Should You Respond to the COVID-19 Question?
There is no doubt that COVID-19 has disrupted your high school experience and college plans in some way. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, The Common App will continue to include this question on their application portal as an opportunity for you to elaborate on how the pandemic has affected your life:
Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.
The Coalition App, a (relatively) new application platform that we describe in more detail in this post, will also continue to provide a variation on this question and a checklist of items that you can mark if they apply to you.
The decision that students face for the 2022-23 admissions cycle is whether or not to respond to these optional questions.
First of all, no matter the application platform you are using to apply, if you do not feel strongly that you need to respond to this prompt, then you probably shouldn’t. Unlike other “optional” supplemental essay questions that you should complete in order to demonstrate your interest in a particular college, this question is truly optional. The pandemic impacted a vast majority of students in similar ways, which is why you should take caution when answering this prompt. In other words, unless you have something unique to say about the pandemic, you would likely be better off not saying anything at all.
If you are not sure whether or not you should respond, here are two general topic categories that could be worth writing about:
Personal circumstances. If the pandemic created challenges in your personal or educational life that made it difficult for you to complete your schoolwork, participate in extracurricular activities, or take standardized tests, then you should explain these circumstances in this section. These might include: your or a family member’s health being affected, you or a family member either losing a job or being considered an essential worker, a lack of WiFi access, or changes in your school’s academic offerings. N.B.: if you decide to mention something along these lines, they should be challenges that caused a severe or prolonged impact on your life. (In other words, this question was not included so that you could write about how COVID-19 prevented you from attending lacrosse practices for a few months.)
Projects or achievements. While the pandemic negatively impacted everybody in some way, it was (and continues to be) a period of immense growth and change. If you created a unique solution to a problem such as coordinating online study groups or club meetings for fellow students—and those aren’t mentioned elsewhere in your application—you should absolutely mention those here.
This question is not an opportunity for you to flex your muscles: don’t write about how the pandemic made you realize that you should do more community service, or how it prevented you from getting a perfect score on the SAT. Rather, it is an opportunity for you to empathetically consider your life in relation to other students your age.
After reading this post, if you are still unsure if you should respond to the COVID-19 question, reach out to our team of expert tutors for further guidance.