It was a crummy year to be a high school senior.

Not only did this year’s graduating class finish their final year in a pandemic that canceled most of their milestone moments, but they also applied to colleges in the hardest admissions cycle ever for highly selective colleges.

This week, Ivy League institutions released their admissions decisions. And sure enough, the headlines about plunging, ridiculously low admit rates -- less than 4% at Columbia and Harvard -- dominated the news.

A tiny sliver of the country’s students are educated at these places. More broadly, colleges and universities that accept fewer than 50% of applicants also saw an increase in applications. Part of this dramatic rise can be attributed to this year’s test-optional policies that permitted students to apply without submitting ACT or SAT scores. Also, far more students were stuck at home during lockdowns without extracurricular activities competing for time spent filling out college applications.

But these aren’t the main reasons why it was the hardest year ever to get in, according to Brian Taylor, managing partner at Ivy Coach, a New York-based private college consulting firm. Around 20% of last year’s admitted students at these schools took a gap year, meaning there were fewer seats available in a year with unprecedented application numbers, he said.

Every year, there are hordes of exceptionally qualified, dedicated students denied admission to the most elite colleges. This year, many of these students may have also been shut out of or wait-listed at the next tier of schools -- those in the top 20 of the infamous ranking guides.

Lots of high-achieving, talented students got hit with the bad luck of bad timing.

Meanwhile, less selective schools (defined as those that accept more than 50% of applicants) and community colleges with open enrollment have seen significant declines in applicants. Again, the reasons are multifold. Time magazine cited sobering statistics: Anywhere from 7.7 million to 10 million adults canceled plans to take postsecondary classes last fall because of financial constraints related to the pandemic. Those numbers are based on estimates from U.S. Census Bureau surveys conducted biweekly since August.

Last year, the number of high school graduates who immediately went on to college in the fall declined 11.4% in high-poverty schools compared with the previous year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The decline was only 2.9% at low-poverty high schools.

In addition to potential students and their families losing jobs and savings, they also lost critical social support due to lockdowns. Many struggled with virtual learning and would have benefitted from in-person guidance in navigating the college application and financial aid processes.

There is, however, a potential silver lining to this bleak year of admissions for students.

Applications from first-generation students to large, more selective private colleges increased by 20%, according to data released by the Common Application (the college application used by more than 900 schools). A similar increase can be seen in applications from low-income students and students of color to highly selective colleges.

So, will this be the year that selective institutions admit a significantly greater number of students from these historically marginalized groups? Will they share data on acceptance rates for those who submitted optional standardized test scores versus those who did not? Have colleges and universities taken advantage of these unprecedented circumstances to come closer to their missions of closing the gaps in higher education, or will they end up replicating the privileges and inequities in the status quo?

It will be revealing to see if these institutions embrace transparency in revealing the progress we would expect to see from these metrics.

In a year that changed the life trajectories of millions of students, let’s hope these gatekeepers can get things moving in the right direction.

A Vietnamese American mother traveling with her young children wonders if a cashier’s cold stare could turn into a verbal assault. A Chinese American nurse hears a patient refusing to be treated by her. An older Japanese American man gets nervous walking by a group of white men.

Even in cities that haven’t reported a high-profile physical attack on Asian Americans, life has changed in the shadow of rising bigotry during this pandemic. For a community that has often felt invisible in the white and Black politics that dominate the headlines, racist rhetoric has heightened a sense of isolation. It has also galvanized those who had preferred the perceived safety of quiet obscurity to speak out about the toll it’s taken.

Min Liu, a professor of communication studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, says her volunteer service used to center around cultural events in the AAPI community.

“In the past year, I think I’ve subconsciously moved to more of an advocacy position,” she said. “I have definitely become more alert as a community activist.” Liu helped organize a vigil in March that drew hundreds of people locally; she also hosted a “Stop AAPI Hate” webinar and has advised students promoting civic engagement among Asian American youth.

Liu’s shift into advocacy has been fueled by the concerns she’s heard from others in the St. Louis area. She recently met with a group of Chinese American women, who told her they have never felt this unsafe before. One shared the experience of her elementary school-aged daughter, who loved helping her teacher by passing out papers and supplies in class. A classmate told her, “I don’t want you to touch my desk. I don’t want to get the virus.”

The teacher intervened and told the student that was not OK.

Another friend confided that her second grader had seen one of the videos of an elderly Asian woman being beaten. She came to her mother, terrified, and said, “What if someone tries to kill you?” She begged her mom to let her dye her black hair.

Even before the mass shooting in Atlanta that killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, hate crimes and assaults against those who appear East Asian have been increasing.

“These things cumulatively make people fearful and anxious,” Liu said. And yet there’s a fear that reporting such incidents may invite backlash or alienate those who perceive criticism of racial slurs as “political.”

Katie Xu, a senior at John Burroughs School, is part of the Asian American Civic Scholars, a group that advocates for more Asian American participation in civic life. She said some of her peers used to be hesitant about sharing their experiences because they would say it “felt less significant than the other forms of discrimination that other groups face.”

The past year changed that attitude.

“People my age are speaking out a lot more than I have seen in the past,” she said.

Ron Sakai, 60, is a compliance officer and a third-generation American of Japanese descent. His parents were imprisoned in internment camps in Arkansas in the 1940s: His mother was freed after about 18 months so that she could resume nursing school, and when his father was released, he petitioned to go back in order to rejoin his mother and younger brother. Sakai’s father was drafted into the service once he was released, made to fight for the country that had discriminated against and imprisoned him.

“My parents didn’t talk about it much,” Sakai said. They wanted him to assimilate. He didn’t have many Asian friends growing up, but that’s changed as he’s gotten older and more involved locally.

The rhetoric around the virus perpetuated by some political leaders is a reminder that some will always consider people who look like him foreigners.

The battle against xenophobia is a “centuries-long journey,” he said.

It’s one he plans to keep fighting.

When my cousins in Houston told me last fall that doctors suggested bringing their father home from the hospital and beginning hospice care, I immediately tried to figure out a way to get there.

It would be a complicated and risky trip, though. COVID struck my aunt and uncle in Texas a week after my husband and I got the virus in Missouri.

My uncle -- Abbas taya, my father’s older brother -- is 84 with a history of asthma and respiratory illness, and has struggled with memory issues in recent years. When his blood oxygen level dropped into the 50s -- a normal oxygen saturation is between 95% and 100% -- my cousin called an ambulance.

COVID pneumonia had infiltrated his weakened lungs. Doctors put him on 100% high-flow oxygen. He was a small step away from needing a ventilator, and a half step from the intensive care unit. His prognosis looked bleak.

It’s hard to imagine Abbas taya so sick and frail. When we were growing up, he was the life of the party, exuding joie de vivre and wanting others to enjoy life as thoroughly as he did. The most charismatic person in any room, his energy drew people to him.

I couldn’t bear the thought of him dying alone in COVID isolation.

By the time he became critically ill, it had been nearly two weeks since my positive test. My husband was recovering at home with supplemental oxygen. The St. Louis County Health Department had released us from quarantine. Technically, I could have found a way to travel to Texas.

But it was unclear whether my uncle would be released from his quarantine, or if I had enough protective antibodies to avoid getting sick again. My parents urged me to stay put, as did one of my closest friends, a doctor who has treated COVID patients throughout the pandemic.

My heart ached to be closer to my uncle, but I knew they were right. I prayed for him from a distance and received daily updates from my cousins. His body was weak, but his will to live was still irrepressible.

Miraculously, his lungs began to clear. His improvement left his doctors dumbfounded. After nearly three weeks in the hospital, he was transferred to a rehab facility, where he stayed for another two weeks. The severity and length of his illness atrophied his muscles to the point where he could no longer walk or stand.

He came home needing full-time care for the most basic life functions, and his road to recovery has been rough. He ended up back in the hospital twice, both times with pneumonia.

With more than 30 million cases of COVID in America, there’s no telling how many Americans are suffering from long-term complications or have become permanently disabled from this virus. There’s no exact tally of these COVID “long haulers,” but it’s likely in the tens of thousands.

In normal times, I see my uncle and aunt twice a year when I go home to visit my family. With the pandemic, I hadn’t seen them in more than a year.

Separation is harder when you know a loved one is suffering.

When we finally visited for spring break in March, I was fully vaccinated, as were they. I was excited to see them again, but also preparing myself for a notable decline in my uncle’s health.

When we arrived, he was asleep in his reclining chair in the family room. I chatted with his health aide, who told me my uncle had been able to stand briefly using his walker recently, after months of being immobile. That’s encouraging.

I knew that after my visit, his aide would have to help him into a wheelchair and take him to his bed. The virus has fundamentally changed the quality of his twilight years.

Destruction even in the wake of survival.

When he woke up, he peered at me across the room and asked who I was.

“It’s me, Aisha,” I said, as I walked closer to him.

His face lit up with recognition. We both laughed with joy as I hugged him. We joked, recalled old memories and swapped COVID survivor stories.

With more people getting vaccinated, there will be a wave of these emotional reunions.

It was a moment I didn’t think I would have again.