Who Said Applying to College During a Pandemic was Hard? (Not the Class of 2021)

by Felicity Acevedo

April 30, 2021

While decision day is fast approaching, I want to say congratulations to the Class of 2021! We’ve been working hard for so long towards this one goal and we’ve finally reached it. Now it is time to celebrate all that we have accomplished this past year. Although we were one of the first classes to apply to college during a pandemic, we certainly didn’t hold back.

The 12th grade college counselor, Jerome Furman, talks about the many obstacles that seniors have overcome this year, “The arduous process of applying to college is challenging for students when we are not in a pandemic, but applying during a pandemic made the connection that usually happens when a student knows that they can come into the college office and ask for help when they need it impossible!” In other words, seniors weren’t able to access the in-person support they would usually receive during the college process and had to rely more on themselves than anybody else which is extremely hard during a pandemic. Furman goes on to say, “The seniors of 2021 had an unwavering openness to critique and suggestion, which not many students are open to.” Therefore, despite the challenges we were facing amidst the pandemic, we all took the college process very seriously and used every piece of advice we could get which I believe paid off in the long run.

Although it wasn’t easy, the class of 2021 was accepted into over one hundred institutions!

Here is the list: Allegheny College, Adelphi University, Canisius College, College of Mount Saint Vincent, Bard College, Cornell University, Culinary Institute of America, Livingstone College, Brooklyn College, Bronx Community College, Baruch College, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Laguardia Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Fordham University, Lehman College, York College, Harvard University, Hofstra University, Ithaca College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johnson & Wales University, Manhattan College, Le Moyne College, Kent State University, Marymount Manhattan College, Gettysburg College, Monroe College, Mercy College, New York Institute of Technology, Pace University, Seton Hall University, Spelman College, Michigan State University, Paul Smith’s College, St, Joseph’s College, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Albany, SUNY New Paltz, Stony Brook College, Binghamton University, SUNY Brockport, Lafayette College, SUNY Purchase, Howard University, SUNY Geneseo, University of Arizona, Bennington College, University at Buffalo, Yale University, Lehigh University, College of Staten Island, Westchester University, Warren Wilson College, SUNY Cobleskill, Alfred State College, Rowan University, Alfred University, St. Thomas University, University of Cincinnati, The City College of New York, Clarkson University, New York City College of Technology, SUNY Cortland, SUNY Oswego, Medgar Evans College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Connecticut, Bucknell University, Indiana University, Clemson University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Trinity College, Temple University, Penn State University, Santa Clara University, Sarah Lawrence College, University of San Francisco, Old Westbury, The New School, Oberlin College, Swarthmore College, Emory University, Lafayette College, Morris College, Harris-Stowe College, Middlebury College, Connecticut College, Northeastern University, Assumption College, SUNY Potsdam, The George Washington University, Queens College, Albright College, University of Pennsylvania, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, SUNY Maritime College, St. Augustine University, University of California-Davis, Daemen College, Queensborough Community College, and Arkansas Baptist College.

Congratulations again to the Class of 2021 on all of their amazing acceptances and being the first to apply to college in a pandemic!