Revisiting: Arguments on the Overworked High School Student

We currently sit in the late-April, early-May rush known by high schools students and guidance counselors as Decision Time and by bored writers and public psychologists as Fretting About the State of Our Child's Worrying Time. Though surely, someone else must have said this by now, quite obviously all we just need to chill out.

While students around the country have finally received all of their thick or thin letters, including my own sister, the adult world takes this as a moment to pause and reflect on the perceived declining state of affairs of the students' well being, or pressures, or whatever else they threw at them. The latest phase of pressure on our students, supposedly, consists of having to be both smart and sociably well-rounded, qualities that have always generally been good for human beings to possess. On top of that pressure, their attempting-to-be open-minded parents struggle with what they want for their kids, and what they think they should want for their kids – or something like that.

A recent NYT piece profiling the 'amazing girls' of some New England town quote the parents whining about their children's pristinely planned and executed childhoods, and how they themselves just cannot rise above the social pressures that they tell their kids to surpass. Are these parents just products of the 'I'm special' movement as well? They ignore the easy solutions to their difficult decisions. Either you support your child and do not try to pull strings, honestly wanting them to follow whatever works best for their personal development regardless of grades or college admissions and therefore set a non-contradictory example – or you don't.

First I blame the parents for failing to have the strength to stand by their own principles, flowering out of their post-flower child upbringings. Then I do worry about their children, but only because of the warped double-edged neighborhoods they grew up in.

In another byte out of the NYT piece, two students treasure the sacrifice of have no social life to the alter of college admissions (with the implication that they only deem worthy of application those schools that would require them to forgo such adolescent fun). I really hope that this exchange of having an adolescence for having a fulfilling college experience - which includes non-resume items – works out for them in the end. Because if these students hit college, lock themselves in dorm rooms and then have mental break downs second semester freshman year, I would stick one in the 'not worth it' column. (Even, if I supposed, those non-resume items might just turn into interview fodder for the next step of their lives. "I sometimes go to museums for fun instead of studying!" "Oh, please tell me more!")

A coalition of liberal arts colleges, also originating out of the hallowed halls of the northeast, have begun a call for an end to college ratings, emanating out of colleges refusing to submit information to Princeton Review, Barron's, et. al. This duo of stories would appear to lean back into the 'everyone's special' mentality, and maybe solve the problem of everyone getting every to calm down.

While the rankings system needs to be revised, and while students need to wrench control back from crazed parents and guidance counselors and we all probably need a deep breath, this does not solve the problem.

Universities are not created equal, and those that put in effort to improve their quality of education or services deserve accolades. A reformed ranking system would help differentiate between colleges, the onus just has to swap over to the kids to figure out what qualities they need, other than being in the top 10 list.

I call for a referendum on everyone who preaches to 'just get involved with whatever interest you, but make sure you hit some of these suggestions' to just chop off the second half of that sentence.

I call for students to take the simple step of influencing the conversation, rather than just obliging, or even worse, buying into it all. Yes, I ask that teenagers take responsibility. Yes, I believe they can, because if some can, then the rest can follow suit, especially as the conversation does start to change.

Then lastly, if we really do want to look at these phenomenon somewhat scholarly, and how really to best prepare students for college, ask those who know best – recent and current college students. Stop looking at the situation from the inside, from the perspective that cannot know its own outcome – the most important aspect of a study. Pull together some college kids and ask them what works and what hurts and then rest assured that students do know what's good for them, at the end of the day.