The other day I posted on social media about the handful of state schools (private and public) my DD was accepted to. Granted, she has a high GPA so these acceptances weren’t really a surprise, but it is still nice to see you’ve been accepted. Some were harder than others to get into. The next day someone I know made a snarky post on another social media platform (ironic) about people who make these posts and how it’s bragging. I disagree. For a long time, she wanted to go out-of-state and most of the schools she was looking at had a much smaller acceptance rate. Only recently did she decide she wanted to stay in-state instead. That changed the game for us quite a bit. All schools are wonderful schools and have pros and cons. My post was in reference to asking for any inside info. on these schools. Time is running out to do visits, make a choice and get a deposit in. We are still waiting to hear back about Honors College acceptances too which will factor into her decision probably. So, before you get all butt hurt about parents posting on FB, don’t just assume they are bragging. Which by the way I’ve seen this person rightly so brag about her kiddos all the time on FB and never once did it bother me. I did get some very helpful info and some pm’s that gave me info I hadn’t considered regarding specific schools. In the end, you weigh everything out and then go with where the kiddo can see themselves for the next 4 years.
Do you post vacation pictures?
My wife and I don’t post anything at all on FB or social media because we hardly ever use social media (we mainly use internet to watch movies, send and receive emails and research) but could care less whether others post every one of their acceptances or just the final school they decided to go to. If I get annoyed by any posts or email etc., I just opt out of the forum. Everyone has different personalities, foibles and situations, so I don’t waste my time judging others’ actions. I don’t mind little bragging here and there by others as long as they can take or tolerate others’ bragging with smiles. My wife doesn’t have a FB account, and I just created one just to check what my kid was posting, but once he found out I was able to see his posts, he “de-friended” me and made his posts visible to only his friends. lol I have to now persuade him to put me on his friend list when he goes to college by arguing that I need to find out in case something happens to him.
Our experience is at our kid’s high school, if one Senior gets into some top school, pretty much every kid, including Juniors or Sophomores, all find out very quickly because your close friends know that decisions for let’s say HYPSM came out yesterday, so if you tell your close friend, by next day, pretty much everyone knows, including other parents. “You mean that kid got into Harvard? Wow, I didn’t think he would get in. He must be smarter than he looks.” “You telling me that kid didn’t get into Stanford even with her perfect gpa, test scores and even though she’s the smartest kid in the entire district? It’s crazy.” “How did that kid get into Princeton?” Really, if you want to brag, there are other more socially acceptable ways, such as just remain quiet and respond to another parent who says to you “I just heard your kid got into Stanford. Why didn’t you tell me?” “He just got lucky. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Besides, we don’t know if he will be going there or to an Honors College on full scholarship.”
^^ Interesting that you describe those who think that posting all college acceptances is obnoxious as “butt hurt”, while providing proof that it absolutely strikes someone in your own circle as bragging. Your DD’s history of college preferences is interesting but doesn’t change how your posting acceptances (but not rejections, I’m guessing) is received by at least some who read your social media. You then go on to attack this same person for “bragging” about their own kids on FB about although you say that it doesn’t bother you.
There are a multitude of ways to get “inside” information most schools, particularly in your own home state (CC anyone?) so it doesn’t really seem convincing to justify posting on FB as the best way to get information quickly.
I don’t really think anyone is “butt hurt” (you used it twice in your post; not really sure of it’s exact meaning) but you should just own the fact that you actually are bragging about your kid’s acceptance. You already know that some of your readers find it obnoxious but you just don’t care. If that’s true, then fair enough.
Joblue are you referring to my post? If so, no, I don’t think that “all” those who find posting all college acceptances is obnoxious are “butt hurt” but I do think some are. Posted the word once by the way. While someone in my circle, and clearly quite a few on this thread, might find it annoying, most don’t care I believe. And yes, I posted the colleges that she was accepted to and considering. Btw, you’d be guessing wrong since she wasn’t rejected by any. I’m not attacking anyone for bragging about their kids as I always like their comments. I’m just pointing out that they are bragging and that’s fine with me as they are great kiddos. Seems like maybe you have a problem here.
While there are a multitude of ways to get “inside” info, FB is one of them especially from those in your state. Sorry if you don’t like it, but I don’t remember being concerned about your opinion in the first place.
You don’t think anyone is butthurt? Hum, funny YOU say that. 
You can see it as bragging if you want since you don’t know me or my post, but somehow you believe yourself to be an expert on it. Fact is (like it or not) I actually do want anyone’s opinions on the schools in question. You are correct on one thing though, no I don’t care if someone finds it obnoxious. I think that speaks more to them and their issues than to me.
Joblue, for some reason I can’t edit or delete my comment above. Let me rephrase my response to your post with this comment instead because I don’t want to say something in a way that I wouldn’t say to your face. That said…
I totally respect those who don’t post anything on social media, those who post vacation pics, those who want to say how great little Mikey did in his game, those who want to post about college acceptances (here or on FB, etc), those who choose not to have any social media presence, and those who want to let us know that their kid got accepted to all the Ivy Leagues. You see, it doesn’t matter to me. To some, it might and that’s ok. I know that there are some things we all might post that at least one person will take an issue with, but such is life.
Additionally, if someone says their reasoning behind why they posted what they did I tend to believe them instead of insisting they did it for some other reason. If they want to brag about their kids, their new car, a cool vacation or whatever, ok. If someone is asking for help or advice that’s ok too. Maybe they just bought an amazing new home and want insight on an interior decorator. Guess what? Maybe they aren’t bragging but actually do really want help.
In the end, you can’t please everyone.
It’s not uncommon on FB to see a parent post a pic of their kid visiting college campus where the kid is wearing gear from that school. It doesn’t bother me even if kid hasn’t yet made a decision.
I’ve posted my kids’ stats, acceptances, merit awards, lessons learned on CC in appropriate forums. But I wouldn’t do that on FB or other social media.
We’ll post on FB only when D2 makes her decision, but not what choices she’s weighing.
There are a lot of things that people post on social media that probably shouldn’t be aimed at a broad audience. There was once a time that you didn’t talk about parties other people weren’t invited to, let alone supply the photographic evidence to rub in their faces, and you didn’t brag indiscriminately about your child’s accomplishments or overshare without risking a negative reaction.
There are still people who feel this way, as this thread illustrates. I’d personally rather err on the side of not having people think I’m being insensitive.
I wasn’t on FB yet when D1 went to college, so of course I didn’t post anything about it. For D2 I posted pictures of her in her cap and gown when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree. When she went off to grad school I posted Moving Into the Dorm pictures at the beginning and another set of cap and gown pictures when she completed her master’s two years later. But I was posting them to announce and document major milestones and changes in her life rather than brag about her acceptances. She did go to high-end schools, but I would have posted cap and gown pictures even they had gone to the lowest ranked local college.
It never occurred to me to post their full list of admissions schools and results on FB, but I did post them on the appropriate threads here on CC. But I wouldn’t mind if someone else chose to post their admissions stats and results. I’m too much of an admissions geek to not be interested. I certainly wouldn’t be offended in any way.
As has often been observed, people tend to post only highly-curated and idealized versions of their lives on Facebook, and I guess I’m guilty of that too. I just don’t care to discuss in public my medical problems or the traffic ticket I got, but if one of my kids earns a university degree pictures and text about that are going up.
I have been reading this thread off and on, and thinking along the lines of Roshke’s post #427.
Before computers existed, I really can’t imagine someone writing a letter or making a phone call to share all their child’s college acceptances with anyone but a close family member or perhaps a very close friend. For one thing, it would have been a whole lot of effort contacting all the folks on a facebook friends list with a letter or call, if your friends list is very large. And it would have seemed a kind of strange communication. Even with email, how many friends and acquaintances would someone notify of the entire acceptance list? Would a parent set up a list serve to spread the news? I guess some families might have put it in a mimeographed Christmas letter. Maybe some do that now, but I’ve never seen it in the letters we receive. The letters do frequently say where the child is going to college.
It isn’t clear to me if the etiquette we were taught for letters and phone calls apply to facebook, but if it doesn’t apply I’m not entirely clear why not. Are people posting news on facebook they wouldn’t share in real life if they ran into those same friends at the grocery or exercise class?
I am more than willing to believe etiquette rules change with the times, and the internet has certainly changed our idea of norms. Many share details of their day to day lives in a way that wasn’t possible in earlier times. So maybe we need new etiquette rules for that new reality.
I’m not on facebook, and still write letters and even send photos in the letters. How much longer I can get away with this, I have no idea.
Well said, @alh. It seems to me that one effect of the advances in how we communicate is that people say all sorts of things online that would be less acceptable to say in real life. I’d like to think that many who throw insults and abuse around on Twitter and in comments to online articles (whether they’re calling people patriarchal racist fascists or triggered butthurt snowflakes) wouldn’t say them to the face of the person in question. Related to this, I think we all know people who try in everyday conversation to create a Facebook/Instagram-style impression of a perfect life punctuated only by successes, and we often find those people laughable at best.
What this thread shows, in my opinion, is that thoughtful people can differ on what’s appropriate to broadcast instantly online to many people, who may be relatives, close friends, or that new sort of person who didn’t exist before - the one you don’t physically speak to regularly but who sees your life updates when they log into their computer (as opposed to just possibly in a note with a card at Christmastime). I think we’re all struggling to figure out how to behave online, and, as has been said, it depends very much on context.
Not a parent, but I’m a student who recently got into college.
I think it’s really obnoxious when parents post about their kids. Kids in my school should just post for themselves, when the parent is doing it, makes it sound like they’re trying to show off their kid and acting like they’re better than everybody else.
All I know is that people who are critical of the FB posts that seem to be bragging are often the people who engage in posting bragging posts themselves. Me, I already know that Facebook is another name for Facebrag (my kid says this) so I find any revealing info I read interesting. Lol
I saw many friends post pics of college visits. At that age, as a parent, you just don’t have those one on one moments with your kids. And your friends don’t see your kids as much as when they were young and with you all the time. I enjoyed seeing those pics. I also saw later pictures of friends’ kids either signing a letter of intent, or pics from move-in day or simple posts that said what college was chosen or sometimes a freshman visit image that clearly shows the kid is in Madison or Ann Arbor or Colorado or somewhere iconic etc so you know where their kiddo ended up.
I never perceived them as bragging in the slightest. I do think it would be weird to post a laundry list of where kids applied or a laundry list of where they got accepted. I know my “group” wouldn’t care about stuff like that and would find that odd.
Also kids transfer, they flunk out, they drop out. Stuff happens and it feels to me like that permanent history of “the process” that the internet is might not be appreciated by the kids.
That’s a little like saying, “If you don’t like that someone farts loudly on the subway, sit in a different car.” Just because there’s an easy way to avoid the behavior doesn’t make the behavior itself less obnoxious!
Posting your kid’s admissions results seems a little odd to me, but I’d much rather read that than the constant stream of toxic political posts that so many of my FB friends post.
We do remember that you posted about the first kid’s high test score and now there’s radio silence about the younger sibling…so we know the score wasn’t there. I doubt you wanted to broadcast your disappointment in the second kid, but that’s the outcome.
^ The worst is what message that sends to kiddo #2 about what the parents value.
There is a whole lot of debate about the impact on children when parents put them in books or on tv or the internet. We parents don’t get a do-over on this decision if it is the wrong one.
Different issues for me:
Whether it is good manners to post acceptance list.
Whether posting the acceptance list has the potential to disadvantage the student in some way, (or maybe a sibling #436 & #437)
For example, when my kids were applying, it seemed to me potentially disadvantageous that some competitive colleges might know where they had already been accepted. ymmv. For those who want to do these list posts, I would advise waiting until you have all the acceptances in hand, just in case. Why take a chance and tempt fate?