What is Rejection Cake Trend? High schoolers embrace refusals amid college application stress

Hindustan Times

29-04-2025

High school students love to celebrate after receiving acceptance letters from colleges, but some are now making light of their rejections with a new viral trend known as the 'Rejection Cake Trend.'
A TikTok video featuring Ceci Skala, Needham, Massachusetts high school senior, and her pals making a 'rejection cake' has received over five million views. On a plain cake, the women arrange sticks with the logos of the schools that turned them away one by one.
'If you're applying to a hard college and you're seeing all these acceptance videos, it's going hurt, because it's like, 'Am I the only one rejected? Am I not good enough?' Skala asked. 'You don't see all the videos of everybody else getting rejected.'
Skala and her classmates shout, 'This is our rejection cake!' in a the video, which has received over 5 million views.
Skala, who submitted applications to twelve universities and was placed on a waitlist for her first choice, claims that the practice is an attempt to mock the difficult and stressful college application process.
In the video, her pals put rejection pins on the cake from colleges and universities, including Boston College, Georgetown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of Virginia, Yale University, and the University of Southern California.
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According to Brooke Hanson, the CEO and founder of SupertutorTV and a college adviser, social media has increased the stress of the college application process, USA Today reported.
Twenty years ago, students might display their enthusiasm for college simply holding a yard sign or hoodie. Hanson and Norman claim that this display is currently spreading on social media, where videos of acceptance that feature tears and excitement are streaming onto teenagers' For You Pages.
'College admissions feels like, 'Oh my goodness. This is rejection. This is so terrible. But in life as adults, you're going to fail, you're going to get rejected,' Hanson told USA Today.
Skala claims that students' perceptions of the admissions process are distorted due to social media.
'News spread very, very quickly on everyone's decisions in my school, even people I'm not friends with. I heard what colleges they got into and didn't get into,' she said.