“I Might Be Hopeless”: r/ChanceMe and Toxic College Admissions Communities

With college application deadlines in the past and admission decisions on the horizon, high school seniors around the country are increasingly seeking anxiety-quelling advice. Social media netizens are willing to give “encouragement” and “reassurance” to these seniors — that being toxic and discouraging censure.

“Chicago suburbs, white male, engineering major” seems to be how every post under the subreddit r/ChanceMe begins. The student states their demographics, test scores, GPA, class rank, extracurriculars and a list of schools they’re aiming for. They end the post with some variation of “chance me.” r/ChanceMe and its sister subreddit, r/ApplyingToCollege, claim they were founded to help prospective college applicants through helpful advice. However, many people who give advice are also 17, stressed, worrying about college and tend to base their advice on the applicant’s “vibes.” Over the years, a once helpful community with members being honest and uplifting has turned into a toxic environment where students indulge in self-deprecation.

Rising high school senior Chloe, an r/ApplyingToCollege member, received brutal advice after asking about her chances of getting into Columbia. She explained feeling discouraged after being unable to be a recruited athlete due to a concussion and familial troubles. Her peers, however, were less concerned about her hardships, focusing instead on her post’s “awful writing” and stating her “stats” would never be good enough, without any explanation or advice on how to work on them. 

Students who post their statistics range from likely Harvard admits to those who see themselves as “average.” However, as senior Giovanni Qiao points out, “the ‘average’ student on these subreddits is definitely well above the average student, even for competitive high schools like Sidwell.” Students calling themselves “average” on these subreddits tend to have a near-perfect SAT score and unweighted GPA with impressive extracurriculars and awards. These statistics are extremely discouraging, with the national average SAT score around 1080. When stellar students with non-profits and 400+ hours of community service begin worrying about getting admitted into college, what hope is there for the actual “average” students? 

Recently, a cryptic post stating “If you applied to Harvard, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Stanford, Rice, UPenn, or WashU… you’re probably not going to get in. Sorry,” became a top post within only a few days, drawing in even more nervous responses from students. Though many wrote the post off as being untruthful, others pointed out that it only adds fuel to the fire of high school students who are already stressed about getting into any college, let alone a “top 20” college, after seeing outstanding students rejected. 

Many seniors turn to TikTok instead of Reddit for admissions advice, though their experiences do not improve. For example, content creator @limmytalks is a Duke graduate and has garnered 311.2k followers on TikTok by reviewing the “most insane” college applications of high school students. His most popular video discusses a student with a perfect GPA and SAT score and legacy status at Harvard who comes from a family that makes $800k a year. The student also has 300 hours of community service, created a Language Exchange Club, attended DECA internationals, started a non-profit raising over $100k and played two varsity sports. 

The student was accepted by Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Duke, Caltech and several other top schools; however, he was rejected from UCLA, MIT, Stanford and Northwestern. Every student in the comment section was dejected and bemoaned how a student could possibly be more perfect for these colleges. Toxic online admissions communities amplify this notion: “If a perfect student like this is being rejected, what are the odds for me?”

@limmytalks has similar videos with students who were New York Times best-selling authors, Arab America 20 Under 20, and internationally recognized athletes. Only the smallest number of students will have these stellar achievements; even then, acceptance to a top college is not guaranteed. As a result, students feel they can never measure up to the “perfect” students who are ultimately rejected from top colleges. 

Lucy, an r/ApplyingToCollege veteran and a member of Northwestern’s Class of 2028, finds the subreddits to make an already stressful process more so. She recommends that students “be more kind to themselves” and spend more time valuing their own accomplishments.