Admissions Advisor Warns Of A Trend Affecting How Students Choose Which College To Attend
Inside Creative House | Shutterstock When it comes to choosing a college, most high school students consider whether the college specializes in their intended area of study, along with where it's located, cost, and even student life. But, thanks to social media, that's changing.
According to college admissions advisor Beth Kraemer, the bed party, a social media-driven trend in which high school students decide which college to attend solely on the basis of optics, is driving the decision. In an essay for HuffPost, Kraemer explained how these "bed parties" are becoming more important than a school's ability to meet a student's academic needs.
College admissions advisor warns the bed party trend is affecting how students choose which school to attend.
"One of my high school senior clients — dressed like she was heading to a party — knelt in the middle of her carefully staged bed, every inch covered in University of Michigan merchandise. She was pretending to drink from a champagne bottle bedazzled in blue and maize, surrounded by so many Michigan-branded sneakers, sweatshirts, hats, pillows, blankets, posters and stuffed animals," Kraemer shared.
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She explained that this phenomenon is what college admissions look like in 2026. This version of the college reveal, known as "bed party," is one of the many curated ways students are choosing to announce which school they are attending. But Kraemer noticed that the "pomp and circumstance" might be driving the decision-making rather than how well the four-year experience will fit each student's needs.
"Students now spend their entire senior year anticipating these performative moments, and increasingly, that performance doesn’t just follow the decision — it influences it," Kraemer wrote. "I’ve had students hesitate to accept a waitlist spot or later acceptance because they’ve already posted that they’re attending another school. Others are reluctant to share early-decision acceptances in December because they worry it will look like they took the 'easy' way out."
The bed party trend seems to have started during the pandemic.
"If you don't know what a bed party is, I'm about to explain it to you in less than a minute. Okay, so for reference, I'm a senior at the University of Miami. Now, this was me as a senior in high school. This was my bed party outside," explained college grad Payton Winter.
In her video, she showed a photo of herself sitting on her bed outside, with a bunch of University of Miami decor and accessories scattered around her, as she announced that she was going to college there. Apparently, this trend started in 2020, when students had to get creative with photos announcing where they were going to school because their options were limited.
"What a bed party is, is when your mom and a lot of your good friends, they decorate your bed for you, they buy you clothes, they buy you food," Winter said. "This is a big event, but basically all it is is a celebration."
We're living in a time when key milestones are purely for social media.
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The college application and decision-making process already puts a lot of pressure on teenagers whose frontal lobes are still developing. Freshly turned 18-year-olds are being tasked with figuring out the direction they want their lives to take, including their careers and where they want to study to pursue them. It's a lot.
"They are facing one of the first major decisions of their lives — one that will shape four formative years. Rather than focusing on which colleges are the best academic, social and financial fits, students are increasingly filtering their decisions through the lens of image: recognition, perception and brand," Kraemer pointed out.
There's definitely way more to picking a college than worrying about a bed party. In the age of social media, though, students are so much more concerned with how their decisions will look to their peers than with making important decisions that directly affect their futures.
As Kraemer noted, "Students aren’t just choosing a college. They’re choosing where they’ll live, learn, and grow. That decision deserves more weight than the moment used to announce it."
Perhaps it's time for parents to get more involved in the choice, especially if they are the ones footing the bill. College is way too expensive to base solely on a social media post.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
