2024 Hawai‘i College Guide: Getting Into College

Read more of the 2024 Hawai‘i College Guide

SATs No Longer Required

The biggest change in college admissions has been the rise of test-optional policies, which were once deemed mandatory. Though a few colleges and universities have restored testing requirements, submitting SAT, ACT and other standardized test scores remains optional at more than 1,900 schools, including many of the country’s most prestigious universities, says Todd Fleming, director of college counseling at ‘Iolani School.

To be clear, it wasn’t the pandemic that instigated the change—it just sped up the timeline. Schools for years had been considering deemphasizing standardized testing, acknowledging its limitations in evaluating students and the inequity of some students being able to afford test prep courses while others could not.

Thus, when COVID-19 struck, and SATs and ACTs were canceled, colleges swiftly announced that students were no longer required to submit standardized test scores. The ability to opt out led to record numbers of applications at many selective schools—and lower acceptance rates. Suddenly, students who didn’t have test scores that met school averages were emboldened to apply.

Although some institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have announced that applicants once again will be required to submit SAT/ACT scores, many have gone the opposite route. None of the nine University of California campuses, for instance, will consider SAT and ACT scores in admissions or scholarship decisions. Other schools are following suit.

In deciding whether to submit standardized test scores to places where they are optional, students should evaluate their individual situations, counselors say.

“If a student has access to take a test, then they should do so. And if they do well, they should submit their scores because it’s another metric, another measure of their academic preparation for college,” says Connie Livingston, a former admissions officer at Brown University who now serves as the head of counselors at the California-based college consultancy Empowerly. “As a former admissions officer, in some instances, I did value being able to see those test results, particularly for STEM fields. If I saw high math scores and the student was applying to an engineering program, for example, that was valuable and confirmed their preparedness.”

Fleming agrees, saying ‘Iolani’s counselors still strongly encourage students to prepare for and to take standardized tests. “The benefit of test-optional policies can also present a challenge, as students have to decide whether or not to submit their scores,” he says. “They can ask themselves, ‘Do these scores represent me well? Do they add strength to my application? Or is my application stronger without them?’ Choosing whether or not to send scores becomes another individualized variable in the process.”

More Financial Considerations

Along with changing admission requirements, students and their families have been wrestling with more financial considerations as college costs rise and economic uncertainties grow.

“I think students and families are now considering more variables than they have in the past,” Fleming says. “They might be looking more now at not just what they’re going to be asked to pay, but how much they would be comfortable paying. It’s always been a huge issue for most families in the United States, but discussions of paying for college are probably more common than they used to be.”

Fleming says another change he’s noticed is that selective schools—but perhaps not the most selective ones—are less predictable in terms of how they distribute merit aid. “We’re seeing merit packages that we wouldn’t have necessarily expected in the past,” he says. “It’s a college’s acknowledgment that this is a great student. We’d love to have them on our campus, and we’re willing to have this family at a lower price point to do that.”

More Students Are Applying Early

Another trend in college admissions, although not necessarily driven by the pandemic, is that more students are taking advantage of early decision and early action programs because acceptance rates are often higher, Livingston says.

There’s an important distinction to make, however, between early decision and early action. While early decision is a binding agreement—you must attend if you’re admitted—students applying through early action can choose other schools.

“You should only apply early decision if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is your top choice school,” Livingston says. “I also caution students where finances could be an issue, because when you receive your early decision admission, you will likely receive your financial aid package, and 100% of your needs may not be met. Not all families are able to take that financial risk.”

Another thing to note for early applicants is that because of the early deadlines—typically in November—admissions officers likely will analyze them through their junior years instead of their senior years.

Rise of Virtual Campus Tours

During the height of the pandemic, with institutions veering to remote learning and campuses shutting down, college tours came to a halt. Schools across the nation began offering more virtual tours of their facilities and programs. “It’s a very positive thing that has come out of the pandemic that so many more schools have shored up their online resources for students,” Livingston says. “Before, you had the traditional in-person campus visit, which isn’t accessible for all students. Now, there are either live or recorded information sessions along with live Q&As and chats with current undergraduate students. Students can now go to college websites and take advantage of virtual online opportunities that can give them a thorough idea of what their life and educational experience would be like.”

For Hawai‘i students, the convenience of the virtual tour is clear.

“Not all of our families or students are able to travel and visit colleges,” Fleming says. “That’s a stark contrast to kids going to high school in the Northeast where they can hop in the car and visit five or 10 different selective colleges within a week. So when colleges were forced to offer more online, that allowed our students to avail themselves to additional resources that didn’t exist prior to the pandemic. There’s no replacement for actually being on campus, but it did help.”

Tip: If touring multiple colleges isn’t an option for you, try searching for the schools you want at youvisit.com—It’s free and has a database of more than 600 college tours for you to browse.

Tell Your Story

The normal flow of schooling changed for many students during the pandemic. Remote learning became the norm, grading systems shifted, and sports and other extracurricular activities were canceled or postponed. Admissions officers are fully aware of this and want students in their personal essays to indicate how they’ve been affected by the changes and how they’ve adjusted.

Fleming says the student essay has always been a critical component of a college application, but it’s clear now that a person’s story should not be solely defined by their activities. “A person’s story could encompass something from their own history, from their family, from something more than a rehashing of their activities list,” he says. “The pandemic perhaps forced students to see that they need to show colleges more of who they are and what makes them tick. The essay has always been the vehicle for that, and students now recognize that their essay isn’t just an activities listing, but a chance to reveal who they are.”

Don’t Focus on Rankings

Overall, Livingston advises college applicants and their families to not be consumed by rankings. Schools should be selected based on how good a fit they are for them. “What the rankings do is establish prestige, and students and families want to be associated with prestige,” she says. “It’s hard to change that mindset, but I try to explain to students that this is going to be your home for the next four years, your community. Dig deep into what a particular college community can offer you, and what you can offer them.”

There are more than 4,000 colleges in the United States, and the vast majority offer excellent educational and social extracurricular opportunities, she adds.

“It’s incredibly important for students to build a balanced college list,” she says. “You want to have some safety schools, target schools, reach schools, and maybe even a few of those high reaches, like the top 10 schools. But it’s important that every school on your list is one that you would be happy to attend, where you can see yourself thriving and excelling. Safety schools should not just be a place to go if you don’t get in anywhere else. You should be excited to attend them too.”

Fleming said his main advice to students is to think critically about what experiences they’re hoping to get from college, and to identify that in a way that’s not contingent on what others want or what they’ve heard but on what school will fit them best. “We ultimately want them to find a place where they will be challenged, but they’ll also be successful,” he says. “We want them to be comfortable, but not too comfortable. We want them to grow. It’s the next four years of their life that can create amazing opportunities for them for the rest of their life.”