You open Instagram and click on the first story. “Congrats! My bestie got into Harvard!!!”. You swipe to the next “Class of ’28!” post. You swipe to the next “____ bound, so proud!!” Although you’re genuinely proud of everyone for getting into college, being flooded with congratulations while waiting on your own decisions or after being rejected is not a pleasant combination.

Instagram stories to congratulate friends on getting into their dream universities are not completely toxic. It is incredibly special to see seniors take the next step in their lives and get into the university they’ve been dreaming of for many years. Furthermore, senior year is when the cliques start to fall apart, walls break down, and peers who have known each other for as long as thirteen years gain more respect for one another because they can recognize the work that it took to get beyond high school. Seeing each other’s posts is another way the senior class becomes more united over a shared experience that has inevitably caused everyone more stress.

However, the congratulatory stories are only heartwarming to an extent. After the flooding of stories, a touching action becomes an obligation for friends and an expectation for the college-bound senior. Nowadays, it seems as if the only way for people to know who got into college is to check Instagram stories or the class decisions page. On big decision days, such as Ivy Day, many seniors find themselves continuously refreshing the page attempting to see who did — or didn't — get in.

Considering how normalized it is to post about college acceptances, there is an assumption that people who aren’t being posted for did not get in. But shouldn't we be understanding of the fact that not everyone wants to share their future plans? In a perfect world, we would hope that everyone feels comfortable sharing where they are applying because there wouldn’t be that fear of judgment; However, the desire to conceal college applications prior to decision day is a completely valid approach to avoid judgment.

Among the posts, there’s a stark disparity between posts about universities with sub-20 percent acceptance rates versus “less selective” universities. The stories that get the most traction and people that get the most posts are those that are going to these sub-20 acceptances. While these universities are incredibly difficult to be accepted into, there’s no reason to feel ashamed to post about going to schools that are as much of an achievement as getting into 1 percent acceptance schools. As cliche as it is, everyone should genuinely be proud of whatever college they get into. —

Not only are we flooded with college content on students’ personal Instagram stories, but designated class decisions pages on Instagram constantly update with which college decisions are coming out each day. These pages also post daily about who has gotten in where, continuing to put college on our minds when we may have wanted to go on social media as an outlet for stress in the first place. Granted, getting to congratulate someone you love, respect, or even just see in the hallway on their college decision is an incredibly lovely way of joining together for our last year, getting a constant reminder of people’s plans especially when yours are up in the air adds more stress and feelings of inferiority in a time that is already so full of it.

While we shouldn’t necessarily stop posting (we should all be proud of our friends!), we could start to de-stigmatize posting about rejections, or just not posting in the first place. It’s not so bad to value celebrating with friends and family in person, and not feel the obligation to bring the celebration to Instagram.