A college admissions consultant says students shouldn't write application essays on the coronavirus, because everyone else will too

• College plans for high school juniors and seniors have been thrown into limbo because of the coronavirus.
• When it comes to college application essays, Mark Sklarow, the CEO of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, said students should avoid writing about the coronavirus.
• He said students should instead focus on ideas they had before the outbreak began.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A college admissions consultant says high school students applying for undergraduate programs shouldn't write their admissions essays on the coronavirus pandemic — because everyone else will be doing the same thing.

Mark Sklarow, the CEO of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, a Washington, DC, based nonprofit that works to inform students and families on school selections, told Insider that students should focus on the essay ideas they had before the outbreak began.

"Please don't write an essay about the coronavirus," Sklarow said. "Can you imagine a poor admissions director reading 2,000 personal essays and they're all going to be on the coronavirus? Whatever you were going to write about two months ago, stick with that."

College plans for high school juniors and seniors have been thrown into limbo in recent weeks, as the coronavirus pandemic closed campuses across the nation and indefinitely postponed SAT and ACT exams.

Like the rest of the world, teens are unsure when their lives will go back to normal, or what the new normal will look like when the pandemic subsides.

For now, kids are taking classes online at home. And for graduating seniors, there's a chance their freshman year of college will also be through online courses.

Sklarow and Allen Koh, the CEO of Cardinal Education, a Bay Area-based education consulting company, told Insider the best thing high school students can do is to continue learning at home.

"There are two things that have become more important," Sklarow told Insider of future college applications. "If you can't have SATs, your curriculum and your grades are number one. So push yourself. Number two is who you are as a person, and how you demonstrate that. Do you have grit and determination and you work hard? How have you been showing that?"

Koh said that students need a "rigid structure" while taking classes at home during the coronavirus.

He fears there will be a "mental and emotional health crisis" among teens if they don't continue to have a schedule.

"Kids can take this opportunity to try to make someone's life better, and that is going to matter a lot," he said.

Koh is encouraging his clients to read, and said some of his students are working on projects to connect with their communities and help others do the same. One student is even working on a program to help elderly people access video chat programs like Zoom through easy-to-understand websites.

"One day the world will be post-coronavirus and people are going to ask, 'How did you spend that time?'" Koh said.