorial.com. What happens to democracy when one political party has near complete power? That's the question at the heart of Supermajority, the series The New Yorker just named one of the 10 best podcasts of 2024. Listen and hear what all the hype is about. It's season 19 of NPR's Embedded Podcast. What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year.

Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. So in a typical year, students need to get these decisions in by may 1st is that still the expectation so this is the big change that we're seeing happening right now because of coronavirus lots of schools are pushing this deadline to june 1st so they're giving students and families like more time. I think the count is up to about 250 colleges. I think it's giving families just a chance to breathe and kind of regroup and figure out, okay, I don't have to make this decision in a month or six weeks from now. I actually have a little bit more time. Here's Marie again. May 1st is like six weeks away from now. I can't fathom any family in six weeks from now saying, I know where my child is going to college or my student is going and I know I can afford it and I am confident that that place will be up and functioning in three months. Back in the day, I wanted to go to college as far away from home and my parents as I could get.

But I'm wondering, in these times, how students are thinking about going away to school. Yeah, I mean, I think this is on a lot of folks' minds, especially families. I talked to a high school student in Tampa, Florida named Mae Lamison, and she wanted to get out of Florida. Like she was like, you Shereen, she was like, I'm ready to go out of state. But with coronavirus, her mom especially is super nervous. I mean, she, it's her only daughter and, and, you know, she gets worried if something happens, like she doesn't want May to be really far away. If I'm not getting enough financial resources or information from a lot of these colleges that I initially really wish to go to, I might just be spending my, either my first semester or my four years at my local school. The other thing that's kind of changed up how folks are thinking about where

they want to go to college is they're watching what colleges have been doing in the last couple weeks with the students they already have. Like, did they allow them to stay on campus? Kind of like, what are they doing to help their current students? Did they refund tuition? And so I think that's influencing a lot of how they're feeling about where they want to go next year. I think families are watching how colleges are reacting to this and what's happening on campuses and saying, hey, what am I learning about the college from this? And what should I know? And another friend of mine whose child's a senior said to me, I don't care about brand names anymore. I'm looking for the humanities. I'm also wondering, you know, for the students who haven't had a chance to visit the colleges they apply to, can they do that? Are there online

resources for that? Yeah, so most college campuses have closed, which means they're not letting visitors on. And so they've canceled campus events, tours, info sessions, orientation events, accepted student days. And they've kind of shifted all of this online. So this is a big deal for students. A lot of students make decisions based on this. I talked to a student named Xander Christou. He is a senior in Austin, Texas. My plan was to visit their campuses if I got accepted. So that would be probably after spring break, early April. Deciding in the span of a month where I want to spend the next four years, that's going to be a challenge, especially without being able to visit and see myself on campus. I mean, right now these universities, like I've researched them,

but they're just names and logos and programs. I love that. Names, logos, and programs. But it's true, like a lot of people make that decision based on feel and like, you know, what their heart says. The thing is that a lot of schools are putting this stuff online. So admissions offices are getting creative. They're doing virtual tours. The University of Virginia actually had all of its campus tour guides make TikToks. Hey y'all, today we're going to talk about one of my favorite things to cover on admissions tours. You guessed it, libraries. Fun fact, UVA has 13

libraries, including their rotunda. Now we're not going to talk about all 13 of them today because that would be boring. Oh, that's going to give you a huge feel of the campus. How long are those videos? Like 20 seconds. I mean, I guess it shows you that like people who go to UVA are fun and cool. Okay, there you go. I don't know. Yeah. But some colleges are offering, you know, if they're doing online learning for their current students, prospective students can jump into a classroom or like listen to a lecture. Here's Marie. They've ramped up their online videos, their chat availability. And that's one of the things that admissions offices are working on really hard right now is making sure that even if students can't visit, that they can still get a sense of place and of information. For a long time, college visits, which are extremely popular, they kind of reward students who can visit. Right. You know, so those who maybe don't have enough money or traveling is not an option, they kind of get penalized in this equation. And so there is a potential here that virtual content will actually make it easier

for more students to have access to campus. So this is flattening that privilege a little bit by folks getting out there and saying, hey, we want to be able to share this information, not only on our campus, if you can't afford to get here. Of course, this kind of ignores this big divide that we're discovering during all of this work from home, study from home, which is that not everyone has access to high-speed internet.

I mean, think about like taking a tour and watching a video on YouTube. Spaces in which low-income students have kind of used the internet to look for this kind of stuff include libraries and schools, which are closed. So if you don't have the internet at home, or if you're just streaming from your phone, that does put you at a bit of a disadvantage. A wide spread of students across the United States have the ability to flip open a computer, log onto the internet, and the world

just works normal for them, have it on their device. But there's a larger population of students where that doesn't happen. The internet and the ability to connect to Wi-Fi is a luxury. It is not something that is a guaranteed or a placeholder in everyone's household. This global pandemic is bringing up so many other issues that really need to be addressed. So, I mean, I think that's a good thing. I'm glad that we're having a conversation about the digital divide here.

What can students do who are coming up against these obstacles? What are the workarounds for them? So the phone also works great. I think sometimes we forget about the phone. Like if you have a cell phone, like there are people on the other end of the line that can pick up. I talked to a bunch of admissions officers who basically said we have to not forget about the phone as we go into all these digital like innovations. Just picking up the

phone and calling students and families is like it's always worked. So that's one thing. And then I would also say as a student, like it can be super uncomfortable to admit you don't have internet, but just know that like lots of people are in the same boat as you. And so to raise your hand and say like, hey, this is, I don't have access or I can't screen this video. Schools will work with you. Like they understand that this is not just a you thing. They understand that lots of students are struggling with connectivity right now. So I would say just don't be shy about your limitations. Another thing that's very much up in the air because of the world we're living in right now

is whether or not students can even be in a classroom and when that's going to happen. And I'm wondering if there's any word about whether universities have considered, you know, doing online classes for the coming semesters. So I have not seen anything set for the fall. I think colleges honestly are hoping to goodness that this resolves itself by the fall semester. The same goes for tuition, right? I mean, is tuition going to stay the same? We don't know. We're facing a lot of economic uncertainty and colleges are right in the middle of that. I mean, think about the amount of money it keeps to pay staff while you're refunding tuition and room and board. That's happened this spring semester. Enrollment has been down

in colleges across the country for the last eight years. Whoa. So they're already hurting for students. Like this is not a good time for colleges. We've actually seen schools accept more students than they did last year because they want to fill their classes. So this has the potential, especially for selective schools, to let folks off the wait list. Although important to note that that is a very rare thing that happens. It's kind of a false sense of hope when you get on that wait list. In terms of tuition increases, you know, even amid coronavirus times, we can't rule it out. In Utah, the state voted to raise tuition at most of their public universities. It's really small, but it happened.

So that's worth noting. If you are confused about how much it's going to cost to go to your school, how much the cost of attendance is, you should reach out to those schools. They will absolutely know how much you have to pay. It's clearly a very turbulent time for colleges, too. This process, the college admissions process, is usually fraught with all kinds of emotions anyway. You know, you've got hope and anxiety, dejection and celebration. And now there's even more anxiety on top of that over this global health crisis.

How are the students you've been talking to coping? Yeah, I mean, I think we have to acknowledge that this is a big disappointment for them. This is something that they've had kind of drilled into their brains since freshman year. Like a lot of high schools are like college, college, college. And then when they get in, this time is supposed to be super celebratory. Like a lot of schools will put up a student's name with where they're going to college they can wear the shirt to school on certain days like yeah and so a lot of that stuff is missing Sanjay the guidance counselor in DC he said that kind of this environment and this kind of disappointment is actually what worries

him the most especially for students whose families have never gone to college and this might feel OK, now let's just take this off the plate and worry about some other things. So for seniors, their safe space used to be our school. Our school building was a space where they can have robust conversations about going to college and not be met with. It's a pipe dream. Don't don't even think about it. So now a number of our students are like, well, what is this process going to look like if I don't have you to be there talking to me directly on a one-on-one when I have questions? My parents are overwhelmed. They're frustrated. They're nervous. They don't know what is going on. And then on top of that, I'm talking to them about going away

to college, right? When colleges are sending students home at the same time. All right, Alyssa, that was a lot. So just to recap, what would you say is the number one takeaway for college-bound students right now? I think you got to just take a deep breath and remember that you're not alone in this. Like it can feel like that because you're stuck in your house. You can't see your friends. You're not with your teachers, your guidance counselor. But just remember that your guidance counselor, the folks at your school are still working. The admissions offices, financial aid offices, they're still working too.

So you can reach out and ask questions. You are not alone in this. Alyssa Nadworny is an education reporter for NPR. Thank you so much, Alyssa. Thanks, Shereen. We know that the coronavirus is changing so many aspects of life. So keep watching this feed for more special episodes about how to navigate this pandemic. We've got an episode about how to homeschool your kids.

Another episode answering your health concerns like what's the difference between allergy symptoms and the coronavirus? You can find those at NPR.org slash LifeKit. And if you love LifeKit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter. And lastly, if you've got a tip about what's been helping you cope these days, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at life kit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas, Megan Cain is the managing producer, and Beth Donovan is our senior editor. I'm Shireen Marisol Maragi.

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