Grades, Glory, Guilt. On breaking free from the illusion of… | by ParimitaS | Oct, 2025

Some days, applying to college feels less like planning my future and more like branding myself. Between watching “Ivy Day reaction videos,” “Day in My Life at Oxford” vlogs, and reels about life at NUS or ETH Zurich, I started asking myself: Am I chasing education or aesthetics?

I tell myself I’m being rational — comparing programs, professors, career outcomes. But let’s be honest: I’m also checking how impressive the college name sounds in a room full of relatives. And the irony? I haven’t even gone to university yet, but I have already started measuring my self-worth by rankings.

Pop culture and media feed these fantasies. Rory Gilmore went to Yale. Sherlock studied at Cambridge, and half of the Suits studied at Harvard. Even Spider-Man got into MIT! Every story screams the same thing: prestige equals intelligence, and if your future doesn’t include a top-ranked university, you need a rewrite. Every campus video looks like a movie trailer — drone shots, vintage libraries, latte art, and I can’t help but wonder: would I even feel smart if the sweatshirt didn’t say a world-famous name?

It’s strange how quietly we buy into this hierarchy. Nobody says it outright, but we all know which universities impress and which don’t. Surrounded by glossy acceptance posts and over-the-top rejection reactions, the pressure to aim higher, often unrealistically, becomes addictive.

Psychologists call this social comparison, where constant exposure to curated success can trigger anxiety, imposter syndrome, and a distorted sense of achievement. It’s not just stress over exams or essays — it’s stress over identity, over whether the “name on your degree” somehow defines who you are.

I’m not above it. I still refresh global rankings like stock prices and filter college lists by reputation before I even glance at courses or student life. It’s not exactly healthy, but it’s honest. Because at seventeen, the world has already made it clear: your future is only as bright as the college sweatshirt you wear.

Diya Choksey, a current student at UPenn, captures this reality perfectly in her daily Pennsylvania column: “Smart was your personality; now, it’s the baseline.” Walk through any top-tier campus, whether Oxford, Berkley, UNSW, or Princeton, and it quickly becomes obvious, everyone is an overachiever in some way. The intensity isn’t just in classrooms; it’s in internships, clubs, social media highlights, and endless networking.

Yet this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim high. The message is simple: if you try and don’t get in, it doesn’t make you less capable. If someone else does, don’t measure your worth against them. Behind every perfectly curated LinkedIn profile, frat party, or résumé stuffed with internships is a concealed reality you’ll never see. Maybe the real flex isn’t getting into the most selective school.

The real flex is knowing that your value isn’t measured by a ranking, a résumé, or a LinkedIn post. Top universities teach a subtle lesson: we’ve been trained to chase validation, to sprint on a treadmill where the finish line keeps moving. And the hustle? It’s often performative, toxic, and unsustainable: a competition where everyone’s measuring themselves against highlight reels, not reality.

What matters is whether you can think for yourself, take risks, and actually enjoy the work you do. It’s about building a life, not a résumé, and understanding that the pressure to keep up is largely an illusion. The definition of success is subjective; the moment you stop chasing someone else’s definition of success, you start defining your own.

In a world obsessed with rankings and validation, maybe the smartest move is to step off the treadmill: pick a place that challenges you, inspires you, and lets you grow, not the one that makes you constantly question if you’re “enough.” Because chasing prestige without purpose is exhausting, and the story worth writing is the one you live, not the one everyone else approves of.