Why are teens losing their minds about college applications? This senior thinks she knows why
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I spent my freshman year of high school despairing that I hadn’t invented a synthetic human heart, launched a tech start-up, written an opera or raised $10 million for charity.
I ran track, sang in a cathedral choir and taught little kids how to kayak in the school’s outdoor club. I was plenty busy. Where in the world had I gotten the idea that I was supposed to be doing those other things to get into college? Why did I think that I was running out of time — at age 14?
I’ve heard a lot about how social media creates unrealistic beauty standards, body images and lifestyle expectations among teenagers. But there’s another form of comparison egged on by social media: over-the-top extracurricular activities. The pressure I’ve felt to create a nonprofit and invent a solar-powered car that can drive underwater did not come from my parents or teachers despite what documentaries such as “Race to Nowhere” suggest. It came from college admission videos on social media.
I don’t mean videos on essay writing tips, standardized test study hacks or the self-taped, quasi interviews attached to some applications. I’m talking about a specific subset rampant on YouTube and Instagram Reels, videos dealing only in analyses of college acceptances and rejections. The format has been perfected to keep people viewing and clicking.
In these videos, students or, far more often, content creators outline a student’s background. They lay out their activities, grades and test scores, inevitably stellar and impressive. Then comes the hook: They outline every single school the student was rejected from, one by one, and the schools that accepted them. Often, the rejections are in big, red boxes, and the acceptances in green. The rejections are almost always shown first — lengthy lists naming Harvard, Duke and Georgetown universities and the like.
