By Ken Hogarty

College Admissions Advisor Memo: Getting into YOUR Top Choice University in Covid-19 World

Students and Parents:

Challenging times provide opportunity.

Our agency will work with you to show you how these developments might work toward your heretofore farfetched dream admission:

1) Covid-19; 2) online courses/ remote learning, 3) top universities ditching SATs, 4) colleges looking beyond big donors after one-percenter admission scandals, 5) new concern for non-traditional students who can pay in light of BLM inspired social consciousness, and 6) admissions departments looking for skills that fit school profile.

This update focuses on #6. Most important in this new world, real-life skills and abilities, researched to yield the “best profile admit” for particular universities, also demonstrate generally sought collegiate qualities: common sense in trying situations; social, though not physical, connectedness; adaptability under stress; and a desire to fit with classmates online and eventually in person.

The following will give you examples of real life matched-skills beyond grades and virtual activities to impress dream universities on your list:

Ivies and other Top-Tier Schools (e.g., Yale, Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, Columbia):

• Reach a favorable solution after navigating communication with a cable company.
• Convince a telemarketer to buy something from you.
• Explain baseball on Zoom to a foreigner who has never watched a game.

Elite Public Universities (e.g., Cal, U.C.L.A., Texas, Michigan, Illinois):

• Find a program/movie quickly while manipulating four TV remotes while house-sitting.
• Fill out FAFSA forms and other financial aid docs for busy parents.
• Concoct a GoFundMe campaign selling stock in your future.

Military Academies (e.g., West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy, the Citadel & V.M.I):

• Demonstrate twitch speed by mastering “Call of Duty.”
• Make a bed so that a quarter dropped on it doesn’t bounce.
• Outdo NASA playing KSP [Kerbal Space Program].

Prestigious Tech Schools (e.g., M.I.T., Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, Brown & Carnegie Mellon):

• Calculate precise odds for every variable while winning at a public poker table.
• Create a new arcane statistic for a mainstream sport that gains popular acceptance.
• Get named captain of an Esports team.

Party Schools (e.g., Tulane, Georgia, Florida State, U.C.S.B. & Alabama):

• Break records for followers and likes.
• Fashion a blog that considers nuances of all body hair.
• Rack up at least five selfies with social celebs, with or without masks.

Selective Women’s Colleges (e.g., Barnard, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr & Mount Holyoke):

• Strategize whether to get tattooed and how to avoid getting Me-tooed.
• Memorize Roe v. Wade.
• Break deserving male hearts to anticipate the day you’ll break glass ceilings.

Sought After Independent Liberal Arts Colleges (e.g., Vassar, Oberlin, Kenyon, Mills & Wesleyan):

• Cultivate the ability to talk about anything for five minutes.
• Be able to say hello in ten different languages.
• Identify creative ways to turn experiences you would enjoy anyway into volunteer experiences to claim for college admissions.

Most Liberal Schools (e.g., U.C. Santa Cruz, S.F. State, Bard, Northwestern, American):

• Fashion a blog that ruminates on the existential meaning of life.
• Subscribe to or steal copies of the New York Times and Washington Post and recognize all the talking heads on CNN.
• Blog about racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, while making up other -isms for like-minded peers to embrace.

Most Conservative Schools (e.g., Liberty, B.Y.U., Bob Jones, Franciscan University of Steubenville & Oral Roberts):

• Be able to prove you’re a virgin.
• Be able to know if others are virgins by looking at them.
• View and internalize Conservative 101, Freedom Daily and Fox News.

LGBT – Friendly Schools (e.g., Princeton, Harvey Mudd, Elon, Tufts & Lehigh):

• Acknowledge that you can’t spell the word “outstanding” without “out.”
• Regard dykes and lipstick lesbians as equally beautiful.
• Regard bears and twinks equally when searching on Grindr.

Latinx Dominant Schools (e.g., University of Texas – El Paso & Rio Grande Valley; Texas A & M – International & Kingsville; California State University – L.A., San Bernardino and Dominquez Hills):

• Find, get, and keep a fulltime summer job.
• Stay on budget while shopping for family at a big box store.
• Convince people Latinx is a better designation than Hispanic for these schools.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (e.g., Spelman, Howard, Hampton, Morehouse, Fisk & Florida A & M):

• Turn words to money like Jay Z, Diddy, Kendrick Lamar, Drake and Cardi B.
• Turn words to power in the spirit of MLK, and in faith with BLM consciousness.
• Dunk a basketball live. or through NBA Live doppelganger.

Schools with High Acceptance of 1%ers Without the Bona Fides to Get into Very Top-tier Schools (e.g., U.S.C., N.Y.U., Penn, Boston University & Vanderbilt):

• Arrange for a private lawyer, paid out of your allowance, to check current wills, deeds, trusts and other assets pertinent to ensuring current lifestyle.
• Identify people to phony up FAFSA forms and other admissions docs for parents and to grease your application with some esoteric sport or activity designation that costs less that 500K to arrange.
• Learn first name of your cook, butler, pool boy, chauffeur, dog walker or maid.

I can document YOUR skill to your advantage,

Betsy D.