What Disney Channel Teaches Us About College

when i was in sixth grade

i wrote down all of my goals on post-it

notes and stuck them to my bedside table

so i could remind myself as i was going

to bed and waking up every morning

of what i was pushing myself to achieve

and the type of person i wanted to be

i wrote try out for the school musical

make friends with a person in each of

the friend groups at school

and get into stanford to play both

softball and soccer

slightly more aggressive than the other

goals

now as a junior in high school and

someone that’s put a lot of thought into

the college admissions process

i began to wonder where this idea came

from in the first place

it wasn’t for my parents i knew they’d

be proud of me no matter where i ended

up

as long as i would i was working hard

and it certainly wasn’t my sixth grade

teachers telling me that if i didn’t

memorize the state capitals

i would never get into stanford and

become successful

and i was no outlier recently i was

speaking with one of my friends

and she was reading me the letter she

wrote in fifth grade to her future self

she had written never give up on your

dream of going to stanford or harvard

she wrote that in fifth grade so where

were we

as kids that had years before we had to

start thinking about college

getting the idea that we had to go to

schools that accept less than five

percent of their applicants

where were we even hearing about these

schools in the first place

let’s start with her for those of you

that have never seen the disney channel

original movie high school musical

this is gabriella montez a model student

and member of the academic decathlon

team who loves to sing

and committed to stanford university

teddy duncan from the show good luck

charlie committed to yale

hannah montana aka miley stewart and her

best friend lily committed to

stanford bayley from suitelife on deck

to yale and ally from austin denali was

rejected from harvard surprising

but after scoring a do-over interview

she was accepted

how many people do you know that got to

have a do-over interview

now i’m not going to say that all of

these acceptances were completely

outrageous

but think about the seed that’s being

planted in young kids minds

the smart characters go to stanford

harvard and yale

not even the other ivy league schools

when cody from suite life on deck was

rejected from yale and being comforted

by his mother

she said there’s always princeton and he

responded

and i quote the armpit of the ivy league

and when she suggested brown he called

it a glorified junior college in an

ugly color and it’s a similar story

for shows like gilmore girls rory

gilmore was accepted to harvard yale and

princeton

after her only main achievements being

her gpa her position on the school

newspaper

and the fact that she was vice president

of her class

same goes for shows like glee gossip

girl and the

netflix original shows and movies that

reach the newer wave of impressionable

kids and teens

given that so many of the smart

characters go on to these elite and uber

competitive colleges

it’s no surprise that so many young kids

would aspire to do the same

generally these characters are the

logical responsible ones

the voices of reason for many of the

shows they’re on so many watchers

including 6th grade me looked up to them

as role models

but adopting this mentality at such a

young age can be very dangerous

there are almost 27 000 high schools in

the us

meaning there are almost 27 000

valedictorians

however the pat in the past year harvard

accepted

under 2 000 applicants into the class of

in 2016 stanford only accepted eight

percent of their applicants that scored

an 800 or

perfect score on the math section of the

sat

it’s not enough to have perfect grades

or perfect test scores

students that seem like their shoe-ins

to everyone that knows them are getting

rejected at unbearably high rates

it’s easy to fall into the mindset of

thinking if i just had blank

then i’d be happy however or for many

people

this this would be a boatload of cash

the perfect body or an acceptance letter

from

from blank university putting all of

your self-worth on a singular item or

achievement

is toxic and leaves you feeling empty

and disappointed if you can’t have it

in a time when many people are tailoring

the way they spend their time to appeal

to the college admissions boards at

certain colleges it can also feel like

the entirety of how you spent your high

school years was a complete waste

this attitude is dangerous even for the

tiny percentage of applicants that are

accepted into these top schools

and are watching their lifelong dreams

come to fruition

the if i just had blank then i’d be

happy attitude is simply untrue

because of a process called hedonic

adaptation

hedonic adaptation as was explained to

me from the yale online

coursera course the science of

well-being is the process of becoming

accustomed to both positive

and negative things so their emotional

effects dissipate over time

this feature of the mind can be very

helpful in scenarios like a painful

breakup

or the loss of a family member because

although you originally think

my life is over and there’s no way i’m

going to recover from this pain

your brain eventually adapts to it and

you’re able to carry on

however in the scenario of being

accepted into college

students do not feel the same initial

exuberance and joy that they felt upon

opening their acceptance letter

when they’re waking up their junior year

to head to their midterms

eventually the college you go to simply

becomes the college you go to

and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing

as long as you still love your school

and the environment it fosters

however if you committed simply based

off of how proud you were to say the

name and wear the sweatshirt

this can be very problematic the

mentality of striving

for awesome things or impressive

accomplishments and basing your

happiness around that

is not only toxic in the context of

college admissions

but also in every aspect of your life in

a study done in 2003 by nickerson and

colleagues

they surveyed college freshmen on their

materialist materialist attitudes

for example how much do you want this

really awesome car

or how much do you want this really cool

stuff

20 years later they found that those

that had materialist attitudes

reported having much lower life

satisfaction and

more diagnosed mental health disorders

no matter how financially

successful they were or weren’t when the

effects of getting something new and

exciting wear off

you’re left with a void that many people

attempt to fail by acquiring

more and more cool and exciting stuff

however none of this

is going to lead to long-term happiness

because of hedonic adaptation

so what lifestyle does lead to more

fulfillment and happiness

reverse the mindset of waiting for

happiness to come as a result of certain

possessions and achievements

and think about the things that you do

that genuinely bring you happiness

or the core values and principles that

leave you feeling fulfilled

and base your life in the way you spend

your time around that

circling back to college admissions this

would mean that rather than molding who

you are and the way you spend your time

to appeal to certain college admissions

boards spending the time pursuing

passions that feel meaningful to you

and choosing your college and looking

for colleges based on

which schools align best with your

interests and your priorities

this idea is not groundbreaking or new

in any way and i guarantee you that

anyone that has just gone through the

college app process or is about to go

through it

has heard it many times before at our

school they often say that choosing a

college is not about winning a game

it’s about making a match and this idea

should theoretically make sense to

anyone that hears it

however i was just recently speaking

with one of my friends on the schools

she’s thinking of applying to

and she said oh yeah i would never apply

to harvard

it’s way too small it’s too far from

home and it seems like the environment

there would be way too competitive for

me to be happy

but if i got in i would still go since

it’s harvard

it’s not enough to understand and agree

with an idea

to be able to change the way you live it

is essential that you put it into

practice

and retrain yourself to actually live

based on what makes you happy

however most of the high schoolers i

know aren’t going to abandon the

i’m going to work harder than everyone

else and get into the top college

mentality

and suddenly decide that it doesn’t

matter how prestigious the school i go

to is

as long as i can find happiness there

because it’s so hard to get people to

reject the idea that’s been ingrained in

them since they were kids

we need to be changing the narrative

from a much earlier age

disney channel needs to feature students

that are going to community college

because they weren’t ready to move away

from home yet not because they weren’t

smart enough to get in anywhere else

or students that have a very specific

astronomy program or music program at

some

lesser-known college that they’re really

excited about going to

for every kid that wants to go to

college there’s there are schools out

there that they will thrive at

and it’s doing them a great injustice

for the shows that they watch to preach

that there is such a narrow path

for smart high achieving students by

helping them understand that they should

be looking for their own unique path

based on what’s meaningful and

fulfilling to them personally

it would not only help to alleviate some

of the stress surrounding an

ever more competitive college admissions

process

but it would also help them build a life

that will lead them to more long-term

happiness

thank you

you