By Cole Peverall –
University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University are just a few of the colleges Gonzaga class of 2021 students will be attending this upcoming fall. Gonzaga students often know where their classmates will be attending college, but often the larger Gonzaga community is unaware of graduating seniors’ future plans.
At the end of the 2020 school year, an Instagram page was established celebrating the Gonzaga Class of 2020 sharing students’ future plans. The page not only celebrated the graduating seniors, but it allowed the larger Gonzaga community to see where students would be attending college, informing those that would not have known otherwise. The class of 2020 Instagram account transitioned to the class of 2021 in late April and while the page publicly states students’ plans for the future, it runs on a single platform and requires an optional form to be filled out. In the case of Gonzaga, the Instagram account that lists students and which college they will be attending is completely voluntary, not forcing any student to post to the page that does not want to.
This brings up the question of why schools, especially Gonzaga, don’t publicly announce their student’s future plans. Gonzaga prides itself on being a premiere education preparing students for college and beyond through an academically challenging curriculum. When parents and their children are looking at high schools to attend, a public list of colleges students are attending could be a useful source to show what a Gonzaga education leads to after their four years on Eye Street and why it is worth spending $20,000 plus for a single year of high school.
Opponents of schools listing the colleges their students are attending may argue that it is not fair to list students who are not attending as prestigious colleges alongside the students that will be attending some of the top universities in the country. However, a school can easily list the schools that students will be attending without listing specific names.
Besides posting specifics about individual students who opted in on the Instagram page, schools should post a list on their websites announcing the schools that their students will be attending, as well as how many, if multiple attend. A list as so would allow the larger Gonzaga community to celebrate the accomplishments of the entire class while keeping the privacy of all students. All Gonzaga would need to do is post under the academics tab on the school’s website a list of where graduating seniors will be attending college in the fall. Doing so would allow easy access to the larger Gonzaga community to see the accomplishments of the outgoing class as well as informing prospective students of colleges Gonzaga sends their students to.