<p>Teens</a> under stress in top college competition -- baltimoresun.com</p>
<p>I can relate to a lot in that article-except getting into the schools I wanted to.
Good job to the author.</p>
<p>From the article:
</p>
<p>Apparently, Tufts Syndrome is alive and well…</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this – that was the high school I went to!</p>
<p>Great article, it confirmed a lot about how I felt during my son’s high school career and job search.</p>
<p>The college admission process is bizarre. It relies mostly on the performance of students during 11th grade and paralyses students’ brain during 12th grade. Many students face senioritis crisis during the second half of 12th grade. I don’t know what colleges want to get out of this process.</p>
<p>Interesting article. The life so many of our children are currently living.</p>
<p>It’s interesting - NorthMinnesota and I are in the same state but our kids are not living like that in the least. Some kids in our town go off to the highest LACs but others choose to stay in the region for family or financial reasons. The kids aren’t judging each other or taking satisfaction in a classmate being waitlisted somewhere. That is just mean.</p>
<p>I read articles like this and think that this is a very small subset of society but it gets the media attention. Where are the stories about the kids who aren’t bursting into tears or sold their childhood for killer ecs? Next year I’d like to see a story about the brother Evan who opted out of the relentless grind. He is in the top 10% of his class and is going to be fine. Why isn’t that celebrated?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. I went through the process in 2002-2003, so still relatively recently, and I don’t relate to the people in these stories at all. My sister went through it last year, and their experience wasn’t her experience either. And we both got into top schools (not that we wouldn’t have been fine without top schools, but these kids are doing this because they think it’s necessary in order to get into the places we got in). I continue to believe that a lot of the stress is self- and parent-imposed.</p>
<p>Edited to add: And my previous paragraph doesn’t even get into the part where the high schoolers who are doing this are a small, generally privileged subset. Most high school juniors and seniors out there are not, in fact, looking at or trying to impress top schools. They’re going to their state schools, to community college, to the military, to the workforce.</p>
<p>twomules…I have a D who did indeed choose to follow her own needs and desires and not pursue a top ranked Ivy or LAC. Ehhh…she’s a jock! 
I agree most students around here do stay in the region and just aren’t interested in attending schools back east, in Chicago or California. There is, however, a small subset of students who do group together and chase that dream. As the article stated this was just a small group of kids. Our local HS is very large and a 3.6 GPA isn’t even in the top half of the class. It is competitive and there are many kids who try to be the best that they could be. The MPLS and ST. Paul suburban schools are loaded with kids fighting to get in to Madison or the U. We personally know kids with 30+ ACT scores and 3.75 GPA, killer ECs and didn’t get in to those schools. That’s why they spend more and more time on schoolwork, activities and have no downtime.</p>
<p>I must have missed the part where the kids were judging each other or happy that a classmate was waitlisted!! I read it that they were being supportive and hoping that their friends would get in to the school of their dreams. Will reread.</p>
<p>Maybe our school is just small enough that we can’t get a critical mass of students wound up over this.</p>