Why is getting into University treated like a matter of life and death?

Getting into university is supposed to be an exciting milestone. For many Bangladeshi students it feels like the final round of The Hunger Games where instead of surviving with a bow and arrow, you are expected to survive with a calculator, a stack of guidebooks and approximately four hours of sleep.

From an early age students are taught that good grades are important. That part is understandable. Education matters and academic achievement can open doors. The problem begins when those grades become the doors themselves. A student gets an A and everyone celebrates. Another gets a B and suddenly the family group chat becomes a crime investigation. ‘What happened?’, ‘Did you study properly?’ , ‘How many marks did you lose?’ Nobody asks whether the student is okay. Apparently emotional stability is not included in the marks scheme.

Then comes university admission season, when an entire generation collectively forgets how to breathe. Students wake up, study, attend coaching, come home, study some more, take mock tests, compare scores, panic, drink tea, panic again and occasionally sleep. If they are lucky, they get to eat dinner somewhere between chapters 7 and 8. Meanwhile parents become amateur statisticians. They know the admission requirements of every major university, the number of seats in every department and somehow the exact score their friend's neighbour's daughter got three years ago.

Then there are the coaching centres. Bangladesh has developed an impressive ecosystem around the belief that perhaps the reason a teenager cannot answer a question in 37 seconds is because they have not purchased the correct package yet. There are mock tests, crash courses, special batches, mega batches, revision batches and probably a batch for students who are emotionally preparing to join another batch.

The pressure is not entirely irrational. University admission in Bangladesh can genuinely shape a student's future. Seats in prestigious public universities are limited, competition is fierce and the quality and affordability of higher education vary considerably. For families who cannot afford expensive private universities or overseas education, securing a place at a public institution can feel like one of the few reliable routes to upward mobility. That is precisely why the pressure becomes so cruel. When opportunities are limited, failure begins to feel catastrophic.

A student who does not get into their preferred university is not simply disappointed. They may feel as though they have disappointed their parents, wasted years of preparation and money and somehow fallen behind everyone else. And because everyone knows everyone in Bangladesh, there is always someone ready to provide a post mortem analysis.

Then comes the comparison. Your friend gets into BUET. Your cousin gets into Dhaka University. Someone from your school gets into Johns Hopkins University. Someone else gets a scholarship. Someone's LinkedIn profile is suddenly full of ‘thrilled to announce.’ Meanwhile, you are sitting in your room wondering whether your life has ended at the age of 18.

It hasn't. But we rarely tell students that. Instead, we tell them that these few months are the most important months of their lives. We tell them that this university will determine their career. This result will determine their future. This subject will determine their success. This exam will determine everything. A single exam can suddenly become a verdict on intelligence. One bad day, one poorly phrased question, one careless mistake or one moment of panic can overshadow years of hard work. We know this logically yet our education culture continues to behave as though a teenager's potential can be accurately measured in two hours inside an examination hall. Perhaps the saddest part is how quickly students learn to internalise it. They begin saying things like, “If I don't get into this university, I'm a failure.” Not I will be disappointed. Not I may have to reconsider my plans.

We have somehow convinced teenagers that they are late to life before they have even had the chance to begin it. There is also a strange hierarchy attached to universities and subjects. Some degrees are treated as prestigious, others as practical and others as if the student has personally chosen unemployment. Medicine, engineering, business and certain other traditionally respected fields sit comfortably near the top. Choose something less conventional and suddenly relatives develop an urgent interest in career counselling.

It is remarkable how quickly a family gathering can turn into a parliamentary committee. While all of this is happening, students are expected to make one of the biggest decisions of their lives while barely being adults themselves. At 17 or 18 you are expected to know what you want to study, where you want to live, what career you want, what kind of person you want to become and preferably how that career will perform financially over the next 30 years.

There is nothing wrong with wanting students to work hard. There is nothing wrong with parents wanting their children to have successful careers. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to study at a good university. The problem is when aspiration turns into fear. When students stop studying because they are curious and start studying because they are terrified.

When a university acceptance letter becomes a measure of family pride. When rejection becomes humiliation. Getting into the 'right’ university is celebrated as though someone has secured a Nobel Prize, while getting into the ‘wrong’ university is treated like a minor family tragedy. We need to remember that university is a beginning, not a final judgement.

There are students who will get into their dream universities and thrive. There are students who will get into them and realise they hate what they are studying. There are students who will be rejected from their first choice and eventually find something better suited to them. There are students who will change majors, change careers, move abroad, start businesses, pursue completely different paths or discover their passions years after graduation.

Life inconveniently, does not follow the admission test's answer key. Maybe that is the part we need to teach young people. A university rejection can hurt. A disappointing result can hurt. Watching your friends move forward while you feel stuck can hurt terribly. But none of these things should be powerful enough to convince an 18 year old that their life is over.

They are more than the name printed on a university ID card. They certainly are not the subject their relatives think they should study. Maybe we should stop treating university admission like the final judgement of a person's existence and start treating it like one decision at one point, in an extremely long and unpredictable life.

Besides, if getting into university really determined the rest of your life we would not have so many adults sitting in offices every morning wondering how they ended up there.