Each year, two of Palo Alto High School’s most anticipated traditions resulting from the college application process are the rejection wall and the college map published by The Campanile student newspaper.

These two traditions send opposite messages about student values.  The hype attending college applications at Paly is intense — it dominates seniors’ lives all year and often begins even earlier as ambitious Palo Alto parents pressure their children to excel.  

As decision letters arrive, students can choose to submit their rejection letters to the rejection wall.  Posted in the windows of the English Resource Center for all to see, the rejection wall serves as a communal cheer-up, reminding both seniors and underclassmen that college rejection letters, even for high-achieving Paly students, are normal, inevitable, and nothing to be ashamed of.  

The year-end issue of The Campanile always includes a spread showing the U.S. map marked with the schools that year’s graduates will attend.  Each school is labeled with the number of Paly students who have committed there.  Underneath the map there is a list of all the seniors’ names followed by their respective schools. It’s fun to look at, and it is fascinating to see where people will be going, but is the identification of each senior with a school necessary?  

We already know what our good friends’ post-high-school plans are anyway.  And for all those passing acquaintances, Facebook is only a click away to satisfy idle curiosity.

One minute seniors are laughing together over rejection letters, and the next we are lined up and scrutinized by the entire Campanile readership.  It is interesting and fine to look at the numbers,  but attaching individuals’ names to schools for publication goes too far. We are not defined by our college choices, but readers will still make judgements about people they don’t know based on the schools following their names.

Going to college is worth celebrating, but it does not merit an announcement in the student paper.  As a community we can take pride in the schools and bright futures our seniors look forward to — without a list of students’ names.  The array of schools and the number of  students committed to each are sufficient to emphasize Paly’s talented student body.   

Publishing a college map with students’ names attached flies in the face of the rejection wall.  First we support each other as the rejections come in, but then we turn right around to see how everyone measures up.  We need to to decide as a community which sentiment we wish to foster. Which is it going to be, Paly — support or competition?