From Dinah’s Desk: The column where I, Dinah, usually at my desk, put my thoughts on paper. Or really, a webpage.

Secret secrets are no fun, unless they’re about your college process. Then, the existence of these secrets is accepted, and in some cases encouraged, by either the pressure cooker of outside opinion or the internal fear of ridicule or speculation.

I have chosen to be fairly open about my college application process in hopes that it will inspire authentic and nonjudgmental conversation between my peers, my family, and myself. As the first child in my immediate family to go through the process, this is new (and exciting!) for us, and I am perfectly fine navigating through it openly. However, some students choose to keep their process private for a number of reasons, all of which are perfectly reasonable. Perhaps they want to distance themselves from the topic in conversation; perhaps they are afraid that if their process is revealed, they will have to deal with the consequences of rejection more publicly. Maybe it’s the crab mentality—students scrambling over each other to gain reassurance only to be pulled back down into the fuss.

The conversation topic of college acceptance is like a viral infection; it seeps into the air that students — the seniors, in particular — breathe and permeates conversation around the building. More often than not, if one has passed the Senior Benches in the last month, they would have gotten a brief earful of students’ personal statement progress (or lack thereof) or tidbits about their most recent college visits and what schools have been knocked from their list by parents or counselors. Or, perhaps most commonly, they might’ve heard a self-effacing comment like, “… but I don’t even have a shot.”

With shockingly low admissions rates and ever-growing applicant pools, it is easy for applicants to believe that they do not stand a chance. It is easy to see the process in terms of numbers, of what score is good enough and what is not, and it is just as easy to become sick of hearing phrases such as “holistic application review.” It is hard to grapple with the fact that colleges will be reviewing you as portrayed on sheets of paper, and that you will be just a few out of many thousands. These dark, scary impressions cannot help but paint a pessimistic picture for all, even the most promising of applicants. As members of a very small school community, college admissions success stories travel fast, but news of disappointment travels with more weight. I, myself, even, have measured aspects of my application against those of former students, trying to measure where I may end up based on their outcomes. Not only is that an ineffective strategy (so I’ve decided), but it feeds the starving flames of comparison and pessimism. Accompanying those bouts of comparison is a resounding, “If they couldn’t do it, how can I?”

I am not one to believe in false hope, nor qualified to give it, but this trend of pessimism is frightening, even as I have fallen prey to it head over heels. And moreso, it is quite damaging to students’ outlook on their applications. There is a very big difference between grounded realism and cynicism, and students are veering sharply towards the latter. This culture must be changed. As students hear more and more of their peers throw around the catch-all phrases of self-doubt, that self-doubt begins to stick around. It burrows itself into people’s consciousness, making them insecure about their chances of admission and therefore willingness to engage in non-judgmental conversation.

There is, if you can believe it, a way to discuss one’s own experience with the college process without feeling the pull of negativity in your chest. There is a way to lift up peers throughout this process, keeping in mind that feelings of powerlessness and doubt are shared emotions that are heightened by this process. And as much as adults — either at home or elsewhere — acknowledge, largely emptily and disingenuously, that comparison is insidious and shouldn’t be listened to, their empty platitudes do not help.

What can?

The culture must be changed by and from the students themselves. Students are in more of an apt position to offer empathy towards one another; we are going through this cultural moment together, apart from any other generation. We must remember that instead of scrambling and clawing our way through the bucket, we should help each other reach the top.