Sydney Watchmaker, Class of 2021
With the complete shutdown of college campuses across the country, all of our college visits have been cancelled for juniors and seniors. As a junior myself, I was super excited to spend April break visiting all my potential schools and going on roadtrips with my family that we have had planned since December.
Because of corona and quarantine, it is still up in the air if current juniors will even be able to visit these colleges in the fall. Deciding what college you want to go to is a really big step and with college visits being cancelled juniors are struggling to narrow down their list.
Another big aspect to college visiting is the family bonding experience that comes with it. Before corona, I was able to visit Vanderbilt with my mom. We flew out to Nashville and spent the weekend together both visiting the school and enjoying the city. It’s one on one time like that, which we so rarely get during a busy school year, that is so important to me in these final years with my family before I go to college. This April was going to be a roadtrip with my entire family visiting new schools on my list and getting to experience college campuses with both my parents and my brother, something that I was really looking forward to.
Despite all of these obstacles, colleges are working to help our class decide which colleges are a good fit. While virtual tours can be helpful, something I have found that has really helped me personally are YouTube videos college students made before corona. These videos provide an insight as to what life was like at the schools when they were full of students and activities rather than completely shut down. Here are two videos that give you an idea of what you can find if you search for your school that’s different from what you will find on admissions websites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS2Fzl0mS4Y & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5WsjPX_zvY&feature=youtu.be.
I know that this is a difficult time for everybody and health concerns and the shutdown of the economy are certainly of the utmost importance, but for students like me who have worked so hard for so many years and have been looking forward to the college experience this can be really disappointing. It’s times like these where we need to get creative in order to make the best of it and realize that there are still ways to gain an understanding of schools and help to narrow down a list. Between virtual visits, YouTube videos, and even just surfing college websites, current juniors such as myself can start to get a feel for schools.
I know that times are hard now but hopefully it will get better soon. I am holding out hope for the fall and being able to visit schools with my family and even see some of my friends that have graduated and started their own college experience. But if we can’t visit schools in the fall there are many virtual and online opportunities that everyone should take advantage of.
