Feel free to post the whole list of acceptances, waitlists and rejections all in one post. I don’t have an issue with that at all.
What I’m referring to is posts that repeatedly showcase a long list of elite acceptances. That’s just unsavory.
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if you are talking about posting here in this forum then I have no problem with that. no one is forced to look here and the entire forum is about college.
but if you are talking about social media posting (Tik Tok, Instagram, facebook), then I fully disagree with you. we need to have empathy and it has been proven again and again that social media posts might be increasing anxiety, depression, and self-harm.
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I agree too. I come from the “act like you been there before” background.
I’ll scroll quickly by the CC members who post more than just their “final wrap” up of the entire admissions cycle post, acceptances, WL outcomes and rejections.
I really enjoy reading the recaps in the Spring. I read them all last year on Class of 22 and really enjoyed it and also found them somewhat helpful and insightful for our D23’s upcoming application cycle.
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Y’all know this is an anonymous message board, right? You don’t actually know if someone’s kid has a 7.5 wgpa with “amazing” essays and “thousands” of ECs and a personal recommendation from the Dalai Lama who got into Oxford as an astrophysics major because they solved a problem that Stephen Hawking couldn’t attempt? Take everything with a grain of salt on the internet (and teach your kids to do the same if you actually have them) and you’ll be a lot happier. (And these stats are obviously about my d23. She solved world hunger this weekend. Really really proud of her.)
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And this is where we need to teach our kids that if you aren’t going to be happy for someone or if something someone posts is going to cause them depression or anxiety, they need to UNFOLLOW.
I am a parent of a kid where I had to spend a lot of time teaching him about “good leads, and bad leads.” Due to his developmental and emotional delays, he was more affected by things. So we have always thought of what can MY kid do to reduce triggers first versus trying to force others to change how they are (if not purposefully hurtful).
Your kid is not forced to look at social media that causes them anxiety or depression. These kids are almost adults but still have immature brains and we need to teach them better self-resilience.
I truly don’t think that a majority of kids or parents posting about college admissions are doing it to make other kids feel bad. Intent matters in my opinion. I am not going to go in circles about this topic much more. Teen and young adult suicides are heartbreaking and as someone who has worked with mentally ill patients for decades, I agree that we must be aware of the consequences of social media. I just personally think we as parents need to give our kids more power by teaching better personal choices that they make in their own time. Why are we not telling kids to not watch things that make them upset when they have the power not to?
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Why are we not teaching our kids to use what we know to be the insidious power of social media with the smallest modicum of empathy, decency, and compassion?
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We do need to teach that as well. I think you can mutually be excited for yourself and cheer others on. I think that its important to teach kids not to bully or make fun of others. I just fail to see how a kid (or parent) posting excitedly about the college acceptances they got fails to show compassion for other kids. Someone is always going to be jealous most likely.
But then again, I dont watch the Kardashians or Real wives of any county. We live in a mostly blue collar area where military and trades are equally celebrated. We cheer extra loud for all kids and all teams. We donate and support foster and disadvantaged or sick kid organizations.
If we get a boastful vibe from anyone, we wouldnt talk to them or follow them on social media. My S23 has the highest GPA out of all 3 of my kids and his is only a 3.3-3.4. I post on the under 3.5 threads to give other parents hope because there are so many high achievers on here.
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My kid was incessantly bullied in middle school by three kids. They were a year older. One of them got a “named” scholarships at our local flagship last year. Was on the newspaper, TV etc. His parents made sure the kid had every opportunity in life. And I guess it paid off! Such is life. It is not fair.
If not getting into a school or being hurt because someone is flaunting on social media is that big of a deal, then I hate to tell you, life is going to be really hard for those kids.
I told my son to hit the gym, sleep more and eat better. He is doing fine.
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Anonymous posts on social media, here or reddit or wherever, will not make the slightest difference to my kid. Nor does it matter to my kid whether his classmates’ parents might post something on Facebook or some other old-person platform.
As far as his own social media involvement (mostly, chatting with friends on discord), they are already constantly updating each other on every small detail of applications and acceptances. It’s a sea of information and so far they are doing a good job of supporting each other in this crazy process.
The more difficult moments I anticipate this spring don’t have anything to do with social media. Instead, we can “look forward” to a series of parent-led, in-person events that focus way too much (in my mind) on the kids’ college destinations.
For example, the youth orchestra’s spring concert. There is a booklet with big color pictures of every graduating senior, featuring the college and major they are heading off to, and a long intermission in the middle of the concert when each senior is called up, and people cheer for the college name (and from previous experience, there will be audible differences in how much cheering there is per name). We can look forward to this sort of thing happening at each year end event for the seniors. To me, this type of thing seems like it has more pain potential than seeing your friends’ parents make cringey posts on Facebook crowing about their kids’ acceptances. But my kid will have to deal with this anyway, so my job as a parent is to help him have some perspective, cheer for his classmates, and be sincerely happy for his own destination whatever it is.
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I hate to tell you, but life is already hard for a number of “those” kids. I choose to minimize my role in that difficulty, and counsel my own child to do the same. I literally give up nothing to do so.
In any case, I’m looking forward to celebrating with my kid, and will be there for her when she mourns. We are privileged indeed to have a strong group of family and friends to do that with, and I hope all find strength in the same.
I’ll also make sure to do a recap here for those interested - it hadn’t previously occurred to me to do so, but that’s some great info sharing for future CC’ers.
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My daughter tried out a new piano teacher in 5th grade, and in the spring the teacher made sure to relate to my girl the destination of each of her graduating students. I privately asked her to stop, but she actually pushed back, describing how important that was as a motivational tool. We didn’t stay with that teacher long!
Why is that? A-hole parents? Just curious?
Now that’s advice I could follow. 
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It’s fine to remind ourselves and our kids to have a thick skin, to be more resilient when people say mean or insensitive things. But may be on the other side of this, don’t say mean or insensitive things?
I think some here are missing the difference between being proud and being insensitive/obnoxious.
Example: if you’re on the Princeton RD thread in late March there are going to be several posters mentioning they got in, and a lot more expressing their disappointment, frustration, etc. If your kid applied RD and got in, go ahead and say so. That’s being a proud parent, and I don’t see an issue. But after reading dozens of heartbreaking posts there’s no need to mention your kid got in REA 3 months ago, or listing the 5 other elite schools they got into. That’s not the time and place. This isn’t being a proud parent, it’s being an insensitive person.
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I don’t know if you can call them that. But very driven, with very high expectations. The school system draws a certain type.
The student body carries those expectations on their shoulders and internalize them as well. They are a competitive group, although efforts over the past several years to reduce stress and competition seem to have born some fruit.
Along the same social media lines. I read an article recently that discussed how difficult it can be for some kids in their first months of college to see posts from their high school friends having a fabulous time at their respective colleges. It was something I hadn’t thought about before, but I imagine that when you’re lonely and figuring out college, it can be difficult to see Sophie livin’ it up at Notre Dame games or a group of your high school friends together at StateU. I know our kids have been raised to realize that social media isn’t reality, but I’m going to remind mine that those first months of college are hard on most kids.
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I hadn’t thought about that. Thanks for the heads-up.
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FOMO is real. But thus I think its much better to start talking to kids now while they are in their teens and at home. Transitioning to college is tough and I think kids need better self-awareness about recognizing their own triggers and how to reduce them.
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You know, I feel like a lot of the angst (for lack of a better word) that underlies the whole social media/public announcement issue we’re discussing here is based in an insidious and, I would argue, damaging cultural assumption about education: That it is a series of zero-sum games.
That is, there is a widespread assumption that PersonA’s success in education must be accompanied by PersonB’s failure, because there are (for example) a limited number of spots at Harvard, and if PersonA gets in that lessens PersonB’s chance at getting in—and further, that if PersonB has to go to, say, Penn State instead of Harvard, that that is both a loss and an unrecoverable one.
If you don’t believe any of that nonsense, then as long as you’re polite and avoid gloating (which, I would suggest, are results of not not believing the nonsense), then none of the public announcements and such really matter.
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