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COVID-19 is creating a "nail-biter" for admissions officers at elite colleges, while their less prestigious cousins face a plunge in interest.

The big picture: "The wait lists are going to be obnoxious this year," Georgia Tech's Rick Clark told The Wall Street Journal.

  • “I think it will be a nail-biter," said NYU's MJ Knoll-Finn.

By the numbers: High-performing students are taking advantage of relaxed admissions rules to apply to more schools.

  • "Applications submitted via the Common App, which is used by more than 900 schools, rose by 11% nationwide through March 1."
  • "But the number of applicants increased by just 2.4%, meaning nearly the same number of students are casting a wider net."

At the same time, admissions officers face unprecedented uncertainties.

  • International students may be slow to return to U.S. campuses, vaccine or not. Many schools have yet to confirm whether they'll have in-person classes in the fall.

Between the lines: Some elite schools that suspended standardized testing requirements got big bumps in non-white applicants, the N.Y. Times reports.

  • Cal-Berkeley "received 38 percent more applications from Black, Latino and Native American hopefuls than in 2019."
  • NYU "saw 22 percent more applications from both Black and Latino students."

The bottom line: The vast majority of college students don't go to selective schools, and the universities they attend are suffering badly during the pandemic.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.