Call this the Jeff-Selingo-On-College-Admissions issue.

Selingo is the author of the must-read There Is Life After College (2017) and the newly-released Who Gets In And Why.

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“How Colleges are Like the Airline,” by Jeff Selingo, in the Next newsletter

“Like airlines who oversell seats (well, at least in the pre-pandemic days), colleges know some students—or in reality, many students—won’t take them up on their acceptance offer. Despite sophisticated modeling, colleges might know how many students won’t say Yes, but they don’t always know exactly which students will turn them down.”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

Selingo predicts that COVID-19 will introduce more uncertainty into the admissions process. As a result, he believes that colleges will rely more heavily on early decision applications to build their classes. Early admits provide the most reliable data points for meeting target yields—which in turn enable colleges to meet their budgets.

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“7 Hours in 5 Minutes,” by Jeff Selingo, in the Next newsletter

“Over the last month, I’ve led more than a half dozen virtual town halls on the admissions search during Covid-19. During every discussion, new issues and questions emerged about the process this cycle, but some of the same subjects kept coming up over and over again. So you don’t have to watch hours of video (although you can if you want—details below), here is some of what students and parents need to know about the most frequently asked questions about applying to college this year.

1. Stop worrying getting a test score.

2. Control what you can.

3. You don’t need to write about the pandemic.

4. Early decision will be more important for colleges, but maybe not for you.

5. The effects of deferrals this year will be less than you think on the Class of 2021.

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

Selingo elaborates on each of these 5 topics in his newsletter.

In a year in which students are already under greater-than-normal stress, I hope that the adults in the room will trust in Selingo’s rigorous journalism and on-the-record avowals by admissions officers that test scores are truly optional this year.

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Do you know a high school student, gap year student, or first year college student who might want to earn college credit for learning to design solutions to the world’s most urgent and important social problems?

They can apply for a spot in the October Expedition.

School leaders can also apply to send a team of students by contacting us directly.

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