By Rayva Gupta and Michelle Mathew
Commitment day is just around the corner, and seniors have to make a decision by May 1. College commitment is usually an exciting time for high school seniors, but with the many uncertainties and challenges that have presented themselves within the span of a year, the frequent changes of the release of college decisions have rendered many students stressed. In the past, most colleges would release decisions by the end of March, but due to current circumstances, the date was pushed to the first week of April for highly selective schools like Carnegie Mellon, Emory, and Georgetown. The well-anticipated Ivy Day was postponed to April 6, and Stanford released their decisions on April 7.
For many students, the time given to choose a college and commit is not as big of an issue since many have an idea of where they want to go. However, the idea of waiting longer than usual for decisions has caused many students to feel anxious and worried.
“It puts unnecessary pressure on students because they felt it gave less time to make a commitment decision,” said senior Preesha Mody.
The other concern that seniors have is financial aid accommodations. Financial aid packages are usually received a few weeks after the student has been accepted to the school. For many students, their college decision depends on the aid they are given by a certain institution, so the short duration of time makes it difficult to make a well-thought out decision.
Source by Sydney Hargrove
This year, Ivy League decisions were pushed back to April 6.
In the past, students would tour campuses and go to college fairs before and after applying to schools in order to keep themselves engaged and get a feel of the colleges they might attend. Due to the pandemic, many of these campus tours became virtual. Although virtual tours are available, an aspect of reality is lacking when students are not in person to view schools that they may want to attend. This has caused a lot of distress for students as they would not be able to actually see the physical college campus they want to attend until after they come to campus in the fall.
“It just made a lot of the college process seem disorganized due to the uncertainty of when decisions will exactly be released and when college tours will occur,” said senior Aarti Devjani.