Every year when spring rolls around almost half a million students around the world get ready for a day some wait for their entire lives: Ivy day. Applicants throw on their college merch, open their laptops, and reload the update page waiting to discover whether or not they’ve been accepted into the coveted 8 American East Coast universities that comprise the globally prestigious Ivy League.
This long awaited day happened just last week on March 27, and, despite having onced lived through it myself, I am now freed from what is the anxiety-inducing college application process. However, no matter what I do, every year when this day rolls around, I can’t seem to escape one specific thing– college decision reaction videos.
While these types of videos, consisting of applicants filming themselves reacting to whether or not they’ve been accepted to competitive universities, were originally popularized on YouTube, now they have reached TikTok as well. While with YouTube you had to specifically look them up if you wanted to watch them, my For You Page has been flooded in recent days with dozens of college admissions reaction videos, making watching them feel practically inescapable.
Many people find these videos highly entertaining for the suspense of waiting to see the varying reactions of students to admissions decisions, as well as discovering people’s personal stats for getting into different colleges. However, being constantly confronted with this type of content can also foster unnecessary anxiety.
Majority of these videos create unrealistic standards for high school students and foster an endless cycle of comparison. Many students watch these videos to seek out what they need to do in order to get accepted into certain schools, but just because one person took 10 AP classes and signed up for every single club offered at their school, doesn’t mean another person is inferior for not having taken the same route.
Generally, these videos tend to paint an unrealistic idea that if you check certain boxes you’re almost guaranteed to get into certain universities. But as university acceptance rates are hitting record lows never before seen in history, oftentimes, even if your stats are great, it really is just luck of the draw. Not to mention, there are many great colleges out there, and it’s important to focus on what’s right for you, not just a big name to put on your resume that may lead to a disappointing four years.
Still seeing these videos now as a college sophomore reminds of how stress-inducing the college process was and how playing the comparison game always made me feel worse. While sometimes fun to watch, being constantly bombarded with a never ending stream of college decision reaction videos can lead to increased nervousness around the admissions process and overall worsen your mental health.
While no longer feeling the impending doom of telling my friends, family, and every single one of my parent’s friends where I’m going to college, having to deal with rejection can sometimes feel never ending. If it’s not the college process, it’s applying to internships, graduate school, and jobs.
If you catch yourself doom scrolling on TikTok, whether it be college decision admissions videos, or any other type of content where you find yourself comparing your achievements to somebody else’s, take a second to ask yourself whether consuming that kind of content is actually beneficial or is just making you downward spiral. At the end of the day, every person has their own unique qualities they bring to the table, and focusing on yourself and not others is the ultimate path to success.