The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of The Prowler.

The college search.  

It feels like it should be a lot easier.  

With over 5,000 colleges in the US, one would think that it would be easier to find, apply, and get into a college.  

As I am starting the whole process there are a few things that I have learned.  

First, most of the pressure for getting into a “good school” is put on by students more than anyone.  The stigma that surrounds the application process is awful.  

Students feel the need to apply and get into schools that are too hard for them.  

Recently, at Archer School for Girls, girls were making lists of the class of 2018, predicting where students were going to end up in two years.  

Girls were hurt as they were being measured against each other.  They were being told that they were or were not good enough to go to Princeton and Yale while others were destined to go to UC Boulder or Indiana (both respectfully good schools, but not with Ivy League status).

This leads me to my second concern, which is that students give schools reputations that sometimes they don’t deserve.  Yes, I’ll admit that some schools may be better than others.  However, just because a school has a harder acceptance rate doesn’t mean they will necessarily provide a better education.  

Your future, your jobs, your success should not be defined on the difference between going to Stanford or University of Arizona.  

In the mezzanine at our school there are four “Alumni Voices” posters acknowledging successful graduates  and their accomplishments after high school.  While our school does a great job of keeping all alumni a part of the community, these posters show the only student that ever went to Yale and three others who went to UCLA, USC and University of Washington.  All four of these schools have outstanding reputations and acceptance rates lower than 46%.

The majority of the students that graduate from dTHS do not go to these “big name” schools, and many of them are doing great things in the world. We need to celebrate these students as well, or we will inadvertently support the misguided system of categorizing schools.

My third difficulty with the college process is that most of high school is spent working for college.  High schoolers more often than not take classes and extracurriculars only because it “looks good” to do so.

Students are so focused on what college they are going to go to that they are unable to enjoy being in high school.  Students stress and panic over quizzes and projects because they think the slightest bad grade will ruin their chances.

Resume building has become the focus of not only the application process itself, but also of all four years of high school.  Students worry more about how they will look on paper than they do in person.   

Between the Facebook posts of students announcing where they want to go and and those who are still not sure, the pressure remains.  The cycle of stress and panic is never ending.  Ideally, the solution is to stop the growing competition.  Unfortunately, this is likely unrealistic.  

But we can be more conscious of the need to support each other through this tiring process.