Seniors at Bard have a lot to think about before May 1st. The pressure is on, not just to pick the perfect college, but for peers to approve of the college they are deciding on. By now, most of you have probably seen “bardqueens2025,” BHSECQ’s college commit page Instagram. Students can share the college they’ll be attending next year along with a baby photo and an (often corny) detailed caption summarizing their entire life and most notable achievements. These captions are reminiscent of a college supplement in the way they attempt to cram immense amounts of information and personal growth into a paragraph or two.
While these accounts can be beneficial community-oriented spaces meant to celebrate the achievements of high schoolers, posting on them can feel obligatory, and the pressure to be the most impressive person on the page (especially at such an academic school as Bard) is overwhelming. It can be nice to show support for peers in the comment section of a post, but these pages also invite uncomfortable means of direct comparison between classmate’s college commitments and perceived future success. The amount of likes one’s post gets assigns a numerical value to the amount of awe inspired in their peers. If everyone’s achievements are highlighted on one page, it can be intimidating to share your commitment to a state school, or a university that isn’t exactly a “name brand.”
CTO advisors have drilled into our minds the truth that all schools provide students with a good education and the opportunities for successful lives and careers. State universities are becoming increasingly admired for their academic quality as good students seek an education that won’t leave them in crippling debt. For students paying full tuition, the nearly half a million dollar cost of an Ivy League education is simply to buy a name.
A lot of students we spoke to said that they had felt the effects of Instagram on their college journey before they were even seniors. Some Year 2s, your writers included, had been aware of the senior college commit page when they were sophomores and had, at the time, only seen value in the commitments to relatively famous schools. There is a “procedure” in which we explore college Instagram pages. One sees a commitment post, switches tabs, searches the acceptance rate, and returns to Instagram with a newly formed opinion on the intellectual worth of this person they have likely never met. Emilia Sawicka, BHSECQ senior, explains that this judgement is “exactly what we’ve been taught to do, that the lower the acceptance rate, the smarter the kid, the more deserving that they are of a bright future.”
I (Molly) posted my decision on the “bardqueens2025” instagram the day I committed, and spent the rest of the day obsessing over the post. I kept stock of the number of comments and congratulations I got to an extent that was a little embarrassing. It’s nice to be affirmed, of course. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get where I am today and I want people to be aware of that. But is my college the best way for them to know? Getting accepted into a prestigious private liberal arts school feels like it highlights everything that makes me unique and interesting. But we shouldn’t let the school we go to determine everything about the ways in which people perceive us – your college experience is always what you make of it, no matter where you end up.
Letting people judge us based on our college is counterproductive, because it favors the perceptions of strangers over peers. This possible judgement was something I was incredibly worried about when I was rejected from schools – would my teachers, and peers, think less of me when they saw that I hadn’t gotten into an Ivy? But when I voiced my concerns, my dad made a compelling point: if anyone judged me for my college outcomes, then they trusted the judgement of a random admissions officer with no personal connection to me more than they trusted their own perception of me. I don’t let strangers determine my own self worth: why should college admissions officers be any different? We shouldn’t let an admissions officer decide our views of our peers, in a positive or negative way.
We, and many of our friends, were rejected from schools we had expected (or hoped with a relative amount of confidence) to get into. We all suffered from minor identity crises, trying to figure out why we wouldn’t get into these schools, mostly liberal arts schools, that seemed like relatively reliable matches and good personal and academic fits. Something we hadn’t considered until receiving those rejection letters was whether or not these schools took our ability to pay into consideration when reviewing our application. Many schools are ‘need-blind,’ meaning that financial aid is not a consideration in the admissions decision, but others are ‘need-aware’ and will sometimes choose to accept students with the ability to pay full sticker price over those who need considerable amounts of aid. Especially at Bard, where the vast majority of students come from lower or middle class backgrounds, this is an important consideration. All this is simply to say that college admissions decisions are based on a wide variety of factors, many of which are completely out of our control.
I (Beatrix) have been grappling with the decision between a small liberal arts school and a large public research university for the past few months, and while I am trying my hardest to separate public perception from my true opinions, the lines are starting to blur in my mind. This was a familiar feeling to the seniors we interviewed. Emilia, recently committed to a CUNY, was obsessed with acceptance rate throughout the application process. “[Prestige] was all I was looking at,” she said, “and I didn’t really get excited about schools like GW that had a higher acceptance rate.”
And although we are taught not to commit to the next four years of our life based on the perceptions of those around us, there is a desire to impress and awe those we talk to about our future. “You can see it in people’s eyes and voices in the way they congratulate you,” Emilia says, “people tend to cry and scream when people get into Ivy Leagues.” That sentiment is often not replicated when hearing someone committed to a state school with a “high” acceptance rate. Because she is deciding between safeties, Emilia doesn’t feel excited about making her decision, and told us that she’ll “be at the back of the parade” on Commitment Day.
Sally Mendelsohn agrees that in her decision, “prestige is something that’s muddying the waters.” She was accepted to a large state university, and after touring “almost shat [her] pants with excitement.” “If it was a private school,” she said, she’d “be already committed.” It’s the “subconscious voice in your head [that] is saying, ‘what are people going to think about it?’” that is stopping her. The vast majority of Bard students have worked tirelessly to keep up in a fast-paced, college-level environment. Losing sleep, missing out on plans and shedding tears on quizzes, are sacrifices that have been made by all of us. So to have relatives “cry and scream” over our college, as Emilia puts it, is the logical reward for our struggle. Since these people haven’t seen each individual essay or exam done well, it is easy for them to pin their perception of one’s success, intelligence and dedication to the recognizability of a school’s name. Who wouldn’t want to impress others with that name?
In a world where social media dominates our perception of every aspect of a stranger, there is more than a desire to impress physically. We want the vast expanse of the internet to see us as smart, socially aware, kind and personable. And since college has become about “vibe,” the colors we put in our bio seem to define us as people. As Emilia puts it, “what song you put, how cool you are, how many people comment on your post” are all factors running through the minds of seniors deciding where to commit. It’s hard to free ourselves from these sorts of expectations. But we encourage those of you still undecided to pick the school best for you, not the one with the most fame and glory. For those of you just starting to embark on the college application process, keep in mind that a ‘good’ college is always, and should only ever be, the college that makes the most sense for YOU.
Sincerely, Molly and Beatrix