by Leah Peloff ‘18

Since the time we could walk, we have been trained to prepare for the “next step” in life. Pre-K got us ready for us for kindergarten, which prepared us for elementary school, then middle school, high school, and now, the culmination of our 13-year-long school careers, applying to college.

According to The New York Times, only about 66 percent of students nationwide attend college after graduating high school. In contrast, 80 percent of MCPS high school graduates enroll in college within 16 months of graduating. What does this mean for students? Tremendous competition.

Due to the abundance of people vying for spots at top universities, admittance to certain schools does not come free. No matter one’s natural intelligence, hard work in high school is crucial for colleges to see on an application. It is completely valid to want to share the fruits of one’s labor with friends and family, and social media tends to be the most efficient platform to accomplish this.

Inherently, the difference between people’s post-high school plans will make some feel bad about themselves. Seeing others get into prestigious, selective schools may upset someone who hasn’t had such success; however, it is not the job of this person to hide his or her success in order to avoid slightly offending other students.

Although it may seem obnoxious to some when seeing the same people post about their admittance to college over and over again, students often do this because they have a different groups of people to communicate with on each social media site. For example, Facebook updates are mostly seen by family and close friends, while Instagram or Snapchat can be used for informing a larger platform of peers, schoolmates, or old childhood friends. It is not the student’s fault if someone happens to be friends with them on all the different social media sites.

After posting countless overly enthusiastic personal updates, people are rightfully going to be annoyed; however, many people are too quick to be jealous and pass judgement without realizing that someone else’s success does not in any way undermine their own. Following the golden rule, we need to realize that we would want people to be happy for our accomplishments, so we should try to be supportive of theirs as well.