“Obviously other communities and families are different and it seems more acceptable to put it all out there.”
I’m thankful to have a pretty relaxed group of friends and family that feel it’s okay to share their kids sports wins, academics success or, in the case of a couple of friends, pageant wins, without fear of being in “bad taste”.
Really depends on your prespective. My D goes to a very small, rigorous private school. About 1/3 or more end up at Ivy’s, MIT, Stanford or some such school. Others at top schools. Most apply ED and many get in. My D got in to a lessor, but her first choice school. During a volunteer meeting with other parents, many said to the group that they felt it was not nice to post ED acceptances on social media because of how it made those that did not get in feel. I did not agree with that thinking then, and do not agree now. Yes, I feel bad for those who were rejected or deferred, but why should anyones excitement be tamped down. I don’t think any are calling those who didn’t get in losers or anything worse. We are just celebrating our D’s news. And I came to this POV before I knew my D’s admission decision. And actually, when D got her acceptance email, I did not post anything right away. It was only days later when she mentioned she wished we would that I did.
That you think it’s offensive is a personal problem, not a fact. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be FB friends with anyone who gets offended by me posting about my child’s acceptances. A friend, to me, is someone with whom I can feel comfortable sharing personal and family successes, disappointments, happy events and sad ones, and they the same. I’m quite shocked that some people would feel this way. It reeks of jealousy and envy and other such ugly emotions, which should be checked when they rear their ugly heads.
I definitely do not post every single acceptance. That would be silly. Only the college my students eventually decide on around end of April.
There are 3000 kids at my kids’ high school. I am facebook friends with parents of exacly 2 of them. And they aren’t in the same year. Nor is it likely their kids applied/will apply to Durham and St. Andrews or will be offended by an acceptance to them.
I think she had 8 acceptances spread over 5 months, so it is not like I was posting daily.
It is weird how things spread. I don’t spend any time on Facebook, so don’t know what’s common around here. But…
The night the ED decisions came out for my son’s first choice college, some of my friends texted me to ask what happened. When I let them know he was accepted, one of them exclaimed how she didn’t know it was the #__ ranked school. I asked how she even knew that and she sent a picture of a FB post of another parent whose child was just accepted to the same school. Picture of the child wearing and pointing to the school shirt and another picture of the US News and World Report printout with the school’s name and rank circled.
I felt bad for the child whose parent did that.
ok that’s weird
Nothing wrong or right about posting or not posting, but when some kid gets into a top College, other kids — and parents seem to find out from their kids — somehow.
Younger daughter signed an NLI with a Div 1 program this past Nov., so I did post pix of that event, as did her school.
Older daughter (Class of 2015) was not an athlete but a high stats applicant (NMF)…she applied to 9 schools in total, including a few of the ultra-selectives. Was only admitted to one of her reach schools, but chose to go to a state flagship with top 10 program in her major. I only posted after she chose where she was going. I think posting every admit is a little strange, TBH.
We didn’t post when our daughter was accepted ED and didn’t even post the name of her school (a lower level ivy) when we posted drop-off pictures. Didn’t want it to seem like we were bragging. But I do love to see where other kids got accepted and decide to go. My husband is just very modest and didn’t want to name names.
College acceptances aren’t always like other kid accomplishments – people get weird about it. We’ve seen plenty of stories out here of unexpect reactions from other parents and students. If you haven’t had the experience, it might not go as you expect it to. We often have parents & students in the spring who wish they’d kept their cards a little closer to the vest throughout the process.
I’m sure athletes posting every offer is offensive to the athletes still emailing tons of coaches trying to get them to watch their highlight tape. The people that are competing for athletic spots is just much smaller than for colleges, so the offense is not as wide spread I guess.
i’m not a parent, but my mother only posts “brag-worthy” information when given permission. i, personally, don’t find anything wrong with posting your child’s final college decision, but i do believe posting about your child’s acceptance to multiple ivy league schools and schools of ivy league caliber is wrong. the schools your child almost chose over his/her final decision doesn’t matter, so i don’t know why you would post about them.
My kids went to a private K-8 from which the majority of students applied to prep schools. The rule at the school was that no one was allowed to talk about their acceptances until the day when responses back to the schools were due, at which time they were encouraged to announce their final choice. I wish that were practical on the college level but obviously because of different response dates it wouldn’t work.
My kids were accepted to their ED colleges so we’d have no reason for jealousy but I hate the idea of some kid reading on line about all the kids who got into and were turning down the schools that rejected them. We all have to deal with disappointment but it seems like adding insult to injury for a kid whose results weren’t what they hoped.
Around here I don’t see parents announcing their kids’ acceptances on social media. I rarely even see them announcing the final choice. More often the kids do it themselves and usually in subtle ways like joining the college’s FB group or changing their status to “X School Class of Y”
Maybe it’s the Yankee in me, but it feels somehow immodest to announce every acceptance…
@a20171: Which is why we only posted about the school she signed her NLI for…no mention of the schools she turned down. If friends ask, I’ll tell them, but nothing the general public/FB orbit needs to know.
I have seen a lot of parents doing this but I have not/won’t post anything. My daughter was accepted to her ED school and we are elated for her, but I know that posting it could sting for those with kids still trudging through the process (or dealing with rejections and deferrals from some of their own prospective schools) so I won’t post anything until either all decisions are made in May or maybe a graduation party/dropoff. Our close friends/family have shared in the news, but not on social media.
No. I do think it stings for those who didn’t get in. I’ll post in May where he will be attending. By then, the sting is gone for others and everyone has made their decisions.
No way. Definitely doesn’t fit the ethos of our school community plus, perhaps more importantly, my kids would kill me. We are not allowed to share anything about them without their permission (which is never given).
This has been mentioned upstream but I think bears repeating…outside of gloating/piling on, why do parents of kids with good news ED have to tiptoe around parents of kids who didn’t get good news? Seems to put a lot of the burden on one side of the equation to me…and we’ve been on both sides of the situation with our kids.
I don’t think it matters what the parent posts or doesn’t post, because from what I have seen so far the kids either Snapchat or Twitter their acceptances. If they don’t do that they at least tell a friend and from there it gets around. So it gets around very fast with or without any parental involvement. If you are so sensitive that you can’t deal with other people’s good news, then maybe social media is not for you. There is also this handy feature on FB where you can unfollow a person and they have no idea. Quite frankly you can “brag” about your kid, your vacation or whatever else and I’m happy for you. But if you use your FB to inundate me with your political views or sell me some home based business product - I will unfollow! I think FB is for keeping in touch with your friends and family and my kids are a large part of my life, so their accomplishments are put on my feed. I assume if someone doesn’t want to see this stuff they either unfollow, unfriend or scroll right on by.