As of today, I am a second semester senior in high school! By now, most everyone in my grade has submitted all their applications and are now waiting in a purgatory of college confusion. As it gets closer and closer to D-Day (decision day, of course), students are not just anxious about getting into college, but also how their choice to spend the next few years will be viewed by their peers.
This is completely ridiculous for many reasons, but also really predictable. Embarrassingly enough, our social structures as humans are founded upon reputation.
This happens all the time in foreign policy. The Soviet Union did not pull their troops out of an unwinnable war in Afghanistan because they wanted to preserve their status as a player on the world stage. American Exceptionalism poisons the citizens of the US in a slow and brutal death through an equally venomous Republican vessel.
On a smaller but still an individually life-changing scale, people like to judge colleges based on their popularity. Pseudo-axioms about colleges are rampant among this cohort. Subtle references in pop culture often reinforce preconceived ideas. Before I got to high school, the only college I could name was Harvard, because I had seen Legally Blonde and an early episode of Gilmore Girls. When I was searching for universities to apply to, every site I visited had colleges ranked, with the schools with low acceptance rates always at the top. After much thought and sadness, I realized that most famous with the most notable alumni and largest endowment does not always mean best school.
College elitism makes me roll my eyes so far back in my head I see the undeveloped prefrontal cortex that prevents me and my fellow adolescents from making good long-term decisions.
To say “Best School” anyway is an entirely subjective field. What matters most is your individual experience. There is interest in videos like “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be” by Frank Bruni, a lovely summarization of the admissions mania. There are just so many schools! Big ones, little ones, in cities, in the middle of nowhere! There is so much opportunity for adventure. This rhetoric of superiority also leaves out marginalized members of society. Choosing schools to apply to is incredibly influenced by class. Applications cost upwards of $50 per school, and sending test scores of only $12 really piles up. The concept of Early Decision is tailor-made for those who are wealthy, and often acceptance rates rise substantially for those who do not have to worry about financial aid, similar to the favoritism of legacy students as well. Community college or discounted in-state schools does not inherently mean someone is not as smart as a student of a “prestigious” schools. Coincidentally, those are the universities less likely to report instances of sexual assault on campus (they have their reputation to protect, after all). Money is a huge factor in choosing a college and to look down upon someone for making the right financial choice is the action of a person with the kindness of pollution.
Most prospective students also split their college search into categories; reach, target, and safety. These labels can also be utterly meaningless. Someone interviewing me for a college told me, “sometimes I think the admissions people just toss the applications around and see what piles they fall in.” As a student, the thought of the application I worked tirelessly on for months, staying up late with nothing but a thesaurus and my bilinguality keeping me afloat, soaring through the air by careless hands made my stomach turn. However, as a rational thinker, I know that such a large amount of the admissions process really is just about chance. I can think of loads of case studies (literally just my friends) who have gotten deferred or rejected from safeties and into reaches. To call a school a “safety” can be revoltingly condescending and an insult to the students. Considering how much of the process depends on forces out of the applicant’s control, it is also just statistically wrong. It is alright to have schools on a list of whether it is highly probable you’ll get in or not, but the lowest-to-highest list of acceptance rates mostly should not match the list of best choices for you. Pretentiousness and entitlement is such a black hole of a personality trait. Do not let applying to undergrad suck you in.
There is really no use stressing. Going to a college does not solidify how the rest of your life will turn out. Intelligence does not correlate to what schools you are accepted to!! There will be happiness and excitement everywhere you go, if you wish for it. And if not, there’s always transferring.
