How to deal with competitive friends

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Two of my friends have been making me feel bad about the college admissions process. They’re applying early to HYPSM and similar level colleges. My dream school is a UC, and my test scores and GPA are not perfect like theirs. I feel belittled practically day when they every time they talk over me and exclude me about college and other stuff.

In general, some of my friends have been ultra-competitive and secretive about college stuff, and it’s adding to the stress and bitterness of college apps as a whole. Should I try to talk it out with them, or should I just distance myself from them a little until college applications are done with? We were great friends before the school year started and I wish they wouldn’t ‘look down’ upon me because I’m not a NMSF or whatever.

2

A few comments:

– One of my favorite quotes is “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt.

–A UC is a great outcome.

–Are these people really worthy of being your friends? Friends should support each other not make each other feel badly.

3

I agree with @happy1 . True friends can have different goals and support each other along the way. When I was your age one of my best friends was going to move from high school straight to a professional athletic career and I moved on to college. We supported each other and are still friends many decades later. Would you look down on a friend whose goal was to go to community college after high school? The answer to this question will help illuminate your path forward.

4

DD hangs out with friends who have many different interests and goals. That has been helpful. If everyone has a different goal, it makes the relationships less competitive.

I wouldn’t tell you to change your friends, though. It isn’t that easy or realistic. However, it is narrowminded of them to think one college - or class of colleges - is going to fit everyone in the group perfectly. Anyone can apply to those colleges (even you, if you want to), but merely being a NMSF isn’t going to get them in. Your entire perspective may change in April/May when they stop talking about prestigious colleges they didn’t get into, and you find most of the group is headed to their match and safety schools.

I would largely ignore your friends when they’re talking about college. If you have to chime in, tell them you’re going to a UC so you can save money for grad school. Or tell them the program at the UC you’re targeting has just as good job placement outcomes as those at T20 colleges, and you can’t see spending more money if you don’t have to. If your goal is to be a lawyer or run for office some day, tell them you heard it is better to go to college in the state in which they want to practice or run for office.

Read “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be” by Frank Bruni. It will take a good bit of the pressure off, and make you feel good about your choices.

5

My D had a classmate last year that went around crowing about how he was going to a HYPSM school and even wrote about it in his profile for the yearbook. For months it was all he talked about…until decision day came and he didn’t say a word. The process is long and stressful. Don’t let it get to you. Everything has a way of working out for the best in the end.

6

I am assuming that by “a UC” you are referring to one of the Universities of California (rather than Colorado, Connecticut, or somewhere else). All of the Universities of California are very good universities. Once you arrive on campus, you will be surrounded by professors and students who agree that this is a great choice, and they will be right.

High school students get excited and carried away by the college application process. Do your best to keep it from getting to you.

The fact that your friends are applying to HYPSM does not mean that they will get accepted. Also, if they do get accepted and attend one of these schools, the reality does not always match the “dream” that students have before getting there.

It is quite common for Stanford and Caltech graduates to end up working for University of California graduates, or for MIT graduates to end up working for U.Mass graduates. There are exceptional students at a wide range of universities, including all of the UCs.

Are you in-state for the UCs?

7

Yes, I am in-state for the UCs. My top school (Cal) is prestigious, which is why I don’t understand why anyone would think it’s “lesser” than any other well known university. I love it because of the location, price, academics, and the type of students they attract.

Anyways, I have been trying to stay in my own lane and worry only about myself these past few weeks. Thank you everyone for the advice.

8

Both of my daughters had to deal with this.

I told them that it was none of anyone’s business where they were going to apply.

We had a budget and told all three of our kids: If your “friends” have a problem with where you’re applying, tell them, “OK, I’ll apply to those schools deemed acceptable to you, but my parents will expect full payment of tuition from you and your parents when I get in”

You should be more than proud of yourself for standing your ground.

As for HYPSM schools, the friends can apply to wherever they want; it doesn’t mean that they will get in. More often than not, they wont get in. If by some chance they were to get in, it doesn’t mean that they can afford to go. Let them go on and on about how they are applying to those schools. It doesn’t matter.

You can avoid them and just tell them: “you do you”.

You don’t need to justify your choices to anyone. You can always ask them, "Why are my choices of schools so important to you??

Apply, get in and go to your schools. You will be fine wherever you go.

9

Agree with all the above, but are you perhaps also feeling overly sensitive? If you aren’t, I would change the conversation. It’s easy to say “hey guys, we have so much time until March. Who watched the new Millie Bobby Brown movie on Netflix? Great twist on the Sherlock Holmes stories, can’t believe she’s the same girl from Stranger Things. Her English accent is amazing…”
Then you can impress them when you tell them she is actually English. :smile:

10

The most important part of college is what you gain from college. It is not the rank of the college, how many famous people attended this college, or whether some random dude in the street has ever heard of this college.

Finding the best place for you is far better than obsessing over finding the “best place” according to the opinions of other people.

There is absolutely nothing positive about this obsession and “arms-race”. It reduces the colleges search to a competition for the largest number and the most prestigious admissions. It makes success at college secondary to success in gaining admission to a “prestigious” college. It causes teenagers to hang their self image and self-confidence on factors which have little to do with their actual worth. It glorifies classicism and money-based elitism. It drives students to nasty and needless conflict with friends and peers, to emotional and mental breakdowns, which can lead to self-harm.

If anything, refusing to play this game, and focusing on finding the colleges at which you will succeed and thrive, demonstrates maturity which is sadly lacking even in many parents of high-school bound students.

I think that the fact the you do not want to play this game says a lot about you, all of which is good.

Moreover, even if your GPA and test scores were the same as theirs, UC is just as amazing a dream school to have as any which they consider “worthy”.

In fact, so is USC, so is Pomona, so is Occidental, and so is San Diego State University or Humboldt State University, or any college which is the best fit for you, and which is the place at which you truly think that you will be able to do best.

It your dream college, and it is your dream, and just because your friends think that the college to which you will be admitted needs to be one of the colleges to which they have assigned value, does not mean that you need to follow them down this particular rabbit hole.

If they cannot respect that, if they cannot respect your opinions and your aspirations, taking a time out with them, at least until admissions season is over is not a bad idea at all. This is sometimes no more than a temporary madness which passes once admissions are over. if not, well, you will be attending college and you will meet many new people and make new friends.

Re: National Merit Finalists/Scholars.

In my kid’s graduating class there were 13 NMFs, none of who is attending a HYPSM. While three students from the class are attending Stanford, not one of them was a National Merit Finalist/Scholar, and none were of the students who had the highest academics in the high school (the students who got perfect 4.0 UW GPAs and the highest possible weighted GPAs).

Being an NMF has a lot to do with the ability to test well and a good day on the PSAT/NMSQT test - of the 13 NMFs, only 7 were of the students who had the highest academics in the high school.