From its creation, the Daisy Decisions Instagram page has celebrated seniors’ achievements and the beginning of their new journey. But what is the process behind managing the page? And does the account put pressure on seniors to “daisy-decide”?
The Daisy Decisions page is a student-run Instagram account not affiliated with The Hockaday School, whose posts are not “official.” However, the page surges in popularity every year once seniors start receiving college decisions.
The account is led by one senior each year. Millie Trumpower ‘23 led the account for her class.
“Becoming the admin wasn’t hard,” Trumpower said. “I think I just texted the person who had it before me and asked if I could run it for 2023. And then, through word of mouth, my entire grade heard that I wanted to run the account, and everyone just agreed to let me do it.”
Throughout most of the year, Trumpower noted that the account didn’t add much work to her already busy senior schedule. However, there were certain days throughout the year when she had to post many times.
One day in mid-December when early decisions came out, Trumpower had to upload many student’s decisions and photos from Canva to Instagram quickly. However, those scattered days still were not too heavy of a workload.
In total, the Daisy Decisions page posted more than one hundred college decisions over the last academic year. But it didn’t represent everyone; in the process, several seniors did not want to announce their decisions.
“There were some students that didn’t want me to post for a while after they committed to a school,” Trumpower said. “But most people messaged me the day they decided. I think around 10 to 15 girls never posted on the account, but my grade was good about letting me know as soon as possible.”
Those students’ decisions to not announce their commitment reflected the concerns about the pressure seniors face to “daisy-decide.” When college decisions started rolling out, the pressure was on them to pick which of their options they wanted to commit to.
Over the years, Allison Camp, Associate Director of College Counseling, said she has also seen the negative effects that the account has on certain students. With college decisions coming up, she’s seen firsthand the toll the whole process takes on the seniors.
“We have found in previous years that students feel pressure to decide quickly or publicly because of Daisy Decisions,” Camp said. “While Daisy Decisions was created for the community to celebrate students and their college plans, each student has their own very unique process and timeline, and many will opt to not post their decision on social media at all.”
While she said it was fun to see the seniors proud of their accomplishments without any more stress from college applications, Camp emphasizes how students should never get caught up in the pressures faced with announcing the decision.
“[The college commitment] is so much bigger than that,” Camp said. “We told the seniors this year in their College Counseling workshop: “Daisy Decide is NOT a verb! Daisy Decisions as a whole is meant to be a celebration for those who choose to engage.’”
This year, the account is run by Jayna Khatti, who went through a similar process that Trumpower did in 2023.
Khatti became interested in running the account after she designed the logo for the Instagram page. After her logo was chosen to represent the senior class, she asked for her name to be in the list of possible admins for the Daisy Decisions page.
In August, a poll was sent out to the seniors featuring Khatti’s name, and after the results came out, she was given the keys to the page.
After just recently being chosen to manage the account, Khatti created a simple questionnaire for seniors to submit when they wanted to announce their decisions on the Instagram page.
“I just came up with these basic questions,” Khatti said. “Basically, just your name, what college you’re going to, what you’re majoring—if you’re majoring —if you’re playing a sport, that type of stuff.”
Each post on the account features a baby picture of the senior announcing their college decision and a recent photo of them on the next slide. The paragraph under it is short and easy to read, telling the public about the senior’s plans for their next four years.
As the year starts, Khatti is glad to have the opportunity to run the account for the class of 2025 and is excited to be the first person to see where everybody is going. And while some worry that it could add pressure to already-stressed seniors, Khatti believes that it does more good than harm.
“I think overall, it’s a very positive platform,” Khatti said. “Everyone gets to look at these decisions to celebrate everyone and it’s just a very happy thing to see.”
