Use the rest of your application to show how awesome you are, and use the optional essay to explain.

High schools have approached the crisis in varying ways, leaving some kids with worse GPAs because of pass/fail systems or poor online schooling options and some with inflated grades that look too good to be true. Colleges know this, and if I am guessing correctly, they will be re-calculating GPAs even more carefully than they have in the past to try to ascertain the true picture of a student’s performance. 

This leaves us all the more reason to buttress your application with other strong assets, including extracurriculars, AP scores, letters of recommendation, essays, and, yup, I’m saying it again, test scores. Some schools will accept resumes and even links to personal web sites. If you are an engineering major who plays a mean bass guitar, you may want to highlight that with an Instagram account or Squarespace site that shows off your musical prowess as well as your drone-building skills. 

Don’t forget: the Common App is providing an optional short-answer essay to respond to how you have been affected by COVID. Not everyone will have something to say-- and not everyone should-- but if you have been negatively affected by the crisis, this is the place to say so. 

I know we are all playing catch-up with the changing scene, but remember that everyone else is too, and we are all in this together. You can’t control what happens out there in the world, but you can control your response, so be safe, be happy, and get going on your admissions work!