As we look back at 2025, the Bates College social media accounts shared more than a thousand posts — read on for more details — but these 10 posts (and one honorable mention) were particularly memorable for the impact they had. Here’s a look back at some of the moments that captured the attention of not just our community, but the world’s as well.
The top posts across our social media platforms reflect natural campus beauty, student and alumni success, the thrilling arrival of the new class, and some sage advice to the departing one, the Class of 2025.
This year the @batescollege accounts made 1,552 posts (remember Instagram stories, while fleeting, count!), which received 10.58 million impressions, reached 5.68 million users, and garnered 259,730 engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves), and 707,620 video views.
• Instagram:1,004 posts
• 200 photo posts, 37 video reels, and 767 stories
• Facebook: 266 posts
• LinkedIn: 221 posts
• TikTok: 61 posts
Below you’ll find our top 10 posts of the year, plus one honorable mention too pretty to leave out, ranked by the number of total views they received. But we’ve also included the unique users reached and the number of engagements each post received. See what the Bates and broader online community liked, commented on, and shared the most:
(Honorable mention) – The aurora borealis is #BatesBound
Bates Communications and Marketing editorial assistant and creator of a new but already popular @chicksoncliffs Instagram account for a get-outdoors women’s group she founded, Hannah Kothari ’26 of Houston grabbed these beautiful images of the aurora borealis lighting up the sky over campus. She was kind enough to share these cell phone shots with the social media team. Thanks to Kothari, these images made up the 11th most-viewed post of 2025, earning an honorable mention.
Date published: November 14
Platform: Instagram
Views: 53,073
Reach: 10,275
Engagements: 2,083
10. Bates Admission waives application fee
Since its founding in 1855, Bates has always been committed to the value that a Bates education ought to be open to any deserving student, regardless of their background. And in that spirit, the Bates Office of Admission took the step of opening the doors to a Bates education a little wider by announcing in mid-September that they would waive the $65 application fee starting with the Fall 2025 pool of applicants. Bobcats near and far were heartened by the decision and our #10 post was shared widely by the community.
Date published: September 18
Platform: Instagram
Views: 55,610
Reach: 16,909
Engagements: 1,456
9. Jose Carmona ’25 and his “Lewiston grandmother”
When we say the city of Lewiston is our home, we mean it. And no story this year illustrated that feeling quite like the heartwarming connection between Jose Carmona ’25 of Chicago and his Lewiston “grandmother” Carmen Thibodeau. Jose was the last of a family of four to graduate (his three siblings, Christopher ’18, Alanis ’18, and Carolina ’22, had also relied on Carmen and her late husband for loving support). Shared in local interest Facebook groups like “Lewiston Rocks,” this story really resonated with our local Lewiston-Auburn community, reaching over 50,000 unique users.
Date published: May 22
Platform: Facebook
Views: 56,993
Reach: 54,847
Engagements: 915
8. Bates Football wins home opener on 150th anniversary
It’s always exciting to watch the Bobcats win a football game at Garcelon. But at home, in double overtime, and during the 150th anniversary of Bates football celebration game? That is something truly special. Down 23-7 at the end of the third quarter, the Bobcats found a way to claw back into the game and give us a victory for the history books.
Date published: September 13
Platform: Instagram (collaboration with @gobatesbobcats, @batesfootball, and @bates.alumni)
Views: 61,858
Reach: 17,289
Engagements: 1,484
7. Perla Figuereo ’21 wins Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2
When one of your young alumni is the winner of the second largest gameshow jackpot ($4.56M) in television history, it’s kind of a big deal. So it’s no surprise that when Perla Figuereo ’21 won season two of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge, the news of her success resonated with Bobcat nation. As we noted in our post, the theater and rhetoric, film, and screen studies double major, and former Bates student government co-president “played with heart, strategy, kindness, and determination.” This post had Batesies chiming in unison, “Go, Perla, go!”
Date published: November 19
Platform: Instagram (collaboration with @bates.alumni)
Views: 63,719
Reach: 15,891
Engagements: 1,517
6. Bates welcomes the Class of 2029 to campus (and Dean James Reese moves in Ishan Reese ’29)
There’s nothing quite like the energy of welcoming a brand-new class as the Bates community comes together to greet them. The air is filled with hope and possibility and it is awe-inspiring to see so many students helping the newest members of the campus community get settled. Add Bates icon Dean Reese (also known as Associate Dean for International Student Programs James Reese) and his wife Sonali Reese ’93 moving their son Ishan ’29 into his new dorm room in Adams Hall, and you know you’ve got a winner.
Date published: August 25
Platform: Instagram
Views: 70,293
Reach: 19,685
Engagements: 1,860
5. Fun fall foliage “find and seek” game
We couldn’t resist this one. When a scavenger hunt–style trend took off across social media, we just *had* to put a Bates spin on it — featuring our iconic maple tree outside Hedge Hall. The result? A post our community loved playing along with and kept coming back to for one more look.
Date published: August 12
Platform: Instagram
Views: 74,396
Reach: 27,127
Engagements: 1,288
4. Bates field hockey wins first NESCAC championship in program history!
This one hardly needs explanation. We’re still celebrating the way the Bates Field Hockey team made college history by defeating Wesleyan 2-0 to secure the program’s first NESCAC Championship culminating in a 15-3 season. Go Bobcats!!!
Date published: November 9
Platform: Instagram (collaboration with @gobatesbobcats and @batesfieldhockey)
Views: 120,259
Reach: 42,809
Engagements: 2,642
3. Debut of Strata by Laura Poppick ’10 featured in Rolling Stone
Some viral moments are somewhat predictable (hello, Squid Game win and NESCAC Championship), and some are pure algorithmic magic. This alumni shoutout celebrating Laura Poppick ’10 and her debut book, Strata, featured in Rolling Stone, took off — reaching nearly 112,000 unique users, far beyond Bates’ total Facebook audience of 27,000 followers. Mystery aside, the Bates pride is very real. Congratulations, Laura!
Date published: July 1
Platform: Facebook
Views: 147,480
Reach: 111,983
Engagements: 1,105
2. Viral clip “Cellphones are adult pacifiers” from Angela Duckworth’s Bates Commencement address
As you make your way through this list, our No. 2 pick takes on a challenge many of us know well: how phones and social media compete for our attention, our shared sense that they are probably not great for us, and what we can or should do about it. Bates Commencement speaker, researcher, and Grit author Angela Duckworth addressed this head-on in her 2025 Commencement remarks. A clip from her address resonated widely, providing the Bates Class of 2025 — and Instagram viewers everywhere — some “situation modification” tools to resist the constant pull of phones and social media in the digital age. And yes, the irony of this advice spreading so successfully on social media is not lost on us.
Date published: June 18
Platform: Instagram reels (collaboration with @angelalduckworth)
Views: 363,908
Reach: 287,758
Engagements: 38,058
1. Angela Duckworth’s complete Commencement address, “Push those cell phones away” from Bates Commencement 2025
If you thought the Instagram clip of Angela Duckworth’s 2025 Bates Commencement address did well, just wait until you see the numbers on the full YouTube video! It’s clear that people around the world are thinking deeply about how to reclaim their attention from their phone and specifically social media. Our excerpt of Duckworth’s address from Commencement received more than 400,000 views and 23,000 engagements.
Date published: May 30
Platform: YouTube
Views: 430,510
Reach: n/a — YouTube does not calculate an estimated unique reach
Engagements: 23,310
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