There’s nothing wrong with celebrating victories, but there’s something wrong when students begin to celebrate each other’s losses. When college acceptance (and rejection) letters pour in, malice rears its ugly head as students gossip about who got in where—and who didn’t. Such talk may feel good in the short run, but the pain relief is fleeting. Making fun of people to make yourself feel better for five minutes is simply not worth it.

Gunn’s stress levels are a mile high. This fact is something both the administration and the student body recognize. College-related gossip seems harmless enough, but it causes students who are already fretting over letters far too much to worry even more. On top of worrying about actually getting into the colleges of their choice, students begin to worry about having to tell their peers if they got in. If someone gets rejected from a college he or she genuinely wanted to attend, the rejection itself is enough. No matter who that person is, he or she does not deserve to, on top of the rejection, be mocked.

In this day and age, students are already competitive. Mere teenagers are locked in an academic arms race to have the best grades, the most AP classes and the highest test scores. This negative, silly competition does not need to extend to college acceptances. The number of applicants has risen to unprecedented levels in recent years, so a rejection from UCLA is not likely to say anything about one’s personal worth. How can anonymous admissions officers accurately gauge every single student’s merit? The answer is obvious—they cannot. Judging people based on their acceptances is simply unfair.

Although seniors may not want to think about this, a big consequence of college-related gossip is a frightened group of underclassmen. Juniors, sophomores and even freshmen dread college applications well before they begin, and hearing people make fun of seniors who were rejected does nothing to ease their fears. The college admissions process is criticized as being too stressful, and as people who have (hopefully) survived it, seniors should make it easier on the underclassmen, who will be in the same position in only a few short years.

Gunn is an academic marvel, but it does not have a great reputation when it comes to having a supportive, stress-free community. The administration has taken steps to mitigate student stress—hence, stress-relief assemblies and the wall of rejection—but ultimately, the student body has to help. Kids: let’s play nice.

—Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the staff (assenting: 32; dissenting: 3).