Tribune Article - HS Kids are stressed out! Time for culture change?

College cost okay a part number in this as well. Scholarships are becoming more competitive. Lots of people can’t afford college without some type of aid.

Agree with a lot that has been said. We are in a public school district, and next to two very competitive districts. Our school offers several AP, DE, as well as options for trade. There is not high pressure from GC’s, parents, etc. In the district nearby, parents are hiring tutors to be sure their students don’t get a B in AP Physics, have to get an A. And how many times here on CC is there discussion about hiring tutors for test prep? I get the idea of tutoring for purposes of scholarships. But at this district, we know students who were tutored for ACT, SAT, Subject tests, and more. They have taken over 10 tests in two years. It isn’t good enough to take a few practice tests at home or one free at the library. In this district it really seems to stem from the parents, not for purposes of merit, but to keep up with everyone else. At the other district, the guidance counselors have been known to tell the students, “You are better than that school, you need to reach higher”. We have heard this from more than one parent. I feel for the kids…it doesn’t seem like things will change anytime soon.

I work with young adults every day in a stressful non academic environment. The comment on the phone is more accurate than most give credit.

Worth a read:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

Fortunately it is not all kids…it never is. It is never all parents either. I have a few good friends whose kids went through Naperville, New Trier and “those” schools who are the most down to earth, smart, highly educated parents and managed to raise totally normal kids.

If I didn’t know better, I might think part of this article was written as satire:

Yes, clearly the most pressing problem with our public schools is making sure the children of Fortune 500 CEOs don’t experience too much anxiety. On the serious side, this hyper-anxiety about college acceptances mostly comes from those targeting elite privates. Almost all public schools(minus a few in CA) have 25%+ acceptance rates.

Such huge numbers of AP classes may be relatively common among CC posters, but outside of CC, I’d expect it to be the exception, rather than the rule. According to the CollegeBoard survey, only ~6% of HS students take more than 4 AP exams. Only ~2% take more than 6. The portion of students taking 10+ is negligible.

Such huge numbers of AP classes are also not necessarily especially helpful for elite college admission. Parchment used to allow you to compare rate of acceptance for different numbers of AP classes while hold other stats constant, like GPA and SAT. When I checked this acceptance rake by number of AP classes for Stanford, the acceptance rate increased as AP classes increased up to ~4. Above ~4 AP classes, there was little difference in acceptance rate. I realize there is some variation from HS to HS based on what is offered and perhaps what it takes for the GC to check the most rigorous box, but at a certain point you’ve shown you have taken a rigorous schedule and can handle college level work.

I think colleges have more respect for a student who takes the APs in their main area of interest and doesn’t join the rat race of “most APs”.

Also, it may be that the first 4 or 5 AP courses/tests that high school student take may be the “core” ones like English, calculus, a science (biology, chemistry, or physics), a history, a foreign language. Those who try to take as many AP courses/tests as possible may be adding mostly “lite” ones like human geography, psychology, statistics, environmental science, etc…

Most honors students at our school Take
9- APHUG
10- APeuro
11-APUS
12 - 2 econ or Gov/econ
So that is 5 APs out of the gate

See, no STEM major needs to take APUSH, for example. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take history, just not APUSH. I guarantee your kids can get into excellent schools without taking every AP. Maybe parents who think the need to should read How To Be a High School Superstar by Cal Newport, and have their kids read it as well if they still they need to. Mano a mano on who can take the most APs isn’t the best path to top schools.

The one exception is states where admission to state flagships depend on weighted GPA (or class rank based on weighted GPA). Then you need to address that lunacy with your state legislature.

There is no honors social studies. Only AP. And socially my kid would have a hard time on the non-honors track.

Maybe they would make new friends. And I am not kidding. Looking back, some of the most interesting people I met in HS were in homeroom (not kids on the college track). I still think that if parents give their kids “permission” and encouragement to be more strategic about APs and not load up in them, it would help. Colleges want students who are interested and interesting. There is little time to develop either of those qualities if they overload on APs.

However, an AP “lite” course like human geography may not actually be significantly more work than a regular high school course, so choosing that as an honors option over a regular high school social studies course may not actually be a big deal in terms of “overloading”.

What may be more detrimental in terms of chasing AP courses would be students who want to skimp on normally expected college-prep courses like physics, precalculus or higher math, or foreign language level 3 or higher in order to take AP electives like psychology, environmental science, or statistics. Perhaps not so much in a stress or overloading standpoint if they are the “lite” AP courses, but detrimental in terms of getting a complete high school college-prep curriculum to prepare for college.

@intparent or they might all shun the really weird kid who answers every single question.

Well… parents who are too worried that their kids can’t handle “slumming” in a few regular level classes can’t really complain when their kids are overworked in all accelerated classes. If parents can’t make the leap to realize that a large number of APs (and for that matter, near perfect GPAs) aren’t essential for success in life, then kids stay on the treadmill.

  1. Yes, the top HS students are stressed out. For some reason, in the US system, the better a student does, the more they are under pressure in the tail. However, the average ACT in the US is in the 20-21 range as always. The reality is that the average student not working hard at all.
  2. They don't need so many AP's. 7-9 AP's is enough. There is no need to take 10 or more. I think it is more likely to hurt than help. Take a gym class, and a study hall too. Take fewer AP's an focus on doing well in the classes you have.
  3. Take the AP's that matter the most for most students. Two English: English Lang., English Lit One Math: Calc BC One Science: Physics C, Biology, or Chem, One Computer Science: Java One Foreign Language
  4. Parents should know that the gap between top students and average students is probably 3 or 4 years by the end of high school. Then the top students go to a top college and the gap continues to grow. There can be a huge difference between different degrees at different schools in terms of knowledge level.

To start my daughter has no homeroom in high school. Like Vicki there is no honors social studies and my kid would have the same problem in a non-honors track. As to APUSH you need US History to graduate. Also not every kid knows if they will have a STEM career the first day of class junior year. In regards to number of AP classes I do understand the way some kids go out of there way to take them. But for many I believe it is a natural progression. In my daughters case she’s a sophomore and this is her most likely schedule.

Freshman year
Band
Spanish 2
Honors English
Honors Biology
Trig./Calc A
AP Human Geography

Sophomore
Band
Spanish 3
Honors English
honors Chemistry
AP Calc BC
AP CS Principles

Junior
Band
Spanish 4
AP English Lang?
AP stats
AP Physics
APUSH

Senior
Band
AP English Comp?
APEcon I semester
AP Government 1 semester
AP Psychology
.?

That’s 11 AP classes. Possibly another AP science class.
My daughter took the Geography out of interest and no AP world history was offered till this year. The BC, physics and Two Englishes are in sequence and necessary to graduate. Same for Econ, government and APUSH. The stats and psychology is for her interest in being a psychology major. The CS principles was out of a feeling of needing a computer science class. The computer science A would of been harder.

While I understand it is not necessary for many to have this many AP’s I think in our case ( and probably many others) it makes sense.

When did students start getting to BC Calc as sophomores? I am not sure I see the point in that, for example. Heck, you’ll have forgotten your Calc by the time you get to college.

My kid who got in everyplace she applied (including UChicago, Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, and Carleton, plus several other colleges with good merit aid) took two APs – Calc AB and French. It simply isn’t necessary, no matter how convinced so many people are that it makes or breaks college admissions. If her school had offered more and allowed more, I’d guess she might have taken a few more. But 11 is kind of ridiculous. She had great test scores, recommendations that said she was an extremely bright and interesting kid, and time for in-school and out-of school ECs that backed that up. Her GPA wasn’t even that impressive – serviceable, but not tip top.

Colleges don’t really want cookie cutter “I can take more APs than you can and grind out the highest GPA” students. That isn’t what they really seek. Genuinely interesting kids who are capable of doing the work are what they are hoping to find. The returns on APs and GPA grinding diminish at a certain point.

Your kids aren’t as trapped by the system as you (and they) think they are. I always thought Herr K in Kafka’s novel really just needed to get up and walk out the door to free himself. Same with the college rat race.

While some “top HS students” are stressed out, take huge numbers of AP classes, believe they have to have near perfect grades/test scores/ECs/… there are also plenty of top HS students who are not. For example, I live near a small public charter HS that doesn’t offer any AP classes, yet still receives frequent national praise and has enough demand for spots to have a random lottery admission system (instead of transcript/exam/interview/… admission selctions). They focus on a personalized approach that emphasizes truly learning the material through projects that follow student’s unique passions, rather than emphasizing memorization and exams. Last year students from the HS were accepted to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and other highly selective colleges; in spite of their small class size composed of students who took no AP classes and had lower average SES than other area public HSs. There are many possible ways to define top HS students besides the students mentioned in the article.

In every year of the Harvard freshman survey, most students say they spent less than 20 hours per week studying during HS. I’m sure some kids also stayed up until 2AM every night, but they are the exception. Most of these top HS students say they spent more reasonable time on their classes.

@intparent “If her school had offered more and allowed more, I’d guess she might have taken a few more. But 11 is kind of ridiculous. She had great test scores, recommendations that said she was an extremely bright and interesting kid, and time for in-school and out-of school ECs that backed that up. Her GPA wasn’t even that impressive – serviceable, but not tip top.”

I’m sorry, but you can not compare you kid’s successful college admissions to kids who go to competitive public High Schools. Your kid went to a private school that limited AP’s! Your kid’s counselor can check the most rigorous box and they are not under pressure from their GC or other kids to take so many AP’s. My son with his 11 AP’s did get to take extra non-AP classes as I mentioned I made him drop an AP last year and take a regular class. Among his interesting peers in this regular class were the school’s largest drug dealer and two girls who got into as fist fight during class. The class was so bad that when the teacher (a coach) left for state for 3 days, the Sub refused to come back the 2nd day. They had to send the Hall Monitor/Guard into the class to monitor it. My son learned very little in this class and said “Mom I can’t un-hear the things I have heard in that class.” So that’s a regular class in our school. As parents we do the best we can to help our kids manage this situation. We have continually rejected schedules proposed by the GC and try to help them see that not all schools are like this. However, I know when they go to college that they will probably find it less challenging than kids who come from less competitive environments. The number of students who come back and tell kids don’t worry college won’t be as hard is significant.