Navigating College Admissions Today Amidst the Culture of Fear Online

Many high school students have likely encountered the same copy-and-pasted hook in videos that claim they will get rejected from top universities if their applications do not follow a specific formula. By exploiting students’ desire to succeed and the unpredictability of college admissions, social media accounts dedicated to “helping” students get into prestigious universities glorify Ivy League admissions, leading students to believe that their future success is determined by the university they attend. Whether these accounts drive ambition or pressure students into unhealthy expectations varies from student to student; the result, however, is the same: students’ individuality is stripped away in order to become the “perfect applicant.” 

Given Stuyvesant’s academic rigor, many students and families believe attending offers a better chance at prestigious universities. “I come from an immigrant family, and I am an immigrant myself, and my family did believe that going to Stuyvesant would give me a better shot at getting into competitive colleges,” junior Yubin Li said in an email interview. “More importantly, I was self-motivated by the fact that I wanted to be challenged by school; I was tired of the simple busywork middle school had given me.”

That pressure extends beyond school grounds, intensified by fear-mongering media that profits from student anxiety and vulnerability. “Fear-mongering about college admissions is nothing new. It has been present for decades in popular culture, the media, and naturally, it has since migrated to Reddit forums and platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Fear-mongering grabs headlines, generates clicks, and in some cases, misleads families to hire assistance from overpriced and underqualified sources,” Director of College Counseling Jeffrey Makris shared in an email interview. Online consultants exploit students’ fear of failure to promote their lucrative businesses, while algorithms overwhelm students with curated success stories that turn exceptional achievements into the standard against which they measure themselves.

Sophomore Oruno Bubu described the accounts she has encountered: “The main two social media accounts people think of are @ultimateivyleagueguide, or Elise Pham, and @limmytalks. Recently, I’ve definitely noticed [that] Elise promotes this narrative that you must do everything at a certain time in a certain way, or else you’re wrong or late. [It] really started to make me feel bad about myself, which is insane [because I was] watching those when I was only in eighth grade, so I stopped watching her. Limmy mainly just reviews college applications and provides the statistics of the applicants who get into Ivy Leagues, which isn’t harmful inherently, but again promotes this narrative that if you’re not doing so-and-so, you’re not going to do well.” Early exposure pressures students to follow an idealized timeline of the steps needed to become successful long before they begin making decisions about their futures, encouraging them to view extracurricular activities as investments for colleges instead of pursuits of passion.

Li critiqued how these accounts reduce activities to metrics: “Videos like ‘ranking extracurriculars’ by accounts such as @ultimateivyleagueguide unnecessarily degrade activities that have a lot of potential to grow into an impactful leadership role, dismissing them as ‘you can’t go national’ or ‘low impact.’” By rating activities by scale or prestige, influencers overlook the value of sustained commitment and discourage students from recognizing the potential of their own interests.

These platforms push a narrow, STEM-centric version of success. “These accounts glorify medicine and biology research, which feels so STEM-centric. While medical fields are known for being lucrative, they aren’t objectively better than any other field. It’s harmful to shepherd high school students into believing that STEM fields are the most dominant way to succeed in life,” Li added. “The clear contenders for extracurriculars correlating to STEM are big activities that go to national competitions like Robotics and SciOly. The thing is, these activities are some of the highest commitment ones at Stuyvesant, just by themselves.” These accounts pressure students into demanding extracurriculars that can force students to sacrifice their well-being and discourage students from exploring the humanities, the arts, or what they actually want to do.

Fear-mongering accounts set unrealistic and unhealthy standards. “One of the main pieces of advice I hear [from social media] is to ‘start a passion project and grow it.’ I personally have been trying to do this, but just find it so hard to genuinely find things I’m passionate about and start an idea that already hasn’t been done,” Bubu said. “Then, if you do start a passion project, but don’t have international connections, it’s ‘not good enough’ for an Ivy League.” When algorithms often highlight high-impact passion projects, students feel they have failed rather than grown. Passion projects have shifted from genuine efforts to address community issues into an initiative designed to impress admissions officers.

This pressure has changed how students see one another. Senior Ajmira Islam reflected on her peers: “I’m really impressed with the many smart students at Stuyvesant, taking three to four difficult Advanced Placement classes in a year with great management while winning international competitions. I love that they challenge themselves.” However, healthy admiration can turn into insecurity: “But, I do get worried. I constantly hear that colleges compare you to others in your school. With a wide range of students, I see some students breezing through school while others hold impactful leadership positions, such as Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper or captain of the football team. Yet, here I am, focusing on the strongest students because I understand that my application itself isn’t that strong. I fear that I will get rejected from top universities because they will see those students and be so impressed that they’ll take the high performing ones in,” Islam added. When social media emphasizes the scarcity of seats at elite colleges, students view their peers’ success as a threat to their own.

For students already anxious about admissions, fear-mongering intensifies their insecurities. “Our students and families are particularly vulnerable to fear-mongering due to the highly competitive culture at Stuyvesant. Many families mistakenly believe that the prestige factor of the college they attend is paramount and what will determine their success in the workforce. Juniors often enter their first meeting with their college counselor feeling fearful rather than excited, which is really unfortunate, or they avoid that meeting and then often fall behind and continue to make their plans without good information or advice from a true expert,” Makris said. Because what colleges look for is so ambiguous, students are tempted to build an artificial version of themselves, and accounts with financial incentives capitalize on that gap, leading students to trust social media over qualified professionals.

High school is a time for self-discovery. “I remember watching a reel where it insisted that you must begin working on your application starting in eighth grade if you want a chance of getting into an Ivy League, and I saw a comment from a seventh grader asking for advice. To me, that was just insane,” Islam shared. “At that age, I was still trying to figure out who I was and what I liked, not planning out my entire future. Even now I’m still trying to figure out my life.” When every moment is focused on gaining admission to a prestigious university, there’s little room for the natural stage of growing up.

However, not everyone buys into the hype. “Ivies are not the best colleges for everyone, so we should stop treating them like they are. They don’t really affect how I go through Stuyvesant. I’ve participated in a few clubs, taken some AP courses, and trust that the College Office will let me know what to do when the time comes,” junior Benjamin Xie said. Additionally, Xie plans to stay true to his authentic self. “My college application will have some aspect of polishing, as all do, but I’ll aim to keep it as close to me as possible,” Xie claimed. “I try not to pay attention to social media posts that say ‘Do this for a guaranteed admission, but if you do this, you will be rejected.’” 

Stuyvesant’s college office helps manage this anxiety. “It is best to avoid the noise and just not rely on social media as a major source of information, particularly since Stuyvesant has an elite college counseling staff that provides hours and hours of content for our families each year. Our college counselors make active efforts to combat this fear-mongering and related misconceptions about the value of prestige,” Makris said. “We actively promote Frank Bruni and Jeff Selingo’s books, sites like lesshighschoolstress.com, and other valid sources that provide evidence of what experts already know.”

College admissions are not a prize to be won but a match to be made. Students will thrive no matter what college they end up attending, as their true academic potential is built through their character and the initiatives to learn. “The name brand value of your college is not particularly important to your long-term professional success. It’s your skills and talents, your ability to work and communicate with others, your persistence, your resilience, your adaptability, your engagement in your education and community, that make you successful,” Makris proclaimed.