When Louise enrolled in an intensive ten-week SAT prep course the summer before her junior year of high school, she felt a lot of pressure to do well. Some of her friends had already taken the college admissions test, including her boyfriend, who became known around school as "Mr. 2310." For four hours a day, five days a week, she sat inside a dull, air-conditioned room memorizing vocabulary words and working out math problems with a tutor. "At first I didn't want to take the prep course, but it was the norm," says the eighteen-year-old from California. "Of course, I also wanted a high test score."
Applying to college is tough for any student, but with the rising cost of tuition, dwindling acceptance rates among selective schools, and the uncertainty in the job market, it's more stressful now than ever before. Take Harvard College: More than 34,000 students applied last fall and winter, and only 5.9 percent of those hopefuls were accepted into the current freshman class, making this the seventh consecutive year that the admission rate has fallen. While many students applied to a single school a decade ago, today it's not uncommon to go for seven to ten colleges in order to maximize one's prospects; Louise applied to fifteen.
"My life is pretty much ruled by doing whatever I need to do in order to get into my dream college," says Jessica, a high school senior from New York. For the seventeen-year-old, that has meant holding various leadership roles at her school and being involved in her temple youth group while juggling multiple tutors for the SAT and AP Biology during her junior year. "I don't remember the last time my school friends and I even hung out," she admits.
According to The College Board, students are taking AP exams in increasing numbers, with girls making up a majority of all test takers each year. Chloe*, nineteen, took five AP classes during her senior year alone. It was the most that the nationally competitive athlete could fit into her busy schedule, which already included running cross-country and track and working as an editor on the school newspaper. Like other students, she says she felt compelled to take advantage of every class and opportunity that could help get her into her topchoice college—even if that meant missing lunch twice a week to conduct lab experiments for AP Physics class. "When I did have lunch, I'd go to the library to sleep," she says. "Some weeks, I'd push myself on four hours of sleep a night."
Although health experts say girls should be getting eight to nine hours of sleep per night, operating on less than six hours during a school week is not unusual, especially during junior year— that crucial period right before students apply for college. "To get enough sleep while taking four or five AP classes, doing community service, and being an athlete is impossible, but no one tells teens that," says Nancy Brown, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. According to Marvin Belzer, M.D., director of the adolescent medicine division at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, not getting enough shut-eye can cause fatigue, loss of concentration, and irritability, which in the long run could hurt school performance and lead to depression or other health issues. Adds Brown, "They can develop funky sleeping patterns. When they do have time to go to bed, they have trouble going to sleep and staying asleep. Kids who don't sleep enough may also be heavier. If [your body] isn't getting proper rest, it saves up calories."
The anxiety surrounding college isn't limited to simply getting in. Students often worry about the cost of their education and whether or not there will be a job for them postgraduation. "I have no idea what to expect once I am in college, but I also fear what comes after," confesses Jessica. "What if I can't get a job? What if my dream job doesn't work out and I have to settle?"
As students push themselves harder and harder to excel, many of them are willing to do it at any cost. In the past year, cheating scandals made headlines across the country from San Jose, California, to Long Island, New York, where an extensive SAT and ACT cheating ring was busted—leading the Educational Testing Service and ACT, Inc., which administer the college admissions tests, to enact stricter security measures for test takers. At Stuyvesant High School in New York City, 70 students were caught sharing information about state exams via text, and some graduates of the prestigious school believe the ultracompetitive academic culture there is largely to blame. Other teens may even turn to prescription drugs to help them focus and stay awake through long study sessions, as reported in a recent New York Times article. "It isn't a surprise," notes Jessica. "Society pressures teens to do well, and if drugs will help them get ahead, some will have no problem using them."
"We're trying to raise a generation of perfectionists," notes Vicki Abeles, producer, codirector, and writer of Race to Nowhere, a recent documentary that has served as a rallying cry for communities hoping to improve the academic culture in schools. "It's important for young people to take risks, make mistakes, and grow from that. Unfortunately, they're surrounded by others who think one mistake is going to determine their future."
Louise, now a freshman at the University of Chicago, admits the pressure to overachieve in high school often made her feel inferior to her classmates. "I've broken down in tears from the sheer frustration and inadequacy I felt," she says. Social media and websites like College Confidential, a popular discussion board that allows teens to talk about college admissions and exchange strategies with one another, have also made it easy for students to measure themselves against others. "There was a lot of silent competition at school—always comparing grades and hiding extracurricular activities from classmates in fear of them catching up to you," recalls eighteen-year-old Stephany, from California, now a freshman at Stanford University. "People even posted their SAT scores on Facebook, condemning a 790 on an SAT Subject Test as a failure."
This unhealthy competitive atmosphere has spurred parents, educators, and medical professionals to take a closer look at academic pressure. At Horace Mann School in New York City, there's a limit on how many AP classes a student can take per trimester. Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, got rid of advanced-placement courses altogether. At Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Rolling Hills Estates, California, homework and activity calculation logs and course selection fairs help students plan and manage their workloads. "Many students are fighting to get into schools that may not necessarily be a good match, simply because they're convinced those places are the 'best,' " laments Mitzi Cress, principal of Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, which is a member of Challenge Success, an initiative that helps schools create action plans to reduce stress among their students.'
"The 'right' school is the place that best suits the needs of the student," adds William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College. "We regularly tell students who are admitted to Harvard to think hard about whether it's the right fit for them. Based on our experiences, the particular college a student attends is far less important than what a student does to develop his or her strengths over the next four years." Despite this truth, it's not easy to convince high schoolers to give themselves a break. "I thought my parents were getting in the way of my academic success," Chloe says, remembering the times her mom tried to make her go to bed by midnight. "I'd sneak my computer under the covers and do homework in secret."
According to Michele Borba, a California-based teen-and-parenting expert, "Girls often lack strategies to cope with their stress." In addition to getting enough rest and eating well, she recommends doing a fun physical activity, such as swimming or yoga, to relieve tension. Maintaining strong social ties is also crucial; as competitive as school can get, friends can collectively combat anxiety by providing support for one another. Casey J. Pedrick, director of college counseling at Stuyvesant, suggests breaking down the admissions experience into many steps: Do research, visit the campus, and speak to other students. "The more educated you are [on the process], the less scary it all feels," she says.
Taking a gap year to pursue one's passions before starting college—a rite of passage for university-bound students in other parts of the world—is only now gaining interest stateside. Chloe, who decided to enroll in a gap-year program at an Ivy League university, postponed her freshman year and spent that time working for a nonprofit abroad with other students. Says Arianna Taboada, former global programs manager at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Campus Y, "Students bring up the feeling of doing so much in high school that they go to college burned out already. They do the gap year to replenish their energy and head to college with a more specific goal in mind."
If she could go back in time, Chloe says, she definitely wouldn't pack all five AP classes into her senior-year schedule. "I was way too stressed! The month leading up college decisions, I couldn't sleep," she says. Today, she logs eight to ten hours of rest each night. "Back then, it felt like that one moment in life—getting into a certain school—justified four years of my existence. That's a crazy place to be in."
*Name has been changed
