Because of EC cancellations that will especially effect traditional applicants. Universities are banning club gatherings, hospitals aren't allowing shadowing or volunteering, research labs are prohibiting undergrads from coming in. The lab that I am employed at isn't allowing any undergrads to carry out projects. I know of 3 rising 3rd and 4th years that were planning on applying next cycle that havn't been able to come into lab. How are they going to make up 15 months of missed research experience? I imagine this is the case for the majority of 3rd years that planned to get the bulk of their ECs this year, but instead are stuck at home.
Ehh. I sure hope you are wrong.
Our esteemed adcoms on SDN definitely agree with you, but they were also pretty hard line about all kinds of accommodations, like AAMC making sure that everyone who needed to would be able to take the MCAT, schools accepting classes online and P/F, etc., that they said simply wouldn't have to be made due to the extreme "sellers' market." They were wrong, and the accommodations were made. One person was so freaked out he repeatedly expressed the opinion that he wouldn't be surprised if the entire cycle were cancelled due to the severe nature of the pandemic.
Didn't happen. Not even close. Schools were happy to make reasonable accommodations to ensure that their applicant pool remained robust, in order to have as wide a choice as possible in selecting their incoming classes
I am pretty sure when a critical mass of applicants are shut out of EC experiences due to COVID, schools will make accommodations, just like they did this year, as opposed to shutting those applicants out and instead being forced to admit reapplicants who would have been rejected in prior cycles merely because they have a certain number of EC hours obtained before COVID.
Time will tell, but my crystal ball has been pretty spot on with this stuff since last spring, and I will certainly not be delaying my own application another year on account of this!! I, like tens of thousands of other applicants, will apply assuming we are in good company, and those 15 months of missed research won't be expected or required, since they were impossible to obtain, just like live classes weren't expected this year, or 7 hour long MCATs, or grades in classes that were mandatory P/F.
And this is coming from someone who did push back this year, because this year you are correct. Most people did have the hours, and I would have been at a competitive disadvantage without them. That just won't be the case next year. It's the very reason the AAMC didn't tell everyone to take a hike, and the tens of thousands of people who would have been shut out this year if the test weren't shortened, and the AAMC didn't find a way to administer 3 tests per day did not ultimately find themselves in that position.
The schools are not going to knock literally tens of thousands of potential applicants out of the pool and content themselves with what is left, although there would certainly be enough people to fill a class. It didn't happen this year with the MCAT, and won't happen next year with ECs.
JMHO, but feel free to bookmark this post and come back next year and throw it in my face if I turn out to be wrong. I will literally be betting thousands of dollars in application fees, hundreds of hours in application writing, and the possibility of being a reapplicant on my opinion on this!
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I don't think this year is more competitive, since I just don't think a lot of the last minute applications will be up to snuff. Similarly, I don't think next year will be less competitive, because, suddenly and magically, tens of thousands of otherwise well qualified applicants will be shut out due to reduced shadowing or research opportunities. Both cycles will be pretty much as competitive as those before and after them, with the caveat that, in general, it does seem to get a little more competitive each year as median stats rise.
