Brady Ehrhart
ADDED STRESS: Viewing high-pressure and demoralizing videos online can severely impact decision-making and stress levels of students.
“Cooked” is an odd word to describe high school seniors. However, it is commonplace vocabulary spewed from phone screens across the nation.
As the class of 2026 begins their college applications, the growing phenomenon of online college content creators begins to push out increasingly cutthroat content, promoting competition and causing paranoia to grip students once again.
While misguidance is not a new concept by any means, an increase of students receiving college “guidance” through social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram has opened a new door for some enterprising content creators to profit off our collective anxiety and uncertainty for the college admissions process.
These creators–many of which have their own courses paywalled–release videos sharing stories of potential applicants with world-changing extracurriculars and nearly perfect statistics, claim that students must treat the seventh grade like the start of their application and denounce potential applications if they hold a GPA under a certain number.
While it is true that top colleges across America consist of the top percentiles of students, the portrayal of a student’s four years of achievement as unsatisfactory and strictly empirical is damaging and inherently false for the admissions process. In fact, most colleges look for well-rounded, authentic profiles that will benefit their school community.
According to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, a school many MUS graduates attend, “UT has a competitive but holistic admissions process. [They] consider your experience and preparation in academic areas as well as other factors including rigor of your high school curriculum…extracurricular or leadership activities…special talents or skills.”
This holistic admissions process is not unique to just UTK; virtually every school in America, regardless of size or location, promotes a holistic admissions process to foster a more cohesive and livelier student environment. For example, 1,250 miles away from here, Amherst College in Amherst, Mass. look not for perfect applicants but rather “students with qualities of mind and character that will enable them to thrive in our dynamic academic and social environment and take advantage of Amherst’s remarkable resources.”
Obviously, college admissions is not a toxic process; unfortunately, these content creators make it out to be.
In the same token as the “$3 billion independent college counseling industry,” and a “$100,000 college admissions counselor,” from Marketplace.org and Town & Country Magazine, respectively, this slew of content creators has begun profiting on a smaller-scale, marketing towards perhaps the most malleable interest group: stressed teenagers. By promoting speech that deprecates a student’s hard work, dismissing accomplishments as subpar and instructing potential applicants to spend money on essay help and private concierge counseling, these content creators are disregarding the proven methodology of holistic review and blatantly doing more harm than good.
Viewing college applications through the lens that these content creators present is not only false, but also detrimental to students’ self-esteem and mental health. At a time where seniors should be celebrating their accomplishments and working towards finishing their academic careers strong, many are stuck worrying about what they have not done.
Therefore, we encourage students to not be fooled by these money grabs; rather, separate fact from fiction when viewing this content. You are not “cooked,” and if MUS has done anything to prepare you for the world, it’s to succeed beyond high school. It’s no wonder we are called a “college preparatory school.”
Let’s pull the plug on this fearmongering.