Earlier this year, an 18-year-old high school senior from New York City had planned to enroll at Columbia University’s sister school Barnard College in Manhattan as an early decision student. But after her parents saw heightened tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict surface across some US campuses, including at Barnard and Columbia, they went back to her list.
The student, who spoke to CNN under the condition of anonymity over privacy concerns, ultimately chose Brandeis University in Massachusetts, one of only two schools on the Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 list of 85 colleges that received an A grade for its response to antisemitic incidents on campus and its support for Jewish students.
“Barnard was my top choice. I was so dead set on going,” said the private school student, who is Jewish. “But after seeing what is happening on campuses, I feel so glad I am going to Brandeis. I feel really happy and safe knowing they got an A.”
The student’s mother said reconsidering where her daughter attends in the fall was a family decision.
“We know these issues are happening everywhere, but we prioritized how the university administration was responding, how many Jews are on the campus and if it had a Jewish community,” she said.
Other families also have been grappling with where to send their high school students in the fall as campus protests continue to play out at schools around the country, even as the final deadline fast approaches.
Students nationwide have only a few days left to submit their college deposits and make their decisions on where to enroll for the fall; many schools list their College Decision Day as on or around May 1. From impacting the logistics of visiting campuses to the confrontations splashed across television screens, the protests have, in the two short weeks since they’ve spread, further complicated making a final college choice for some members of the class of 2028.
On Tuesday night, clashes escalated between law enforcement and protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles after a violent confrontation broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and counter protesters. In New York, about 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia University and City College after officers cleared protesters from encampments and an occupied building. In a statement shared with Columbia’s community, university president Minouche Shafik said the decision to ask the New York City Police Department to intervene was “because my first responsibility is safety.”
Since April 18, more than 1,500 people have been arrested on more than 30 college and university campuses across at least 23 states, according to a CNN review of university and law enforcement statements.
Mimi Doe – the co-founder and CEO of Top Tier Admissions, whose admission experts help students get into their college of choice – told CNN some students have already reconsidered where to attend, particularly when it comes to enrolling at Columbia University. Columbia has had perhaps the highest profile pro-Palestinian encampments and protests.
“We recently received frantic texts and calls from a student who got into Columbia … and [they] ended up taking the school off their list [due to the protests],” she said.
For privacy reasons, Doe and other college coaches declined to share contact information for the parents and students mentioned in this article but shared their responses based on CNN’s questions.
“Jewish students and Jewish parents are definitely making more informed decisions about where their students would feel safe, but it’s not just Jewish families. We just heard from another student who got into Columbia who is not Jewish, and their mom and dad said, ‘Nope, let’s take it off the table.’”