Students across America sit in wait for college acceptance letters to begin appearing in their mailboxes and anxiously refresh the application status page on their laptops. Videos and tweets shared by elated kids are posted by the hour, unleashing their excitement upon the world and simultaneously increasing the worry of the viewers who have themselves not received a decision. They make it out to be a life or death decision. Is it really?

In January, the University of Maryland admissions staff surprised applicants with a reality TV style surprise. For six randomly-selected students, acceptance to UMD was a social media extravaganza. Neighbors stood on their porches watching the surprise unfold, and news cameras were rolling.

UMD capitalized on the emphasis of social media.  Now, everyone who is accepted feels that they must tweet, Instagram, Facebook, and text their results to the masses. The potential for comparison and feeling failure is magnified.

“We hope the students will be as excited as we are,” said Shannon Gundy, the director of admissions at UMD, in a Washington News Post article. How could they possibly be anything but?

“We were thrilled to see the excitement, joy, pride, and relief from these students and their families upon learning of their admission to the University of Maryland,” said Jordan Ford, the assistant director of Marketing & Communications at UMD. In this media-saturated world, that’s the problem.  Everyone wants fireworks and Go-Pro camera moments.

Many in high school have a particular college that they dream of attending, just as the surprised applicants dream of going to UMD. They can’t imagine not getting into this college and get anxious about receiving a negative decision. While they most likely have applied to multiple colleges, they don’t know what they would do if they are not accepted to their first choice.

What they don’t seem to understand is that it doesn’t necessarily matter where one goes to college. A degree is a degree, and the college one attends doesn’t affect a career as much as one might think.  It’s what a student does in college to earn the degree that matters.

According to an article in TIME magazine, economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale published a widely-read study that exposes the difference between the earnings of people who attended Ivy League schools and those who didn’t. The difference is nearly nonexistent. The difference in job opportunities also is nonexistent.

“I sometimes think students make the application process harder than it has to be. It can sometimes be overwhelming, and that is what is stressful,” said school counselor Renata Emery.

“Even if a student is dedicated to a specific college, he should apply to numerous in order to take off the worry of having an unsure future. “Seniors should apply to a variety of colleges usually referred to as ‘safe’, ‘target’ and ‘stretch’ schools. A safe school is one that you KNOW you fit their criteria above and beyond their minimum requirements. A target school is one where you fit their criteria exactly, and a stretch school is one where you might not fit all their criteria, but you have some other compelling piece to your application that may give you an edge,” said Emery.

Stressed out about getting into a college? Relax. If you are accepted to your dream school, just like the students surprised by the admissions staff at the University of Maryland, that is great. Just remember – no matter where you end up going to college, what matters is that you go.

Stop measuring yourself by someone else’s  “likes” on social media. The real measurement is the achievement of the goal you set for yourself.