With love triangles unfolding in the hallways, attempted networking with New York’s most successful, and students who come to school ready for the runway, there are many aspects of Bronx Science life akin to Gossip Girl.
But instead of a website supplied by juicy anonymous tips, a single Instagram account contains the most valuable information Bronx Science students could seek– where their peers are going to college.
The public Instagram account, @bxsci2025seniors, is a commitment page run by the Bronx Science Senior Council. Similar accounts, either officially run by student government or more informally organized by the student body, are present at high schools across the country.
Earlier this year, the commitment page trend made headlines as Brooklyn Tech dismantled their account. Scandal erupted after a Jewish student’s commitment post, announcing her plans to study in Tel Aviv, became a hotbed of anti-Zionist and antisemitic comments.
The Bronx Science page has had no such issues and is still running. Since the first post in December 2024, the account has amassed over 1,700 followers, with nearly 250 posts. Many seniors see the page as a platform of celebration, for both themselves and their peers through comments and humorous, but heartfelt captions.
For others, it serves as an information hub. “Honestly, I just like seeing where everyone’s going to college and I don’t know that many seniors, but the people like I do know, it’s nice to see all their hard work has paid off,” said Abigail Kim ’27. Want to know who is going to the same school as you? Just open Instagram.
Each post is submitted by a student, using a google form in the Instagram account’s bio. The student uploads a baby photo, the name of the college they will attend, a caption for the post, and an optional song. The form also requires the student to fill out their intended major, with an open space for their response. The question header advises, “Write undecided if you’re unsure.”
There is immense diversity in the plans of study announced on the page. Some students plan to double major in finance and creative writing, or sociology and theater, while others declare their intention to study aerospace engineering, neuroscience, history, or almost any field or combination imaginable.
However, of the current 248 instagram posts, each with a different student and institution, only 13 students have labeled themselves openly and proudly “Undecided.”
However, upon speaking to seniors in the class of 2025, the truth is many students are undecided, even ones who applied to schools with specific majors, or declared specific majors on Instagram. If not fully undecided, the vast majority of students are far from confident that the major they typed into the google form will be the path that they stick with. So why do they hesitate to put undecided in the first place?
For many American colleges and universities, students may enter undergraduate studies without a specific major. Certain schools ask for your intended major, or perhaps a few areas of study you are interested in, on their application, but whatever one marks is non-binding. At other institutions, there may be specific schools for engineering or business, but also a general school of arts and sciences. The general practice in American universities is that students declare a major–meaning they commit to one–at the end of their sophomore year.
The major a student adds to their commitment Instagram post may be the same or different than what they filled out on their college application, if they shared the information with the institution at all.
Some students decide to apply undecided to the university itself. “I don’t think I could have committed to a major, even one that I knew I would have switched out of within a few years,” said Simon Maxwell ’25, who is attending Georgetown University in the fall. “I felt like I was putting myself in a box if I was just like, ‘oh, just econ’ or ‘just math’ or ‘just philosophy’ or whatever, and that I was locking myself out of sitting other things.”
Yet, students like Maxwell are outliers. The instagram page provides a subtle but potent example of a national trend–the rise of pre-professionalism among adolescents.
Many students, by the time they reach spring of senior year, say they have already spent time crafting a “narrative.” For ambitious high school students this means taking the step to carve out a path for themselves, largely in hopes of standing out in college applications. A narrative includes many things—a student’s advanced academic classes, their extracurricular activities, but also their family background and core values.
Especially in a competitive academic environment like Bronx Science, students feel pressure to perfectly curate this aligned identity and ensure it can be clearly conveyed in college applications. There is an ongoing debate on whether colleges prefer a student who is well-rounded, or active in a variety of activities and interested in numerous disciplines, versus a student who has a “spike,” or a particular focus and aptitude in a narrow field. The latter perception seems to dominate, and almost any current senior can hardly count how many times they have heard the phrase “colleges aren’t looking for well-rounded students, they’re looking for a well-rounded class.”
For many, this pressure to be “spikey” causes them to choose a career path early on in high school, to start crafting their cohesive set of activities and classes. “I definitely know I want to go down the route of business and definitely investigate the world of consulting or maybe investment banking,” said Sefa Anha ’27. She said that in her ninth grade year, she considered being a dermatologist, but then ruled it out after a few advanced classes in related fields.
This means, in essence, they are declaring their career prospects just a few years out of middle school, and before they have had time to understand or explore the vast majority of all the fields open to them.
Some professionals and students laud pre-professional instruction and emphasis, claiming that it allows students to pursue niche interests and prepare for the workforce. Others claim it sacrifices a diverse liberal arts education, where students learn about a variety of fields before specializing.
“I was kind of stressed in, like sophomore and junior year, when certain friends of mine were like, ‘bro, you have you to decide exactly what you want to do for the next 50 years right now at 15 years old,’” said Maxwell. After talking to some older friends, he began to change his perspective. When asked why he decided to apply as undecided, he said, “I didn’t want them to see me just as one like thing when I was applying, just one type of student. I wanted them to see all the aspects of me.”
Commitment posts are a kind of definitive public declaration, to some a way of displaying pride and allowing celebration. Yet students have criticized the page as stress-inducing, and boastful. Some say the prestige of the universities other students are attending makes others feel insecure or unsatisfied with their own decision. Even though the page is designed to celebrate all, it can still feel pretentious, especially when the college process is already a dominant aspect of Bronx Science life.
Others feel the page is unnecessary and opt not to post. “I don’t use social media that much, but I just don’t see the point in putting it out there for random people to know,” said Lara Adamjee ’25, who knows that she plans to major in communications and economics at Northwestern University.
The concern about the reach of the page is legitimate, considering @bxsci2025seniors page has nearly 2,000 followers, which is over double the size of the senior class. Many of the other 1,250 followers are students from other schools or underclassmen, who are following along with their senior friends. Simultaneously, many are worried about their own college process.
And yet, the page continues as a senior council tradition, because all students deserve to feel celebrated when making this important decision. The commitment page is a declaration of intention, whatever that may mean to the Class of 2025.
“I was kind of stressed in like sophomore, junior year when certain friends of mine were like, ‘bro, you have you to decide exactly what you want to do for the next 50 years right now at 15 years old,’” said Simon Maxwell ’25.