The College Board, the organization that administers the SAT and AP exams, recently announced sweeping changes to the age-old college entrance exam and advanced placement tests due to COVID-19, and many universities have subsequently decided not to penalize prospective students who are unable to take the tests this year. These decisions come on the heels of numerous other recent changes to the college admission process resulting from the pandemic. So what is it like trying to select a college right now? Especially when campus tours have all gone virtual and prospective student events include abbreviated drive-through open houses that limit the ability to get a good “feel” for any campus?
It was almost a year ago that the pandemic forced Milwaukee-area colleges and universities to suspend in-person instruction, remove resident students from campus, and hastily adjust to entirely remote operations. Since then, higher education institutions have found ways to handle the evolving challenges of COVID-19. According to Michelle Goulais, the Assistant Director of Campus Experience at Cardinal Stritch University, “while the early days of virtual events seemed to be PowerPoint focused and more presentation-heavy versus discussion-based, we eventually pivoted to more interactive options with faculty workshops and conversations with current students. We invested in an app that has really helped us make more student connections between prospective and current students at Stritch.”
Across the city and beyond, most colleges have revamped their academic calendars in response to the pandemic. During the fall semester, this likely meant ending in-person instruction (if offered) prior to the Thanksgiving holiday and switching to remote-only instruction for the final weeks of the semester. For this spring, many schools have eliminated a traditional spring break in an attempt to keep students from traveling during that time (UWM students, however, will still enjoy a week-long break in late March and other schools plan to offer additional days off during the semester).
Socially Distant
No matter what campus, it’s become clear that many students want to receive in-person instruction and physically be on site as much as possible, so universities have been forced to adapt in creative ways as they attempt to meet student needs. While universities everywhere are still evolving their plans for the 2021-2022 academic year, a closer look at this year’s college experience may help decipher a school website’s promises of engagement and camaraderie from the less-than-hoped-for realities of socially distant or on-line classes, a suspension of fans from all athletic contests, and on-campus living that includes a mandatory no-guest policy, to-go meals, regular COVID-19 testing, and a forced move to quarantine housing if you contract the virus.
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Rest assured, aspiring collegians, universities are working extraordinarily hard to provide a high-quality student experience that continues to include a full range of opportunities both academically and co-curricularly; albeit, while keeping their campuses safe and sanitized, and enforcing ever-changing CDC guidelines. To do this, numerous local universities, including Marquette, UW-Milwaukee, MSOE and MATC all have up-to-date COVID dashboards posted on their websites and continue to test the campus community regularly.
At Marquette University, the online coronavirus dashboard is updated daily to keep the public apprised of the number of individual COVID cases on campus and to provide a general threat level for community spread. Rigorous testing procedures at MU include the testing of symptomatic students and close contacts, surveillance testing of off-season student athletes, and mandatory testing of a random sample of 5% of the enrolled student population per week.
Tested Weekly
At UWM, students living on campus are tested once a week (employees coming to campus are also tested every other week) and Carroll University, Cardinal Stritch University and other schools are performing required testing on all students living in campus facilities. MATC has also built an online dashboard with virus data for all of its campus locations, with website information posted in both English and Spanish. Across its campus locations, MATC has instituted a number of safety protocols, including mandatory temperature checks and ID scans each time a student enters a campus building, designated entrances and limited building access for faculty and staff, and they continue to encourage students to use virtual student services to receive assistance in areas ranging from academic advising to personal counseling. This is also true at Cardinal Stritch University, where the safety of all students, faculty and staff has been the top priority, according to Camillia Washington, a sophomore there who serves as the President of the Black Student Union and a Resident Assistant. She admits, “It has been difficult, but Strtich continues to make sure there are resources available to students, including virtual tutoring, open library hours and other valuable online resources.”
When it comes to the academic experience, most schools are currently running a blend of virtual and in-person classes, with some schools (Carroll and Cardinal Stritch University among them) leaning almost exclusively toward in-person offerings, while others (including MATC and UWM) rely more heavily on virtual or blended instruction methods. Various safety precautions continue to be enforced at every campus, including, for example, mandatory testing for any student at Carroll University who is taking an on-campus course or planning to utilize campus facilities including the gym, library or dining hall.
At MATC, a variety of course offerings have become the norm and courses are currently offered in both 8 and 12 week formats. For 20% of MATC students, fully in-person courses that are tied to career-specific hands-on skills continue to be offered, with CDC recommendations in place, while 10% of MATC’s spring semester courses offer a blend of in-person and virtual instruction methods. According to Jon Metz, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Marquette University, “schools are bending over backwards to meet student needs and faculty members are pivoting to meet students’ changing circumstances. He adds, however, “Engagement is super challenging. People wearing masks and being spread out makes it very difficult to cultivate community, but everyone understands this is a sacrifice for the common good. There is a sense that we are all doing what we need to do to keep classes going.”
Undoubtedly, the traditional college experience has changed dramatically since March of 2020, but perhaps more surprisingly, university life has in many ways also remained as it has always been. Like much of what is to come, it is hard to predict how the future of college will look over the next four to six years, the average amount of time it takes an undergraduate to progress from matriculation to graduation, but thanks to the decision of the College Board, at least standardized test-takers won’t have to worry about a less-than-perfect SAT score affecting their chances for admission. At least for this year.
