In a social media and web-based world, college decisions have seemed to move away from the best fit to the most “popular” online. Over the past decade, school outreach and image curation—where schools or students use images or videos via social media to promote their college as an ideal place for students to go—have started to play a major role in the narrative around what school is “best,” changing where students are applying and committing. Now, many students care more about how well-known or competitive the school is rather than how well they might fit in there.
The Pitch alumna and UCLA senior Samantha Parr feels that some peers chose to go to a college just because of the ranking, instead of how well they’d belong there.
“I do know people who perhaps got into a really highly ranked school that wasn’t their ideal location or student life, but they chose it because of the ranking,” Parr said.
For many students, choosing a school has become a costly nuisance, so instead of visiting a college, they look to social media pages to learn more about it. The curated image of these schools via social media and the web is a vital necessity for students to see what they are truly like and the student culture there; however, as with everything on social media, image curation can lead to schools appearing more enticing online than they may be in person.
High school seniors across the country have started to rely on social media when it comes to applying to colleges. However, social media can be a one-sided community that promotes comparison, stereotypes.
These two things may not seem correlated but they actually can be. Comparison and stereotypes are both forms of social pressure, which can be fueled by social media. Both of these things can lead to generalizations when talking about colleges and students identifying schools as “party schools” or “boring schools”. These generalizations can potentially have an effect on students when they’re deciding what schools to apply to.
Many schools will choose videos and images to post online that will enhance their public image, as opposed to giving students an unfiltered perspective of the school. However, students can also share more candid pictures and videos of what a school is really like, and these more truthful posts can sometimes lead to negative associations with the school.
Archie Williams senior Sylvie Fine believes that social media can cause students to withdraw applications just because of a school’s tainted name online. For her, a school’s reputation is a factor to consider when submitting an application.
“I do think that social media gives a reputation to schools online. It has a little bit of an influence on my choice. I try not to make it that way, but there’s some schools that I personally don’t think have the best reputation online, and then it stopped me from applying there,” Sylvie said.
Social media enforces these stereotypes, leading to false advertising and news that can turn away prospective students, even if it’s untrue. Once one person complains about a certain aspect of a school, other students can hop on board and blow up this negative complaint. When potential students look up a school on social media, the first thing they’ll see is the bad things, which can ultimately turn them away.
“I think that one way in which relying on it too much can be not as helpful is… social media can kind of overinflate certain aspects of a school that are negative…” Parr said, “[It] can create a kind of echo chamber where you hear about something from a certain school, and that can deter a lot of people from even applying or considering a school because they only remember that one resounding thing that they heard on social media. A lot of times, people will just jump on that and contribute to that stereotype without even being fully informed.”
During the college admissions process, students will look at a school’s reputation online and what the social life looks like, but they will also see an onslaught of college acceptance videos. Students and schools spread these happy, congratulatory videos, showing what someone’s future could look like at a school. These videos not only add to people’s anxiety and nerves, but they are also marketed to do so. Schools are releasing these best-case-scenario videos to increase their number of applicants, but this marketing strategy is having a detrimental impact on students’ mental health.
Rebecca Foote, a clinical psychologist based in Corte Madera, has been helping overwhelmed and exhausted clients deal with the sheer anxiety that comes from college applications and decisions for years.
“Teens are already prone to comparisons, and now with [social media] all in their faces… the bias of the people who are posting are the ones who are getting the outcomes they want,” Foote said. “The people who are discouraged and who are getting rejections and waitlists are typically not posting. So there’s this false belief that everyone is having these successes except for you, which makes the process even more stressful.”
High schools all around the country use social media pages to announce their college decisions, including Archie Williams. Every year, there is a new Archie Williams Decisions Instagram account which is run by an Associated Student Body (ASB) leader. This account shares Archie Williams students’ next steps. Although this account is supposed to be a bittersweet goodbye for the graduating seniors, it can also cause other students to feel left out or anxious regarding their acceptances and decisions.
“[Decision accounts] make it so there is more pressure on you to be accepted as well. And it also does suck to see people getting into the schools that you’re applying to, and you haven’t heard back yet, or you didn’t get in,” Sylvie said.
Not only do acceptance videos and accounts cause unwanted stress regarding student admissions, but they also cause comparisons between students and friends. Friendships throughout high school can be a struggle for most teenagers, with competition between friends being ever-present, but during college applications, everything becomes even more contentious. Students are not only putting pressure on themselves to outperform their peers, but the environment around them is fostering a sense of bitterness towards each other because of college decisions and acceptances.
These college decision accounts can lead high school seniors to feel more stress and unwanted competition, even between the best of friends.
“My current senior clients are reporting that the atmosphere at school is that people actually feel mad at each other…” Foote said. “[They’re] angry and resentful when they see peers get into a school that they wanted to get into, that they feel they should get into… I think it strains friendships.”
Living in California, Archie Williams students are in a unique situation, with many competitive public universities right next door. These colleges are at the forefront of California students’ minds throughout their lives, but these well-known universities will be a reach for almost everyone applying.
All the media attention around these schools creates unattainable acceptance rates, making it increasingly harder to get into one of the schools, but expectations and pressures stay the same. This narrative that makes it seem like every Californian teenager must go to a University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) can add unwanted stress to kids who are already dealing with a lot.
A key part of the UC’s lower acceptance rates and higher applicant rates is their social outreach and the narratives they create about themselves. Since social media’s rise to popularity, schools have started promoting themselves online, creating more buzz around the school.
“[Social media’s] creating these trendy schools that now have these low acceptance rates, which are also kind of deceptive because they’re getting so many more applications because they’re advertising really well on social media,” Foote said.
Social media can be a wonderful thing when it’s used correctly, but it can also be harmful to students regarding mental health and choices that could affect the rest of your life.
“Obviously we’re not going to now shut down social media. It’s here to stay. So we really need to figure out how we can manage it so that it doesn’t impact our mental health and these big decisions about where you’re going to spend the next four years,” Foote said.
To break away from social media’s strong hold on students, teenagers can learn how to tune out social media’s influence on these major decisions. Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, and seniors must adapt to its growing role in the application process.
Editor’s note: The Pitch has covered college decisions in regards to athletic commitments and in our senior issue.
