How college admissions has changed since the pandemic

SAN ANTONIO (KABB/WOAI) - Many high school seniors in Texas will be receiving what they hope are acceptance letters this week from colleges or universities.

Those schools tell us the pandemic has caused them to see more applications than usual.

Changes in the application process may help your student attend a school they may have not thought about before.

"Applying for college is very frustrating because I feel like I can never find the time to focus," says Holmes High School Senior Xochilt Salazar.

She's applied to 30 colleges and universities, most of them in Texas.

Some of those schools tell us they've seen an increase in applications since the pandemic hit.

"We have definitely seen an increase over the last two application cycles," says Jessica De La Rosa, the director of admissions for UIW.

"We had a 26% increase in applications reaching nearly 30,000 applications to Rice this fall," says Yvonne Romero Dasilva, the vice president of admissions for Rice University.

Schools across the country are attributing the increase in applications to their test-optional policy.

Many universities have chosen not to require ACT or SAT scores since many students didn't have a safe way to access them because of Covid restrictions.

Those colleges say it's expanded their reach.

"I think that move to a test-optional policy resulted in a number of students expanding the options that they considered when applying to colleges and universities," says Dasilva.

"I went ahead and put my test scores and not because they were great, but nobody’s putting them I think it would kind of give me an advantage," says Xochilt.

Another advantage, universities are also taking a more holistic approach to student applications; something they say they've always done, but is now more crucial since students' learning environments have changed.

"We would have to focus on other parts of the application like their essays, like they are grade performance, the recommendation letters," says Dasilva.

Once things are back to normal, will the amended application process remain?

"At least for the next two years, we will continue to be test-optional," says De La Rosa. "Like with anything else, we'll have to use the data to see and to make sure that while we are accepting students under the blind-test admissions criteria, are they remaining successful at UIW?"

We reached out to several more colleges and universities in the state and here in San Antonio, UTSA was one of them.

They say not requiring test scores did increase their applicant pool, along with they say disbursing more than $20 million in financial aid to students after the pandemic began.