3 Ways Your Child’s Application May Be Affected (and what to do about it)

It’s safe to say that there is a lot of uncertainty around how COVID-19 will impact students’ chances of getting into top universities. Here are the three main ways your child is likely to be affected, plus advice on how to make the best of this situation.

#1 SAT and ACT cancellations

In order to apply to most US universities, your child is required to sit either the SAT or the ACT. As standardised exams tend to have many students sit in one big room, breathing the same air for a few hours, the upcoming SAT and ACT tests in Singapore have been cancelled.

What you can do:

1. Use this time to practice. Encourage your child to sit a full length exam under real time conditions on the day they were supposed to take the exam to see how they would have done. Sitting these tests at a later date can actually increase their score!
2. If your child is applying in the upcoming cycle, register for both the SAT and the ACT. While we’d usually recommend focusing on one depending on which your child is naturally better at, you don’t want to leave anything up to chance - take whichever exam isn’t cancelled! The next SAT is in August, and the next ACT in June.
3. If your child is unable to sit the SAT or the ACT before university applications are due, either contact the schools they are applying to and ask for an extension on the standardised test due date, or consider applying to a university that does not require SAT or ACT scores (there are quite a few!). Google “Fairtest” and select “test-optional” to find out more.

#2 Cancelled/rescheduled school exams

Students enrolled in the IB or any CIE curriculum will receive a grade or predicted score that reflects their standard of work, instead of taking final exams. For those depending on these exams as a chance to improve their grades/scores, this is an unwelcome development.

What your child can do:

1. Email the universities and let them know their situation: They may extend their admissions deadline, or even defer the application.
2. Consider taking a gap year and apply a year later: However, make sure your child does something to boost their candidacy during this time. Some current students are already taking extra A Levels in order to improve their academic profile, working on unique extracurricular activities and making sure they spend some time studying for their standardised exams.
3. Diversify your academic subjects and curriculum: For example, if your child is an IB student, studying A Level or AP subjects will strengthen their academic profile and increase the likelihood of having an impressive range of academic qualifications under their belt. It is possible to study for these outside of school, which means they can go at their own pace, but it’s important that they have strong tutors to guide them along the way.

#3 No more (in-person) extracurriculars

Most extracurricular events, competitions and job shadowing opportunities have been cancelled. With extracurricular involvement counting for up to a third of US/UK university applications, every student is missing out on important opportunities to differentiate themselves!

What your child can do:

1. Go DIGITAL: Whatever your child’s interests are, there are a dozen relevant online interest groups that exist. Join Women Who Code or Translators Without Borders to go beyond school and broaden horizons, or participate in online conferences, such as online Model United Nations. Did you know that they can even volunteer online with the UN?
2. Start an extracurricular activity: think outside the box to showcase innovation, initiative and entrepreneurial skills. Don’t know where to start? Encourage your child to think about the skills they’d like to develop, a problem that needs to be fixed in their community, or something that they would like to try.
3. Demonstrate how to handle a crisis: universities want students that will be able to contribute to communities in times of crisis. Showing them that your child can handle difficult situations means they won’t have to guess if they’ll be a good addition to the community! For example, one of our students’ capstone projects involved creating hand sanitisers from scratch to distribute to low income groups.

The bottom-line

Universities around the world are monitoring the virus. While we cannot predict exactly how COVID-19 will affect your child’s applications, we can say with certainty that there are ways your child can use their time that will help make their overall candidacy stronger. Help them focus on putting their best foot forward and view this time as an opportunity to increase academic rigour, create impactful projects and work on candidacy as a whole!

Most importantly, we at Crimson Education are here to help. If you have any questions or would like to talk more to one of our Academic Advisors about your child’s aspirations, call 6909 2004 or book a free consultation here:

*This article is based on the information available at the time of publishing. Please do note that this is a rapidly changing situation. For the most updated information please check out the COVID-19 support page on our website.