Getting into an elite college can be really hard, but thankfully the process can be made easier by advice from college counselors along with hundreds of websites that give tips on how to do better on the ACT or how to write a good college essay.

Even so, there still seems to be a lack of resources that tell us what to do when we or our friends commit to that “dream” college.

But, I am here to solve that problem. The past couple of years, I have noticed a pattern to how certain people act during the college admissions process on social media, and I have constructed a few rules that I wrote out on paper, instead of letting them remain in their previously unwritten form. This will encourage more people to act according to societal norms, and hopefully one day it will lead to everyone flexing appropriately.

After all, not all flexes are created equal.

Rule #1: In order to do any social media college flex that isn’t related to sports, you must identify as a female.

Rule #2: DON’T POST SOMETHING THAT SAYS YOU COMMITTED TO A COLLEGE ON INSTAGRAM FOR ACADEMICS.

Rule #3: If you did commit to a college for a sport though, you are now allowed to make an Instagram post telling everyone where you committed, and read the 47,358 comments that you get congratulating you. But, posting on Instagram still might seem a little bit too much of a flex, so you might feel compelled to post about your committal on Twitter, which won’t seem like a flex at all.

Rule #4: While posting something on Instagram that says you committed to a certain college not for a sport is completely against the rules, making a post on Facebook is completely fair game. Let me clarify: posting on Instagram can be considered “unacceptable behavior” by some, but posting on Facebook is just one of those things you do.

Rule #5: If one of your best friends just got into, let’s say, Wisconsin, then you should probably post an Instagram story congratulating them on their acceptance. It is extremely important to let your followers know that 1. You have many “best friends,” and 2. You have many “best friends” that are smart.
This is also a great opportunity to let your followers know how attractive you are. Find all the photos of you and said friend and pick out the three or four photos that you look the best in (don’t worry, how your friend looks doesn’t matter).

Then, you could be basic and just say congratulations and name the college they got into on one Instagram story, or you could arguably be even more basic and use up four different Instagram stories with different colored fonts and font colors to show off your artistic prowess!

After all, it is impossible to show your friends that you are happy for them without posting something on social media.

Joking aside, while these rules were very much exaggerated, it does seem as if sometimes people go unnecessarily out of their way to show off their acceptance or committal to a certain school. But, at times flexing can rather just be a side-effect to letting people know you got in somewhere or being happy for and/or proud of a friend.

The unwritten rules of this process at times attempt not to hurt the feelings of those who didn’t get in or couldn’t afford a certain school, but no matter what, that will always be inevitable. Even so, we can still make legitimate attempts to seem less obnoxious or over-the-top in the way we flex aside from these foolish differentiations on social media.

I’m not saying that people who post stuff are necessarily bad because these posts often come from a place of pride or happiness that is completely understandable. I’m saying though that certain flexes can be eradicated or altered based on what their eventual unavoidable impact on certain other students would look like. Sometimes flexes are truly unnecessary, and so instead we can choose to prioritize how they might make others feel rather than what they will do for us.

And so, instead of using this unwritten, but now written, rulebook, that I along with others worked to construct, maybe we should just ask ourselves these three questions before we do a college flex (or really any type of flex) in real life or on social media: 1. Does my flex have a real purpose? 2. How will my flex make other people feel? And 3. Can I still be happy or proud for myself and others without this flex at all?