This vegas high school senior managed the pandemic-era college search process. how'd she do it?
By Kimmy Li
Angielena Luong, a senior at Ed W. Clark High School in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, met the challenges of the pandemic, with its quarantines and remote school regimes, pushed through stress and panic and made a plan and applied to and won acceptance to one of her top-choice universities.
"School used to be a big place for me," Luong said. "Suddenly there is none of that anymore."
Her experience is one that will be a part of history. High school seniors- like Luong- will be able to share with future classes what she missed out on but gained along the way.
What exactly did the process look like for Luong? I talked to her in May, as her high school years were coming to a close and her college years were set to begin.
Her experience is one that will be a part of history. High school seniors- like Luong- will be able to share with future classes what she missed out on but gained along the way.
What exactly did the process look like for Luong? I talked to her in May, as her high school years were coming to a close and her college years were set to begin.
What has your overall experience of the college search and application process been like for you during the pandemic?
It’s been a lot of independent searching. I don't know exactly how that compares with a normal year when there’s not a global pandemic going on, but there’s been a lot less help from the school. The school was focused on their own things and wasn’t able to really give us the resources that they may have normally. It really was just a super independent, self-driven process. But also, it was rough. I feel like a huge part of that was not really being able to visit the colleges before applying. I completely missed that opportunity that I normally would get, getting a feel of the school, what it looks like, and if I liked it there. While some colleges were more forthcoming with their COVID regulations and the way that they were dealing with the situation, other colleges weren't.
I ended up panicking when the pandemic started because I personally didn't know a lot about colleges. I struggled because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and major in yet, so I still wanted to figure that out. I ended up pretty much applying for colleges based off of researching through them and also a lot based off of location. Generally, I looked at things that I was more able to understand. I would search up top majors at certain colleges and if all of them were things that I didn’t want to do, then I didn’t apply to them. But there were some colleges that I always knew that I wanted to apply to, such as UW. In the end, I applied to like 19 schools in total.
What challenges have you encountered during the college search and application process during the pandemic?
My high school not really giving resources was one challenge, but there were challenges in terms of whether the colleges would know or not if they're going to open in person and things like that because everything is always changing. So it was hard to find a definite answer of, yes, we'll be in person. And of course, like the traveling situation, not being able to visit. I think it's also being disconnected because being on the internet fully was such a new concept. It was harder for me to even reach out to people in my class to see where they were in their college process. Now everyone's isolated, I haven't talked to them in like seven months. Not just not having any social interaction for so long, but it was mainly also the fact that you can't just walk into a teacher's room and ask for feedback. You have to schedule a meeting or ask to go on a Google Meet with them and talk it out to get feedback over the internet. That was a really big challenge, too. I feel like especially with the internet, sometimes, the teacher only has a limited amount of time. Then, also over like messages and not face to face, it's hard to see what their reaction really is, and you don't really know the inflection of their tone, so you're not sure.
In what ways did counselors, teachers, your peers, or others play a part in that?
I have no prior knowledge on what counselors used to do to help support students before the pandemic. But I heard that, for next year, they have plans to do college application counseling sessions for the class of 2022. Students are able to go to these meetings and learn what exactly they need to do. I don't know if that was what happened before. But, for me, we personally didn't get a lot of feedback. I don't remember any counselors coming into classes to talk to us about college resources. At the beginning of the year, our classes were super, super short. I feel like it made them feel like there wasn't enough time for them to come in and talk to us during class. So instead, we had this Google Classroom, where counselors would sometimes post links to meetings and hope people saw it, but there's a lot of students not in the Google Classroom. I ended up going to all the meetings, but at some of them, it was just me and one other person. There were so few people who showed up.
I think the teachers were more supportive. My English teacher would check in on us frequently and ask how we're doing. If needed, we can always talk to her. She said we could also bring our essays to her. So the teachers, I feel like were more connected than the counselors were. We got to see them more often. I personally asked my English teacher for help on my college essays. It was a bit different and difficult being online because the teacher would have to talk to multiple students at once. So sometimes, if she was already talking to another student and maybe I had to go or couldn't stay on call for that long to wait to talk to her, I would have to hang up.
Were your original college plans before the pandemic the same or different compared to now?
I don't know if the pandemic affected my process of thinking about where I wanted to go or most likely would have gone. I did start by thinking that I would most likely stay in state and like to save on tuition and all of that. But maybe it made me think to not take things for granted, like the idea of traveling to another state to go to college. And even if I did have to take out student loans, having that experience was more important for me than anything else.
Did you still take the SAT/ACT and if so, what was your overall experience?
I took the ACT. But we only really got the chance to take one unless you scheduled one right away. I didn't end up being able to take the SAT, even though I really wanted to. They said they were test optional for a lot of schools, and I still wanted to take the SAT just to see what I can get. I remember being really stressed out because during that time, our SAT at the end of the school year ended up being canceled because that was the beginning of the pandemic. They said that they probably wouldn't have any tests during the summer. Then, the next option for us was to start in the fall to take our SAT, because my entire class, unless you took it early, wasn't able to take the SAT in person. In the fall, they started saying that in about a month or two, we're going to have an SAT, but literally two weeks before the SAT date, it would get canceled. They did that probably three or four times until I kind of just gave up because at that point, I was more comfortable with not turning it in. But it was rough. It was also more competitive because students really want to take it. They would sign up right away, and then spots would all be taken, so you couldn't take it.
Did you feel an added pressure towards writing your college essays and maintaining a high GPA?
I remember when we were writing our essays, they told us that we can write about anything, but don't write about the pandemic, don't write about how your life has changed because of the pandemic. But when you're stuck in something that's so new and so different that everyone's going through, it's hard to not think about it. It's so ironic. We’re experiencing this right now, and it's very fresh in our minds. Yet, we're not supposed to write about it. So I remember struggling, thinking about events in my life to write about because the last time I even saw another face was like March maybe? And this whole time, I've just been thinking, you know, baking bread, cooking stuff, doing whatever you do in a global pandemic. And suddenly, I had to think back on my childhood, and I don't even remember how long ago that was. It feels like ages ago that I was last in school, or it's hard to have those memories and remember those things when you've been alone for so long. A lot of people that I've talked to also went through this, but you kind of get in your own mind about what other people are writing, because sometimes you might get insecure that other people are writing better than you. But after not seeing other people for so long and not hearing their work, it’s even easier to convince yourself that you're not good enough.
How has your experience participating in extracurriculars changed since the pandemic?
I think a big part of all the clubs was seeing a sudden drop in member engagement. No one really cares anymore and in like the worst way possible. They've kind of lost hope, you know, not because they're too busy, and they can't go, but they just don't want to sit in front of a camera and computer for so long. So it was really rough in terms of member retainment and also looking forward to next year. Next year, it'll be hard to get member numbers up because there's going to be two classes of freshmen next year. The freshmen now have never really experienced what high school is like, and a new group of freshmen are coming in. We just had our elections for one of the clubs I’m in, and I think it's definitely evident that people who do better online and have done well during the school year were more likely to run for leadership positions. But people who have already been struggling with schoolwork and their own lives, it was a lot harder for them to even run for positions. So it's kind of unfair, that I guess people who do better in this online setting were able to excel, and people who weren't able to kind of just like got pushed down below everything.
What do you think college admission officers are looking at now?
I feel like they were looking more for self-reflection, especially since the pandemic was kind of the prime time for students to reflect on maybe past events in their life, or the importance of the people in their lives. I like to think that they were a little bit more forgiving in terms of maybe the last semester when COVID was happening or started, maybe they were more forgiving in terms of grades. I think it's pretty easy and common for students to forget that the admissions officers are people too. I tried to remind myself that they're also going through a pandemic, so they're also going through a lot, and it is just what it is.
Was it much easier or harder to reach out to teachers or counselors to ask for a letter of recommendation?
Much harder, in my opinion, it was much harder. I'm someone who is sort of a perfectionist or really wants something to go right. If an email doesn't look good enough, I would put off writing it or put off sending it. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, that was sort of a new feeling for me, not wanting to write an email right then. Normally, I don’t have to write an email. I also think that my relationships with teachers were a lot better in person. I could just walk into the room and just ask if it was okay for them to write me a letter of recommendation. But online, I ended up putting off a few of them just because I was too scared to ask. And one thing that I would always remember is that I asked my math teacher this year if she could write me a letter of recommendation, and she literally said no because she doesn't know me well enough. Thinking about other students, it would have been hard for them to get a letter of recommendation. Personally, I have a lot of good teachers that I've had good relationships with in the past that I was able to ask and that they knew me really well. But for students who were counting on their junior and senior years for the teachers to get to know them, I don't really know what they have to rely on.
What factors did you consider when making a decision to commit to a college? Did you speak with an advisor at the college, tour the school in person or virtually, and/or talk to current students/alumni?
Money, location, the vibe, and the class sizes in school. I looked at things like demographics, diversity, and how the school supports their students. A huge factor was cost for me. But I think even though I did consult other people, I think I asked too many people. I feel like this should have been more of a self- figured out type of thing. But I ended up asking a lot of people with differing opinions. I had such a rough time committing to a school. I definitely reached out to alumni or current students and asked them my concerns with the schools or just questions in general, like how their experience has been. It took a lot of thinking, and I felt that it was super stressful. Just last week or the week before, I didn’t know where I was going to choose. I thought that just visiting a college, I would know where I wanted to go. But that didn't happen. I didn't really reach out to people who worked at the schools. I had consulted my family and some of my mentors, like past teachers, who have been guiding me for years now, so I asked their opinions too. My family gave me one of the best tips and that was to ask myself, “Can you see yourself here for the next four years of your life? Can you see yourself walking across that walkway on your way to class or whatever?”
What advice would you give yourself and other high school seniors at the beginning of the pandemic when you started with the college search process?
You have so much time, just do it. Start researching, don’t just sit there and do puzzles all day. You’re not alone. It really did feel that way, that there really wasn’t anyone to help. Give yourself words of encouragement because it was a pretty tough process. All those times where you don’t want to do it anymore or you have no motivation to do it anymore, just power through because no matter what, it will turn out fine in the end. No matter where you end up going, it really does not matter as much as you think it does.
How was your mental health during the pandemic?
School used to be a big place for me. I was only social because of school. I got so much from school; I was always there from morning to night time. Suddenly there is none of that anymore. In general, COVID anxiety was a super big thing. Knowing others who had similar experiences, not knowing if you have COVID or if you were going to pass it to a loved one. It’s a life and death situation, so that affected mental health because you just don’t know. Being alone and having to deal with it all by yourself really does impact it. Before, seeing friends and being social does boost your mood, bring up your mental health. Just hiding behind a screen, your teachers don’t even know if you’re okay or not okay. During the pandemic, I had felt new levels of stress, anxiety and fear. We're all going through a traumatic time. It's just so different.
It’s been a lot of independent searching. I don't know exactly how that compares with a normal year when there’s not a global pandemic going on, but there’s been a lot less help from the school. The school was focused on their own things and wasn’t able to really give us the resources that they may have normally. It really was just a super independent, self-driven process. But also, it was rough. I feel like a huge part of that was not really being able to visit the colleges before applying. I completely missed that opportunity that I normally would get, getting a feel of the school, what it looks like, and if I liked it there. While some colleges were more forthcoming with their COVID regulations and the way that they were dealing with the situation, other colleges weren't.
I ended up panicking when the pandemic started because I personally didn't know a lot about colleges. I struggled because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and major in yet, so I still wanted to figure that out. I ended up pretty much applying for colleges based off of researching through them and also a lot based off of location. Generally, I looked at things that I was more able to understand. I would search up top majors at certain colleges and if all of them were things that I didn’t want to do, then I didn’t apply to them. But there were some colleges that I always knew that I wanted to apply to, such as UW. In the end, I applied to like 19 schools in total.
What challenges have you encountered during the college search and application process during the pandemic?
My high school not really giving resources was one challenge, but there were challenges in terms of whether the colleges would know or not if they're going to open in person and things like that because everything is always changing. So it was hard to find a definite answer of, yes, we'll be in person. And of course, like the traveling situation, not being able to visit. I think it's also being disconnected because being on the internet fully was such a new concept. It was harder for me to even reach out to people in my class to see where they were in their college process. Now everyone's isolated, I haven't talked to them in like seven months. Not just not having any social interaction for so long, but it was mainly also the fact that you can't just walk into a teacher's room and ask for feedback. You have to schedule a meeting or ask to go on a Google Meet with them and talk it out to get feedback over the internet. That was a really big challenge, too. I feel like especially with the internet, sometimes, the teacher only has a limited amount of time. Then, also over like messages and not face to face, it's hard to see what their reaction really is, and you don't really know the inflection of their tone, so you're not sure.
In what ways did counselors, teachers, your peers, or others play a part in that?
I have no prior knowledge on what counselors used to do to help support students before the pandemic. But I heard that, for next year, they have plans to do college application counseling sessions for the class of 2022. Students are able to go to these meetings and learn what exactly they need to do. I don't know if that was what happened before. But, for me, we personally didn't get a lot of feedback. I don't remember any counselors coming into classes to talk to us about college resources. At the beginning of the year, our classes were super, super short. I feel like it made them feel like there wasn't enough time for them to come in and talk to us during class. So instead, we had this Google Classroom, where counselors would sometimes post links to meetings and hope people saw it, but there's a lot of students not in the Google Classroom. I ended up going to all the meetings, but at some of them, it was just me and one other person. There were so few people who showed up.
I think the teachers were more supportive. My English teacher would check in on us frequently and ask how we're doing. If needed, we can always talk to her. She said we could also bring our essays to her. So the teachers, I feel like were more connected than the counselors were. We got to see them more often. I personally asked my English teacher for help on my college essays. It was a bit different and difficult being online because the teacher would have to talk to multiple students at once. So sometimes, if she was already talking to another student and maybe I had to go or couldn't stay on call for that long to wait to talk to her, I would have to hang up.
Were your original college plans before the pandemic the same or different compared to now?
I don't know if the pandemic affected my process of thinking about where I wanted to go or most likely would have gone. I did start by thinking that I would most likely stay in state and like to save on tuition and all of that. But maybe it made me think to not take things for granted, like the idea of traveling to another state to go to college. And even if I did have to take out student loans, having that experience was more important for me than anything else.
Did you still take the SAT/ACT and if so, what was your overall experience?
I took the ACT. But we only really got the chance to take one unless you scheduled one right away. I didn't end up being able to take the SAT, even though I really wanted to. They said they were test optional for a lot of schools, and I still wanted to take the SAT just to see what I can get. I remember being really stressed out because during that time, our SAT at the end of the school year ended up being canceled because that was the beginning of the pandemic. They said that they probably wouldn't have any tests during the summer. Then, the next option for us was to start in the fall to take our SAT, because my entire class, unless you took it early, wasn't able to take the SAT in person. In the fall, they started saying that in about a month or two, we're going to have an SAT, but literally two weeks before the SAT date, it would get canceled. They did that probably three or four times until I kind of just gave up because at that point, I was more comfortable with not turning it in. But it was rough. It was also more competitive because students really want to take it. They would sign up right away, and then spots would all be taken, so you couldn't take it.
Did you feel an added pressure towards writing your college essays and maintaining a high GPA?
I remember when we were writing our essays, they told us that we can write about anything, but don't write about the pandemic, don't write about how your life has changed because of the pandemic. But when you're stuck in something that's so new and so different that everyone's going through, it's hard to not think about it. It's so ironic. We’re experiencing this right now, and it's very fresh in our minds. Yet, we're not supposed to write about it. So I remember struggling, thinking about events in my life to write about because the last time I even saw another face was like March maybe? And this whole time, I've just been thinking, you know, baking bread, cooking stuff, doing whatever you do in a global pandemic. And suddenly, I had to think back on my childhood, and I don't even remember how long ago that was. It feels like ages ago that I was last in school, or it's hard to have those memories and remember those things when you've been alone for so long. A lot of people that I've talked to also went through this, but you kind of get in your own mind about what other people are writing, because sometimes you might get insecure that other people are writing better than you. But after not seeing other people for so long and not hearing their work, it’s even easier to convince yourself that you're not good enough.
How has your experience participating in extracurriculars changed since the pandemic?
I think a big part of all the clubs was seeing a sudden drop in member engagement. No one really cares anymore and in like the worst way possible. They've kind of lost hope, you know, not because they're too busy, and they can't go, but they just don't want to sit in front of a camera and computer for so long. So it was really rough in terms of member retainment and also looking forward to next year. Next year, it'll be hard to get member numbers up because there's going to be two classes of freshmen next year. The freshmen now have never really experienced what high school is like, and a new group of freshmen are coming in. We just had our elections for one of the clubs I’m in, and I think it's definitely evident that people who do better online and have done well during the school year were more likely to run for leadership positions. But people who have already been struggling with schoolwork and their own lives, it was a lot harder for them to even run for positions. So it's kind of unfair, that I guess people who do better in this online setting were able to excel, and people who weren't able to kind of just like got pushed down below everything.
What do you think college admission officers are looking at now?
I feel like they were looking more for self-reflection, especially since the pandemic was kind of the prime time for students to reflect on maybe past events in their life, or the importance of the people in their lives. I like to think that they were a little bit more forgiving in terms of maybe the last semester when COVID was happening or started, maybe they were more forgiving in terms of grades. I think it's pretty easy and common for students to forget that the admissions officers are people too. I tried to remind myself that they're also going through a pandemic, so they're also going through a lot, and it is just what it is.
Was it much easier or harder to reach out to teachers or counselors to ask for a letter of recommendation?
Much harder, in my opinion, it was much harder. I'm someone who is sort of a perfectionist or really wants something to go right. If an email doesn't look good enough, I would put off writing it or put off sending it. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, that was sort of a new feeling for me, not wanting to write an email right then. Normally, I don’t have to write an email. I also think that my relationships with teachers were a lot better in person. I could just walk into the room and just ask if it was okay for them to write me a letter of recommendation. But online, I ended up putting off a few of them just because I was too scared to ask. And one thing that I would always remember is that I asked my math teacher this year if she could write me a letter of recommendation, and she literally said no because she doesn't know me well enough. Thinking about other students, it would have been hard for them to get a letter of recommendation. Personally, I have a lot of good teachers that I've had good relationships with in the past that I was able to ask and that they knew me really well. But for students who were counting on their junior and senior years for the teachers to get to know them, I don't really know what they have to rely on.
What factors did you consider when making a decision to commit to a college? Did you speak with an advisor at the college, tour the school in person or virtually, and/or talk to current students/alumni?
Money, location, the vibe, and the class sizes in school. I looked at things like demographics, diversity, and how the school supports their students. A huge factor was cost for me. But I think even though I did consult other people, I think I asked too many people. I feel like this should have been more of a self- figured out type of thing. But I ended up asking a lot of people with differing opinions. I had such a rough time committing to a school. I definitely reached out to alumni or current students and asked them my concerns with the schools or just questions in general, like how their experience has been. It took a lot of thinking, and I felt that it was super stressful. Just last week or the week before, I didn’t know where I was going to choose. I thought that just visiting a college, I would know where I wanted to go. But that didn't happen. I didn't really reach out to people who worked at the schools. I had consulted my family and some of my mentors, like past teachers, who have been guiding me for years now, so I asked their opinions too. My family gave me one of the best tips and that was to ask myself, “Can you see yourself here for the next four years of your life? Can you see yourself walking across that walkway on your way to class or whatever?”
What advice would you give yourself and other high school seniors at the beginning of the pandemic when you started with the college search process?
You have so much time, just do it. Start researching, don’t just sit there and do puzzles all day. You’re not alone. It really did feel that way, that there really wasn’t anyone to help. Give yourself words of encouragement because it was a pretty tough process. All those times where you don’t want to do it anymore or you have no motivation to do it anymore, just power through because no matter what, it will turn out fine in the end. No matter where you end up going, it really does not matter as much as you think it does.
How was your mental health during the pandemic?
School used to be a big place for me. I was only social because of school. I got so much from school; I was always there from morning to night time. Suddenly there is none of that anymore. In general, COVID anxiety was a super big thing. Knowing others who had similar experiences, not knowing if you have COVID or if you were going to pass it to a loved one. It’s a life and death situation, so that affected mental health because you just don’t know. Being alone and having to deal with it all by yourself really does impact it. Before, seeing friends and being social does boost your mood, bring up your mental health. Just hiding behind a screen, your teachers don’t even know if you’re okay or not okay. During the pandemic, I had felt new levels of stress, anxiety and fear. We're all going through a traumatic time. It's just so different.