December 15th and April 1st. Two of the most stressful days in a 6th former’s Hill career. These are the days that early acceptance decisions and regular acceptance decisions come out.
The college application process is an extremely stressful one. It is full of late nights studying for the SAT/ACT, finishing up college supplements, and working hard for stellar grades.
Some 6th formers decide to say where they are applying, others do not. However, on the days of December 15th and April 1st, everyone knows where you got rejected from and where you got accepted to. This is simply Hill’s culture.
When I came to Hill as a 3rd former, I was shocked that this was considered a thing, for I only knew about four 6th formers, but was still informed about the acceptance and rejection of at least 50.
Rumors blaze through this school like wildfire. Once the school community gets a grasp of the fact that this person got into a certain school but this person did not, the cycle begins, and the questions start pouring out. “I wonder what that person’s GPA is?” “Is that person smart?” “That person’s SAT scores are awful; there is no way that they got in because of their grades.” “What is that school’s acceptance rate?”
As a 6th former now, going through the process myself, I view this culture as extremely invasive. This cycle completely invalidates someone’s hard work over the course of four years. The college process is a completely personal journey, that does not involve anyone else. No one will ever know why or what made you choose a certain school. Maybe it was based on your mental state, finance, etc… but at the end of the day, you chose that school because you could be happy there.
However, the most horrible part of this cycle are the comparisons many 6th formers are subject to. These comparisons spark the questions: “How did this person get in but not this person?” These comparisons spread viciously throughout the school.
The college process is a lottery, completely unknown to students. To undermine someone, by simply stating that they did not work as hard as another person for the same thing, is incredibly disrespectful. Yet it’s still something our community does. If our community thinks that it’s valid to diminish hard work through assumptions – that an individual isn’t very smart, or that they only got in because they’re a good athlete – then we are not “The Family Boarding School.”