The Problem w/ College Decision Video Culture

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#collegedecisionreaction #college #fall2021reaction THE PROBLEM WITH COLLEGE DECISION VIDEO CULTURE

48,884 views • April 8, 2021

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KRITHIKA VENKATASUBRAMANIAN, RAISSA JI

writer, copy editor

It is not a college application season without hundreds of “College Decisions Reaction Videos” accompanying it. From reacting to Harvard, to UMich, to Kentucky State, these light-hearted videos can be a source of entertainment, reassurement and information. However, the culture of posting these videos is not as beneficial as it seems. These videos can leave viewers expecting too much or too little from their own college admissions process and can be demoralizing sources of misinformation.

Many YouTube channels take off when their creators post a “College Decision Reaction” video, as these videos typically gain a lot of popularity. Subscribers subsequently ask for their “stats” (GPA, standardized test scores, etc.) and what extracurriculars they participated in; multiple videos usually follow describing all these things, with clickbait-ey titles such as “How I got into Stanford with a 3.0 GPA!” or “The One Thing UPenn is Looking for in an Applicant!” Although these seem like innocuous titles, they often mislead those watching them. YouTubers who make these videos present themselves as a repository of college admissions know-how, using their perfect grades and test scores to pull prospective students to watch their videos.

Some college YouTubers go as far as to start their own essay editing programs or college consulting businesses, all accompanied with a hefty membership and fee. This is problematic in many ways. College admissions are known to be a crapshoot, so even though general advice on how to “get into top schools’’ is fine, college Youtubers simply have no grounds on giving advice as to how they got into prestigious schools because of their lack of knowledge and data.

Additionally, some Youtubers have even been exposed to plagiarizing their essays, therefore making them even less reliable to offer essay ed-

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iting services or tips. Take Arpi Park, a junior at Stanford, for example. Park was recently exposed for plagiarizing parts of his essay in response to a prompt asking to “[describe] something meaningful to you and why.” His essays followed an almost identical structure to Jessica Bennet’s “I’m Not Mad. That’s Just my RBF’’ article in the NY Times. Part of Bennet’s essay reads:

“My mouth curled slightly downward, my brows were furrowed, my lips were a little pursed. My eyes aimed forward in a deadpan stare … Die”

Park’s essay reads:

“My eyebrows angled sharply, my eyelids slanted downwards, my lips slightly pursed, my eyes locked in a cold stare … Burn in Hell”

Though this is not to say Park is completely undeserving of getting into Stanford, it is morally questionable for him to offer essay advice. In a broader scope, it is impossible to know whether these college YouTubers got into college fully on their own merit. Thus, it is similarly questionable for those groups of people to start essay tutoring programs or college consulting businesses. Just because someone got in does not mean they know how they got in.

Adding on, every applicant is different. Financial status, school area, essays and recommendation letters are examples of an application’s various aspects. When looking at college reaction videos, it is extremely easy to become self-critical or overly hopeful in oneself. To reiterate, college applications are a crapshoot; you can do everything right but still get rejected. To make matters worse, YouTubers that post college reaction videos are also very often self-selecting, meaning that college admissions video compilations are often overrun with people that have gotten into multiple Top 20 or Ivy League schools. Because the demographic of these YouTubers is so skewed, it is easy for watchers to become demoralized and discouraged. This is not to say their content is bad, but rather the culture of their videos can be perceived as toxic.

Many might think that those who don’t like this genre of videos should simply not watch them, and it is definitely true that no one can control what content other people choose to put out on the internet. However, it may not be as simple as that. For people who cannot afford private admissions counselors and have to navigate the college process on their own, these videos serve as one of their only options to learn more about the admissions process and help them craft their own application. It is often these people that bear the brunt of the negative effects of these college admissions videos. Based on a number of factors, such as socioeconomic status, school district and/or living conditions, the opportunities afforded to students can differ through no fault of their own. It is fundamentally impossible to expect a student who works multiple jobs to help support their family to have a similar application to a student who does not have to work and thus has more time to spend on extracurriculars—this does not make either student weaker or less qualified. Therefore, there is no singular formula to get into college, but many of these YouTubers phrase their videos in such a way that it seems like getting into college is impossible without a 4.0 and 1600. Even though this is false, it makes prospective applicants lose confidence in themselves, contributing to society’s toxic culture of viewing grades and test scores as a measure of someone’s worth. On the flipside, those with impressive test scores and grades are often led to believe that this will lead to their acceptance into top schools—something nobody can guarantee, let alone a college YouTuber with no real insight into the admissions process.

College admissions are a very subjective process—no one knows why they did or did not get in, and that automatically disqualifies anyone from being able to offer concrete advice on what does or does not get an applicant a ticket to a particular university. But these “College Decision Videos” take advantage of prospective students’ fears of not being qualified enough, feeding them incomplete information for YouTube views.

To reiterate, college applications are a crapshoot; you can do everything right but still get rejected.