Your Ivy League experience would not send anyone into a coma

Since I arrived at Princeton, a niche type of content has flooded my social media feed: elite university students documenting the unique experience of attending a selective school. From packed “day in the life” vlogs to sneak peeks at seemingly luxurious dining hall meals, these videos emphasize the privilege, aesthetics, and exclusivity of the Ivy League student experience.

Instagram Reels or TikTok videos about the Ivy League college experience are often harmless. Personally, I enjoy videos with a simple Q&A format, or those where students showcase glimpses of their school’s main green to give a sense of its culture.

But when this content markets the prestige and exclusivity of attending an elite university as central to the student experience, it risks misconstruing the true value of our education as a status symbol and not an intellectual experience. This reinforces the cultural gulf between the academic elite and America at large.

This content often dramatizes the difference between the experience at elite universities and other schools. I’ve seen several TikTok videos with captions like “Things about [Ivy League school] that would send people from other schools into a coma” that, in reality, showcase something mundane that could be found at any university, like placement tests for languages. In doing so, these creators imply that the selectivity of elite universities somehow renders them entirely different from others.

By dramatizing the difference between elite schools and other universities, we play into the obsession with college admissions that has dominated the national discourse and perpetuate an idea of student-body superiority despite the inequities present in these admissions. In the process, we increase the cultural focus on the exclusivity of these schools rather than the quality of education that they offer. We should be wary of reinforcing this culture of exclusivity for prospective applicants perusing Princeton content online.

Content about the unique luxuries of an elite college experience doesn’t just distort how our schools are perceived by prospective applicants; it also distorts the perception of higher education by the nation at large. In one popular type of video, creators showcase the material luxuries that come with attending an Ivy, flaunting the gourmet cuisine and decadent decorations at events like “Harvard’s fanciest party” or the exquisite Yale holiday dinner, often to hundreds of thousands of likes. By doing so, they reinforce the idea that Ivy League schools provide a luxurious experience for a select few rather than a top-notch education meant to better the world.

The comment section of the aforementioned Yale video demonstrates this adverse effect. Many viewers point out the disparity between the event’s decadence and the poverty in New Haven. If we want to contradict the perception that elite universities are nothing more than finishing schools for the privileged, we need to think carefully about how we represent our student experience online.

Of course, Princeton’s student body remains disproportionately wealthy compared to the entire country, and Princeton students increasingly choose high-paying careers like consulting. In some ways, we are indeed the out-of-touch elite the media stereotypes. But to dismantle the elitism at Princeton, we first must reject it, not embrace it.

Given the national landscape, the association between elite schools that produce important research and havens for rich kids is especially important to fight. After all, it is well-established that Americans are beginning to lose faith in elite academia, viewing institutions like ours not as bodies to further knowledge for all but as finishing schools for an existing educational elite. In a poll by Gallup in 2023, the country’s confidence in higher education fell to 36 percent, down from 57 percent in 2015. When we outwardly market the privilege and exclusivity of attending an elite university as central to the experience, we only accelerate this loss of confidence.

When students highlight only the most luxurious aspects of schools like Princeton on social media, it becomes no easier to convince prospective students who aren’t from society’s upper echelons that Princeton is an inclusive place for them. In this way, the prestige and elitism promoted on social media create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And with the Trump administration beginning to rescind university funding for bad-faith reasons — including at Columbia and Penn — the way we represent ourselves as a community takes on greater importance. Someone who believes their taxpayer dollars are funding Yale students’ gratuitously fancy holiday dinners might find no problem with withholding the university’s federal funding. Even though that funding is specifically earmarked for worthy causes like research or financial aid, it would be hard to blame them.

In this frightening political landscape, 30-second videos posted to social media may seem the least of our issues. But as students at a school aiming to increase its diversity and impact in the world amid a fraught moment for higher education, it is vital that we accurately convey our institution’s values. That starts by being thoughtful about how we represent the Princeton experience — and the college experience as a whole — on and off social media.