I began, and still largely am, as far as you can get from an expert on the topic of preparing for college — especially during this weird time we live in. Pre-pandemic, I encountered no resistance planning out my college dreams, trying to attach a visit to each national locale my family and I would happen to visit. Now, I’m trapped at home merely clinging to my same ambition. I can recall countless moments during my “covid college search” when I’ve been absolutely terrified and completely unsure of my next steps.

Picture this: a young, wide-eyed rising junior Sam Watkins stares at the ACT sign-up webpage with absolutely no clue on how to progress. Where do I go to take the test? What’s this about a writing portion? And should I send my initial scores to every school I’m interested in or none of them? As my testing date arrives, I trudge into my nearest Catholic school offering the test in person, and fill out this life-altering exam for six hours. My eyes glaze over sets of questions on all kinds of subjects while I frantically doodle in the corresponding maze of bubbles, maintaining an aura of mild panic.

For the longest time, I carried that same frazzled mentality into the idea of picking between colleges as well. Countless emails from my school and solicitations from colleges’ admission boards flood all of my email inboxes day by day, most of them never catching a second look from me. So, while I was submerged into the complete boredom we’ve all become too familiar with throughout this pandemic, one of these emails yanked me from my hourly TikTok binge as its notification jumped down the top of my screen. Tagged as “LATE NOTICE” in all caps by my counselor, and from a college I was really interested in, it grabbed enough intrigue from me to be worth a click.

Upon a closer read, I discovered that I’d be able to attend a virtual event in a mere couple of hours. It only took filling out a quick secondary form explaining my potential majors and interests before I found myself idling in a Zoom waiting room for a meet and greet with the staff at an elite school. Pushing through and rationing off that extra hour of time was instantly rewarding, as I was quickly ushered into an informative hour-long presentation followed by a Q&A session. The current student from the college’s program was super intelligent and insightful as she answered everyone’s questions, and the admissions officer speaking was similarly kind and courteous. The experience felt so much more human and rewarding than perusing a wall of college stats on a screen.

That gratification had me hooked: I was so tired of pressing through all the dreadful news and dead time of pandemic isolation. I wanted to know what other options the pandemic created in regards to preparing for my future. I wanted to see what my classmates and peers were doing to get ahead of the game as well. I didn’t want to just survive the college hunt — I want to take charge and thrive.

When I first reached out to my peers and others about their college searches during the pandemic, it was clear that many were struggling. For example, Sarvesh Babu, a senior at duPont Manual, ultimately felt like the pandemic hindered his college search.

“To be honest, I feel really trapped,” he said. “It’s been near impossible to visit colleges, so I’ve used limited online resources and mostly friends.”

Despite the available steps, the idea of preparing for the future during such an uncertain time was still daunting for many, especially with motivational issues from non-traditional instruction and non-traditional college searches that cause crashes and burnout. Gardner Layne, a junior at Trinity, agreed.

“We’re all just trapped on the device. There’s no creativity that’s able to happen,” Layne said.

Indeed, many of my peers said that they had done very little research at all about their college choices, despite their desires to go. Others, even with the increased accessibility, still lack the tools in order to perform a consistent college search online, nevertheless resorting to an in-person visit. The pandemic has affected everyone’s already different lives in radically different ways, making it even more difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution for future career planning.

This makes the transition to virtual college searches a two-way street. On one hand, it seems to be boosting the outreach of many schools, as well as bolstering the accessibility for students that might not have been able to visit campuses otherwise. However, many also voiced support for the common adage that it’s best to physically visit a college campus before you decide you’re set on attending a school.