As you all know very well, “post-pandemic” refers to the world in the wake of COVID-19 (not a world rid of it). Yes, we’re better equipped to prevent infection, mitigate spread, and treat corona, but the virus is still circulating. Beyond that, the pandemic stopped our old status quo in its tracks and interrupted schools globally, changing — if not entirely suspending — academic development in tandem with extreme social and emotional upheaval.
Basically: the last few years have been a whole lot of too much. Understatement of the century aside, that’s why the Common App has an optional COVID-19 question. Though some routines feel like they’re “back to normal,” the pandemic changed countless people forever. Beyond that, its impact was systematically imbalanced, harming some communities disproportionately more than others.
Like the additional information section of the Common App, the COVID-19 mini-essay exists so that applicants who have been profoundly affected by the pandemic — in ways visible or unseen — can provide that context.
The core question, then, is should you answer this question or not?
Criteria for Writing This Essay
The qualification here is not whether the pandemic affected you but how it did so. COVID-19 changed life for everyone. People who had no business baking bread started a run on sourdough starters, celebrities raised an already sky-high bar by filming the worst “Imagine” cover on record, and Tiger King swept the nation. It was Zoom’s world, baby, and we were all just living in it.
All of this is to say that, when it comes to many applicants, admissions committees need no further explanation about the early days of quarantine. Things were bad, and hard, and very, very weird. Colleges know that and will keep it in mind for every application they consider.
However, a staggering number of people endured extraordinary circumstances due to the pandemic, and those difficulties may have destabilized their lives to the point of disrupting their education completely, lowering their grades and test scores, or limiting access to academic opportunities. If this describes your situation, you may want to answer this question to help admissions counselors understand any gaps or abnormalities in your application.
If writing this feels too hard, you really do not have to. But if you’d like to take this opportunity to give background information, these are some examples we feel are appropriate for this section:
You live(d) in an area with an inordinate amount of front-line workers or very high transmission and fatality rates, resulting in excessive losses to the community and/or the cessation of some essential services.
You got sick for an extended period of time. Later, doctors would call it long-covid, and lingering symptoms limited your ability to attend school and participate in extracurriculars beyond your initial infection. Even with gradual improvements over the last few years, you still have to carefully conserve energy to avoid overextending yourself and causing a crash.
A family member or loved one died of coronavirus.
Your primary caregiver was a front-line worker in healthcare and had to isolate away from family, requiring you to care for your siblings and run the household in their absence.
You did not have a suitable workplace to attend online classes or focus on coursework, which hindered your attendance, participation, and performance.
You should not answer this question if your essay does not address an exceptional consequence of the pandemic that you experienced personally. Everyone missed hugs. Everyone went mildly insane spending all day doing their homework two feet away from the bed where they slept all night. These things sucked, but they are a given.
Writing about the universal inconveniences of the COVID-19 era is, at best, discordant with the gravity of this subject and, at worst, insulting to the suffering of people whose health changed forever or who will never see a loved one again. You know if COVID-19 had a particular impact on your well-being or did irreversible damage to your life, so if you find yourself on the fence, you probably shouldn’t answer this question.
In the end, this mini-essay tells readers a lot about you either way. If you write a response, you’re bravely communicating where you’re coming from, letting your resilience and adaptability show. If you don’t write one, you’re leaving a good impression of a different kind. There is clear integrity in restraint — in knowing when you have something to contribute and when to reserve space for others with more urgent things to say.
Have questions about the COVID-19 mini-essay or how to handle additional information in general? Reach out to us to schedule personalized college counseling.