@CountingDown
“S1’s HS STEM program had a bulletin board in the magnet office where the kids posted rejections, which I thought was brilliant. It normalized rejections at the tippy-top schools when you could see that Alex, the Intel finalist, and Chris, with a perfect SAT and 4.0 UW, didn’t get into every school to which they applied.”
I love this!
Years ago, a group of girlfriends and I trained with the Leukemia Society to run a marathon. None of us were elite runners or even regular runners at the time, but the program promised to take us from “couch to marathon” in 6 months. Our goals in the beginning were forward motion for 30 minutes. After about a month we could jog slowly for 30 minutes without stopping and alternate walking and jogging for an hour. We celebrated when we could put 2- 13 minute miles together! The coaches, mentors and seasoned participants celebrated us! Eventually we got to the point where we could put together 10- 13 minute miles- then 10- 12 minute miles. We thought we were rockstars! We would brag about running a 10 minute mile on our shorter runs. We noticed the seasoned runners and coaches never talked about their times. When we would ask, they would dodge the question. Finally, I asked the head coach why none of them would talk about their times. He said there was an unspoken rule in the group:
“The faster you run, the less you talk about it.”
This is the single best piece of advice about humility, grace and social skills I have ever received.
He did not need to share his times to teach us about hydration, heart-rate training and hill workouts. He didn’t need to share his goals to motivate us to achieve ours.
I won’t post my kid’s acceptances. I also won’t post my kids test scores or grades on social media. We may discuss on an anonymous forum if looking for resources, etc. I stick to just the facts on my social media - kind of like a living photo album. I’m sure I’ll post a final decision eventually. For my kid, he may get some acceptances that sound great but may not financially work for us so I don’t really want to get into that either. If people are interested in talking the talk about academically precocious kids college journey, they know how to contact me.
Milestone are great. Sharing them is fine. Acceptances, IMO, are not milestones. Maybe the first one could be, because it’s the “first”, but not all of them. Decisions are milestones. Move-in day is a milestone. Weddings, births, other big “firsts”… All milestones. Listing every acceptance comes across as bragging to me, which is why we don’t do it. I have “liked” and congratulated friends’ kids on an acceptance, thinking that this was their dream school, but then every week another acceptance was posted and then it just gets obnoxious.
People, please be respectful.
Thank you.
I think it is great to celebrate hard work and achievement. There is some disconnect to me that acceptance to a school (even an “elite” school) is a validation of achievement. To some extent I think it is, but an imperfect one at best.
In our house we like full ride scholarships more than elite school acceptances. Same deal to me. Imperfect validation.
In that regard though, DS isn’t applying to additional schools just to see how much money he can rack up, nor would I bother to post or list the scholarships DS receives on social media. Just not about the general public social media brag thing. Will share it privately with the people that matter to us, close family, friends, educators who know him, who care and who have supported him along the way. If other people want to do that or feel the need to, it doesn’t bother or annoy me. I just don’t need or want to.
I wouldn’t post acceptances. I don’t see the purpose beyond validating what a great parent I am. I already know that.
One of my friends from college took a photo of her DD’s very high PSAT scores (inside the counselor’s office - you could see on the PSAT results that it was the counselor’s copy and you could see the file cabinet and manilla file folder in the background) and posted. I unfollowed her (but didn’t unfriend) because I found it very braggy.
I also saw a FB friend post a photo of a letter informing her that she had been named to an endowed professorship at a top medical school. Again, thrilled for her but found it to be over the top.
Another way to think about this is whether an event is, or will be, a matter of public record.
My husband’s tournament poker results, for example, will become public whether he posts them or not. It may take a few hours or days, so he often tweets updates that his friends and colleagues can follow in real time.
Births, marriages, deaths, and divorces are matters of public record. You can’t keep them secret even if you try. This is generally true of school enrollment, too. Even if you never say what grade your child is in or which elementary school, dozens to hundreds of other people will observe it. You can choose whether to talk about it, but staying silent about it will not actually keep it private.
Grades, test scores, acceptances, rejections, unclaimed scholarships, private-sector salaries, etc., are confidential unless and until you choose to share them. So you just want to be sure of your goals if you decide to share them.
Maybe some people don’t understand how posting their kid’s college acceptances can hurt other people because they were never in a similar situation. I was. I have a couple of college degrees now, but at the time I graduated from high school, my parents couldn’t afford college and I ended up going to CC, then working through a 4-year even though I had good scores and grades. This was before social media. The parents called each other or saw each other at churches or parties, where they bragged. Their kids bragged at school. It sucked. I won’t be a parent like that now.
I attended boarding school in the late '70s. The custom among seniors was to tape all college decisions, acceptances, rejections and wait lists to the door of your room. Posting acceptances on FB seems strange to me but if you think you are doing it to help others make sure to post rejections.
Nvm
Frankly it didn’t occur to me to not post acceptances to schools that excite them. I’m not a huge FB user but I see lots of parents putting up happy posts of smiling kids. I’m happy for them and I assume that they’re happy for us. I won’t bother with safety or meh schools but why not share the joy?
When I applied, I only posted the acceptance for the school I currently attend. The only other institution I posted was UCLA from the supplemental questionnaire, but that was mainly by accident and out of boredom. I deleted it after 5 minutes, so I’m not sure if that counts.
For my year (c/o 2020), it is common to post about acceptances to colleges that are not open-admission nor less selective, particularly on Twitter. I see nothing wrong with it as long as the sharing is not bragging nor offending to other people. However, if your social media circle is your closest friends, I would absolutely share it. If your account is just a numbers game (guilty), then I highly recommend to not post primarily because people can be judgmental, often to a dangerous level. In addition, those “friends” most likely won’t care at all, and unfortunately it would just be a waste of time on you and them.
My little brother has a few years until the college admissions process, but if he gets into a school that he would be extremely happy about, I may post about it. I know he would be happy that I am sharing his happiness with other people, if I got his permission. I might have to adjust who I’m sharing with because of the aforementioned people.
People need to stop getting “depressed” about seeing accomplishments they did not experience, but rather to take those accomplishments as a source of happiness, and motivate them to do better in life.
If you’re contemplating on whether to post or not, I highly recommend to read through this thread!
FWIW a number of my FB posts about searching safaris led to replies, public and private, from friends who attended or whose kids graduated from etc. Also a fair number of invitations to stay when we were next driving through. Best of all, when posting an acceptance, assurances from friends that they would be there for my D if she needed anything. This is what social media Is good for.
New to this site and forum, and this is a super helpful first forum thread for me! My husband and I don’t want to publicly post our son’s ED acceptance to his (obviously) first choice school. Really nice to read that other people feel the same way and why. Thank you all!
I hope that while you’re teaching your children not to be so braggadocios that you are also teaching them not to be so supremely judgmental. Yikes!
I’m wondering how people are seeing other parents post their kid’s acceptances? I see them and it’s not bragging, the post usually is a picture of the letter and a sentence saying they’re excited and or blessed…something like that. I don’t find that offensive or think it’s braggy.
I actually find other types of over-posting such as blow by blow of someone’s weight loss journey, or MLM company ‘events’ (Lularoe, Herbalife or Lip-sense) to be too much compared to college acceptances.
P.S. kids don’t use or rarely post on Facebook. It’s either IG, Twitter or Snapchat that they post. I think kids only keep their FB active to spy on their parents, lol
To be fair, most schools are encouraging posting pictures with their acceptance swag and hash-tagging all over the place.
“To be fair, most schools are encouraging posting pictures with their acceptance swag and hash-tagging all over the place.”
Even more reason NOT to in my book. Who wants to feed into the marketing of schools and be their fodder? Don’t be a lemming. 