College acceptances have come pouring in for the class of 2013. Students have gotten accepted into Cornell, Northeastern, Columbia, School of Visual Arts, Wesleyan, University of Pennsylvania, Colby, and Vanderbilt, just to name a few. It’s no surprise that our primary and most immediate source for finding out where students get accepted into college is Facebook.
Most Ivy League and top tier schools will set an exact time and date in which you can check your admissions decision. It seems like everyone in the senior class knows these details. The newsfeed is refreshed minutes after admissions are released and a status has already confirmed an acceptance.
If you get into a college, you post a status about it so that a) a million people don’t ask you, “Did you get in?” the next day at school and b) to flaunt your success, because you’ve worked hard and earned your bragging rights. If you did Early Decision or Early Action, let’s say, people look for your status and if they don’t see one, it’s an indication that a) you’re being humble (although that’s unlikely) or b) you were rejected or deferred; if you don’t post a status, most people won’t ask you the next day about where you’ll be in 2017 and you might save yourself some mental anguish.
For those who were accepted, you have every right to make a status. Every note you took, all-nighter you pulled, and homework you finished culminated into working successfully for your dream. Yes, once you make that status, people will speculate about your SAT scores, GPA, extracurriculars, and college essay. Whether it is a long status of gratitude, thanking each individual who helped you secure your future or it is a simple declaration of your acceptance, you deserve it. This is followed by a flood of congratulations, high fives, and hugs in school.
However, some may think that it is unacceptable to continue posting statuses updating your friends on each college acceptance; that it is not only unnecessary, but on the verge of distasteful behavior. These statuses are reserved to announce a rewarding moment, and the excess updates recounting all your acceptances undermine the purpose of this status. Every person deserves his or her moment, but it is pitiful to see one of us constantly milking praise from our peers.
Our graduating class this year consists of 269 students, but it feels even smaller sometimes. Posting about college acceptances on Facebook stems from something greater than our curiosity. A part of it has to do with our Townsend competitiveness, that natural inclination to see where you place in comparison to your peers. Maybe it’s just to let the world (or your 600 ‘friends’) know that you attended the hardest high school ever – the one that made you suffer through collaterals, early morning science labs, and even the Humanities Colloquium – and after taking the SAT three times, sweating over your weighted average, cranking out what seemed like thousands of college supplements and financial aid documents, you still succeeded.
So post on, Harrisites. Make your next status “____________ (fill in the blank), CLASS OF 2017!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” because, whether we like the status or not, we’re dying to know.
