Every spring, members of the graduating class face important decisions—ones that can feel like the culmination of years of work. After years of classes, extracurriculars, and late nights, Seniors choose where they will spend the next four years of their lives.
What begins as a celebration of achievement can quickly turn into a system of comparison.
At its core, these are very personal decisions, shaped by individual values and goals. But once those decisions are made, they rarely stay personal.
In communities like ours, college acceptances quickly become public. In a boarding school setting, word spreads fast. This is compounded by social media, where students post their results and commitments for everyone to see. Which are then shared and reposted.
What begins as a celebration of achievement can quickly turn into a system of comparison. The issue is not that students and schools celebrate these moments, but how they are shared. The elephant in the room is that Ivy League schools are the ones that receive the most attention, which can unintentionally shape how success is defined.
Part of this comes from the prestige these schools carry. A small group of colleges, especially the Ivies, are treated not just as schools but as symbols. Their names signal a certain level of achievement in a way that other schools—no matter how strong— often do not. Over time, students begin to internalize this message. Success becomes less about finding the right fit and more about reaching the so-called “top.”
At highly competitive schools like ours, this effect is even stronger. We are surrounded by other high achievers, which makes comparison almost inevitable. In this environment, publicly sharing college outcomes can reinforce the idea that some paths are more valuable than others.
This culture isn’t created by the school alone—students play a role too. We ask where people got in, often out of simple curiosity, and we react differently depending on the answer. Over time, those reactions build a shared understanding of what is impressive and what is not.
There are still benefits to transparency. Seeing where older students go can be helpful and even inspiring. It makes the future feel more real. But when transparency turns into comparison, those benefits start to fade.
For some Seniors, sharing their successes brings validation. For others, it brings disappointment— not because of their choice, but because of how that choice is perceived by others.
The popularity of Ivy League schools is not random. These institutions offer incredible resources and global recognition. But treating a small group of schools as the main measure of success limits how students define their goals.
When success becomes tied to a small group of names, students start chasing reputation instead of fit.
The issue, then, is not whether college decisions should be shared, but how they are understood. If the focus shifted from where students go to why they chose thos places, we would see that success looks different for everyone.
One small step is to celebrate all decisions with the same enthusiasm, regardless of name recognition. Until then, each spring will follow the same pattern: share, repost, and compare.
