Exclamation points, silly photos and congratulatory messages were popping up all over the social media profiles of the three lucky seniors. The CESJDS twitter account could not resist getting in on the fun. On Dec. 16, three hours after three seniors were accepted into Princeton University, the JDS twitter account tweeted “We are ‘3 for 3’ on #collegeacceptances to @Princeton! Mazal Tov to our students!”

The posts began to change later that same day when a list of all the schools that this year’s seniors had been accepted to was posted to Facebook. Since then, the school has continued to tweet about college acceptances, but while the first tweets seemed to focus exclusively on prestigious schools, more recent posts have highlighted schools for different reasons, such as their geography. A post from Dec. 18, for instance, listed all the schools in New York that seniors had been accepted to.

Laurie Ehrlich, the school’s director of marketing and communications who is responsible for the JDS Twitter and Facebook pages, said it was just a coincidence that Princeton was the first school she posted about and that she was not trying to promote the acceptances to Princeton over acceptances to other schools. Ehrlich said she heard about the Princeton acceptances in a meeting with the college guidance department Wednesday after school, a few hours after the decisions had been released. She said she was excited by the fact that seniors had gone ‘3 for 3,’ and that Princeton’s prestige did not contribute to her decision to post. Any perception that she was more excited about Princeton was a result of “bad timing,” she said.

Though Hopkins and Northwestern decisions had come out a few days before the Princeton decisions, Ehrlich said she only heard about students’ acceptances to Hopkins and Northwestern on the next day when the college guidance department sent her a list of all the colleges that students had been accepted to. Ehrlich then posted that list on Facebook and began making the regional posts. Ehrlich denied a widely held student belief that the latter posts were sent out only in response to the seniors’ email.

“That may be the perception, but it’s not reality,” Ehrlich said.

Last year, the school publicized a list of all of the schools that students had been accepted to, but this year Ehrlich thought it would be more interesting to post about individual schools or unique groups of schools as well. Ehrlich does not usually consult with administration officials before posting on social media and the decision to post about the various acceptances was entirely her own. Nevertheless, she said that she and the administration “have a common understanding that we want to promote the achievements of all of our students.”

Ehrlich and Dean of Students Roz Landy were not entirely on the same page about the recent posts, however. Landy said that she thought the school should just post one big list of acceptances. That way, Landy said, there is no risk of creating the perception that JDS cares more about some acceptances than others. Landy does not make the school’s social media policy, but she has shared her dislike for the individual posts with Ehrlich.

“We have already discussed what didn’t go well and what we would do in the future so I think that the changes that are made will be positive ones,” Landy wrote in an email.

According to senior Talya Kravitz, who was deferred from her top choice school, even if Ehrlich did not intend to promote acceptances into Princeton over other acceptances, she should have understood that posting about it first would create that perception.

“Seeing that tweet when maybe your top school doesn’t even measure up to Princeton or you didn’t get into your top school — it’s kind of like a slap in the face,” Kravitz said.

Kravitz and fellow senior Yonah Hyman were both surprised by the Princeton tweet given how much of an emphasis the school generally puts on celebrating all student accomplishments equally. Hyman pointed out that the school does not publish class rank or name a valedictorian precisely for this reason.

Kravitz echoed the sentiment and also expressed frustration with a social media post from a few weeks ago that boasted that JDS’s average SAT scores were higher than those of Montgomery County Public Schools. Kravitz said that posts like these make it seem as though JDS only cares about things like standardized test scores and getting into prestigious colleges.

“I saw it as them promoting something that we’ve been taught to think otherwise about,” Kravitz said.

Despite her frustration, Kravitz understands why JDS would be eager to publicize acceptances to schools such as Princeton, Hopkins and Northwestern. Kravitz mainly took issue with the fact that the school posted about the acceptances right around the highly stressful and sometimes disappointing time that so many students were hearing back from Early Decision and Early Action.

“I agree that the acceptances are a great tool for JDS marketing and they’re a great tool to catch the attention of prospective parents but I think at this point in the college process it’s kind of insensitive for the school to be tweeting these things,” Kravitz said.

Ehrlich recognized that celebratory posts about college acceptances might upset students who are not pleased with their college results, but said that it was not a large enough concern to keep her from posting about those students who were successful.