My early decision letter was sitting in the admissions portal. I was prepared for either outcome. 

If I was in, I would squeal with glee, hug my parents and, most important, send my baby picture, planned major, and the college name to the Instagram account chronicling Newton North students’ acceptances. If I wasn’t, I vowed to delete Instagram, unable to face the flood of acceptance posts sure to be up online.

For my generation, social media has crept into all steps of the college application cycle. Framed in the most positive light, it can serve as a vehicle to acknowledge individual achievements and build bridges between students heading to the same schools in the fall. In practice, it adds an unnecessary layer of stress and self-doubt for high school seniors. 

This stress starts even before senior year, as online college counselors permeate Instagram feeds, promising to guide students through standardized tests, extracurricular activity lists, and endless application essays.

In theory, these college counselors make application help accessible to all. Yet they fail to take into account that not every student is the same. Catch-all advice does little but set unrealistic standards for the individual. 

By cropping up constantly with provocative rhetoric, these online college experts augment the stress of the college application process. Their use of the clown emoji, for instance, to describe students with “below average” test scores, is particularly demeaning. One wonders whether they are really trying to help or just obtain clicks. 

While it’s possible to block these counselors, it’s far more difficult to ignore the role of social media in broadcasting students’ plans on college decisions pages. In 2025, over 70 percent of North seniors posted to the school page. 

When I finally opened my early decision letter on Dec. 15, I was greeted with a deferral. I would have to wait three more months to see the school’s final response in March. Despite my earlier vow to delete the app, I could not resist the temptation of my Instagram feed, and was immediately hit with a wave of jealousy and self-deprecation. 

They say comparison is the thief of joy, but what else was I to do? My entire feed was congested with a flurry of college acceptances posted from high schools across the country. These accounts seemed to highlight where I had fallen short. My baby picture was notably absent.

Of course, my day will soon come and my baby picture will go up. Even still, once admitted to a college, the social media stress will not end. Nearly every college in the country has its own student engagement account where incoming freshmen can connect with their future class.

Online, however, is rarely the place where people are their most authentic, and student engagement accounts are no different. 

To appear approachable, students become the same. Instead of providing access to students’ true selves, these accounts inadvertently promote uniformity and self-doubt. Neither trait is ideal for teens entering a new and independent chapter of their lives. 

For example, when crafting her statement for her future school’s Instagram page, a friend opted not to express that she enjoyed playing poker, as she believed others would assume she was “fishing for male attention.” Instead, she chose to share her unique love for hanging out with friends and going shopping. 

Other accounts are full of the same trite responses. “I enjoy a night out but also love my nights in,” one post on the University of Michigan Class of 2030 account said. The next: “I’m always down to go out but also love chill nights in!” 

Gee, I cannot believe those two are so similar, with such niche interests. It’s uncanny. 

But perhaps the most toxic aspect of social media’s insidious takeover of the college application process is the roommate search. Many colleges today encourage incoming freshmen to select their own roommates online, leaving students to scramble to find a match. Thus begins a brutal cycle, not unlike online dating, of messaging, ghosting, and ultimately selecting a roommate.

A few colleges, such as Duke University, have stopped letting first-year students select their own roommates (New York Times), but the majority are unwilling to take back this supposed freedom granted to incoming students. But this is not really freedom. It’s merely another way of imprisoning students in social stress, forcing them to make disingenuous connections to stay afloat. 

I am not yet at this point in the college process, but I know I will eventually be swept up into it. The social media-fication of college admissions is all consuming, and those who fail to join fall behind. 

And so I watch the online college counselor videos, have my baby picture ready, and my personal bio crafted. I choose stress and self-doubt over missing out. 

Maya Solomon is a senior at Newton North High School and a former sports and features editor for North’s student newspaper, The Newtonite. She can be reached at mayaisolomon@gmail.com.