College decisions, and the dilemma of public image
By Lewis Herring-Tillman,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
For many seniors, college decisions are the most important decision of their high school career. College decisions are the grand resolution of years of back-breaking exhaustion, the finish line for the race of a lifetime.
The competitive atmosphere of Davis makes this no better; much of the city’s population is connected to UC Davis in some way or another, and that’s part of the reason that Davis High students are pummeled by college anxiety for years.
When it comes time for seniors to flock to social media and see who is going where, the first thing people ask is; who is in front of the pack?
From a young age, Davis children are told that private elite institutions, such as the Ivy League schools, are the paragons of intellectual achievement. The Fiske Guide even goes so far to describe Harvard as the “gold standard of American education.” It is completely understandable, then, that many students at DHS gun for the Ivies.
Recently a counter-movement proposes that while the Ivies and other institutions like them have a well-known brand and image, alumni from public schools and small, lesser-known private schools were just as likely to succeed later on in life. The overpowering advantage of the Ivy in post-graduate careers was overstated.
It’s common in the halls of DHS for students to say “I’m not applying anywhere with a lower than 50% acceptance rate,” or vice versa. And yet, the acceptance rate lacks any sort of meaning when it comes to the academic value of a college. Ivies that boast a one-digit acceptance rate have reached that number through sheer popularity, not through objective academic success.
The result is a wildly inflated application system. The universities that are supposed to be high-quality centers of education become more known as a status symbol.
Regardless of these statements, these private schools hold a strange place in the social world of DHS. Even for those who don’t believe in the “Ivy dream,” it’s great, inspiring even, to see someone achieve their college aspirations.
Seniors who get into these schools face a strange reality of trying to appeal to the half of the classroom that will applaud them for getting into a prestigious school, and the other half that either doesn’t care or is actively fuming with jealousy. It is classic high school antics, turned up to 11.
College decisions shouldn’t be ruled by clout and external pressure. As a future student of the University of Puget Sound, a school most people can’t even pronounce correctly, I understand all too well the desire to go somewhere known and famous.
But at the same time, I could not really imagine myself at one of those places, working harder and harder for a gold star that does not even exist. The true freedom of a college decision is realizing that the “gold standard” of your education—and, for that matter, of your future life—is whatever you want it to be.
