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This. Mine graduated from USC, USC, East Carolina, and Georgia Tech.
I don't remember any of them over stressed. My last graduated college in 2009.
Me either.
If I had to guess, I would say it's the parents fault. Too much pressure to get into the best schools (for the parents' ego, not the kids) be on the best travel teams, etc.....
If I had to guess, I would say it's the parents fault. Too much pressure to get into the best schools (for the parents' ego, not the kids) be on the best travel teams, etc.....
And, it may not even matter. One of our kids was rejected by Vanderbilt and UNC, and ended up attending our state flagship school on a full scholarship(yay!). Then he got into every graduate program he applied to, and chose Stanford for his PhD. Nobody will care about his college now.
I do feel for kids now though, because college is not the end game, grad school is when it comes to really securing a high paying job.
And, it may not even matter. One of our kids was rejected by Vanderbilt and UNC, and ended up attending our state flagship school on a full scholarship(yay!). Then he got into every graduate program he applied to, and chose Stanford for his PhD. Nobody will care about his college now.
I do feel for kids now though, because college is not the end game, grad school is when it comes to really securing a high paying job.
One of our sons kinda screwed up his last couple years in high school and couldn't get into any good colleges. Fortunately there is a program in the local community colleges where if you maintain at least a 3.5 GPA for 2 years, you can transfer into any state school guaranteed. So he did, and has a degree from one of the best schools in the country. No one will ask about his first two years of college I'm guessing......And he looked up his own grants and scholarships so it cost little.
I think all this college stuff is highly overrated anyway and is making people crazy....look at Felicity Huffman and all those idiots.....
I'm wondering what has changed so drastically since my last child graduated high school, less than 9 years ago. All three of ours applied to the colleges they wanted to attend, got into some, but not all of them, and graduated with degrees. They have all found good jobs, and I don't remember any of the angst the article implies, from them or their friends. So, what happened?
The recession happened. And in the past decade college costs have skyrocketed to outrageous rates while wages have remained stagnant. More and more kids are feeling the pressure too as living-wage jobs that don't require a degree are disappearing. They are constantly told that they must go to college. They must not accumulate debt, but they also don't want to be the "loser" kid living in their parents' basement. College acceptance rates have dropped dramatically also in the last decade. UCLA went from 23% to 14%. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, a college that much of my friends and family attended years ago (all who had average grades) turned away 10,000 4.0 students this past year as applications rose 50% in the past decade.. The competition just to get into what were good, affordable safety schools has turned into a frenzy. That means a kid needs to be exceptional with grades, SAT scores, and extracurriculars. This is happening not just in California but across the country.
A decade ago cell phones were not smart phones and social media (like instagram or twitter) were barely known. Now kids can be connected immediately to the instant opinions of anyone and everyone on every topic imaginable including the constant political chaos we have in our country. I can't fathom having that constant input when I was a teen. Just the mental pressure from processing all that information would be exhausting and overwhelming. It was enough for me as a teen to deal with school but at least I could get away from it when I went home.
I found this article to be spot on with what I have seen with my kids and their friends.
Last edited by Coloradomom22; 10-15-2019 at 08:50 PM..
My kids went to Catholic school, and graduated in '13 and '16. The younger will be graduating college this spring and will be applying to medical school soon. The HS curriculum was college prep and they both played 2 varsity sports in high school. We had studying rules, such as no video games on week nights/days that we enforced from when they were very young. Neither of our boys exhibited any stress other than the usual amount and they both made honor roll pretty easily.
The key is to establish studying rules early.
Edit: After scanning the article, it seems that kids should not be getting their grades reported to their phones instantly. Also, parents should not discuss family finances with children. We never did, and sometimes paying all that Catholic school tuition was a burden!
I also think that anxiety has grown ever since the political divide in our country started back in 2016. There is a low-grade stress that comes with everything kids hear related to that.
Common Core may have a lot to do with it. I know in NY they are doing it and it is making it a lot harder on children. They are learning things differently than the way we learned them so a lot of times parents can't even help the kids with the work.
My kids definitely feel anxiety and a lot of pressure from school. My oldest is a senior, and as she gets ready to apply to colleges, she's so stressed that she's in the bathroom every ten minutes. She didn't score well on the SAT, but she says she has too much anxiety to take it again, and besides she wants to do her first two years at the community college to cut costs, and her score is good enough for that. She had to pick an endorsement her freshman year, and her career goals have changed multiple times, so she's actually taken enough science and math to get the STEM endorsement, which was a pleasant surprise.
My younger daughter has a chronic illness that causes fatigue and brain fog, among other symptoms. She wants to be a lawyer, but realizes with her health problem it will probably be impossible to sit in a classroom with other students, which will make college more complicated. (She goes to online public school now.) She's putting in the bare minimum of effort right now because she feels like her illness is robbing her of the future she wants. I don't know how to fix that or how to make high school less stressful for either of my kids.
Just an aside, I went to CC first as I had no idea what I wanted to do. In my second year I decided on occupational therapy. It is very easy today to make sure your credits transfer as they have agreements in place with many 4-year schools. I was older at the time and struggled with Algebra, but at CC you get such individual, personalized attention vs universities that I did well. I think for kids who need a little more hand-holding or are anxious, CC is a great place to start. I graduated with a 3.96 and not only got accepted into a very competitive program at a great school, I was awarded a $6,000 scholarship for having the highest GPA of the incoming class (I had to maintain it though which was a lot of pressure).
People will come on an poo poo her plan and CC, but I want to let you know attending CC will not hold her back in any way. I would encourage her to stay fairly general rather than choose a narrow course, it will help keep her options open.
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