Depression & College Acceptance Fantasy
Ivy League. Stanford. MIT. UCLA. These names guide the dreams of many teens' futures. The end goal of students' academic lives. The names parents wish to say when referring to their children. However, as college acceptance rates continue plummeting, these dreams for many students push further and further away from reality.
Georgetown University’s acceptance rate for early action was the lowest ever, at just less than 12 percent. MIT accepted just 8 percent of the 8,394 who applied early action. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, more than 15,000 seniors applied early action, with just about 1 in 5 out-of-state students admitted.
The decreasing admission rates are linked to the increasing number of students applying during the COVID-19 pandemic. As colleges drop their requirements for the SAT and other standardized testing, more students are hopeful that they could earn a seat in elite colleges according to the LA Times.
However, the removal of standardized testing has also led many students to take even more pressure on their college admissions. They increasingly take on multiple extracurriculars and focus on a perfect GPA all at the expense of their mental health, according to the LA Times.
“High school has been so narrowly directed and intensely focused on the great scores, the accolades, the awards, the leadership, and the community service to demonstrate to a college that you’re worthy,” former dean of freshman at Stanford Julie Lythcott-Haims said. “We’ve asked them to trade their healthy, happy childhood in exchange for the chance to be one of those people who will be admitted to the quote-unquote right college.”
For many students and their parents, the college to which they or their children go is becoming a status symbol. While going to an elite college represents success, a mid or low-tier college represents failure. This mindset is detrimental to the mental health of students with almost a 60% increase in teen depression. It also helps further emphasize the fact that college admissions to elite colleges are just an unending fantasy for many teens.
“The sense that success or failure is very high stakes has led to an intensifying of the competition to get into elite colleges, even though for most young people, where they go to college will have less impact on their career future than they believe,” Dr. Victor Schwartz said, chief medical officer of The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the emotional health of teenagers and preventing suicide. “The result of this seems to be that there is no room for error at all. If you get a B in seventh grade, there is a perception that your future is shot.”
However, to diminish the fantasy of elite colleges, students could rather focus on doing what they love and enjoy in high school. Rather than crafting the perfect college narrative, they could focus on extracurriculars they are passionate about and be more accepting of a few grade slip-ups. Additionally, understanding that a college education is very similar regardless of the college they attend also helps relieve the pressure of college admissions.
“Having reasonable goals, expectations and modeling the acceptance of the fact that we all fail sometimes, make mistakes and missteps and showing how to constructively respond to them are important,” Schwartz said. “We also can help by modeling values and ideals that we believe are important and valuable.”