Why College Students Burn-Out

A whopping 40 percent of students feel pressure daily from school and their extracurricular activities, and this number continues to grow, according to New York University. Many students feel the pressure from their parents, society, and colleges to do well in high-school; however, this can lead to “school burnout.” Many students pack their schedule with rigorous college-level, AP, and honors classes in order to make a good impression on the college they are applying to. Also, many students feel the need to involve themselves in a large number of extra-curricular activities and volunteer work to please the people around them. Furthermore, school burn-out not only wears out the student physically, emotionally, and psychologically, but can

In recent years, the pressure for students to be admitted into a prestigious college has been on the rise. For example, in an article written by Candy Schulman, she states that her daughter, Chloe, would love to be admitted into Yale as her primary choice and Princeton as her secondary choice; however, many problems have risen regarding this. As an eleventh grader, she stresses about SAT scores and A-minuses, and has even gone to the extremes to hiring a tutor to fix her grade. Furthermore, her workload is extreme, with an average of six exams along with other assignments per week, including hours of homework assignments (Schulman). Chloe is clearly a victim of school burnout. Her mother says that she has lost interest in exploring arts as her elective course, she does not insist on leaving the house to go outside in order to take a break from her studies because she is “brain-dead,” and she does not even dress out of her pajamas on the weekends. While Chloe is a prime candidate for school burnout by demonstrating detachment and exhaustion, she is not the only one. Many students in her class suffer from panic attacks due to the laborious amount of studying they have to do, which can sometimes last past midnight. These similar experiences are alive and well for many other students in today’s

Many parents force their kids to take Honors and AP classes, even though some may not be interested. This causes large amounts of stress, especially from the schools who advertise AP classes, which makes them feel obligated to take them (Niederberger). Also, Dr. Jonathan Pletcher, who was interviewed by Mary Niederberger for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette states that students often feel “pressured” rather than motivated. He also says that if their parents or someone closely related to them aren’t putting this pressure upon them, then it is the media. Furthermore, in a study from New York University, currently found that both genders, male and female, received the greatest stress from grades, homework, and preparing for college. They state that many of these pressures derive from a “larger cultural and societal factors that drive the problem of chronic stress, since schools, families, and youth don’t operate in a vacuum” (New York University). In a survey, it is shown that the average student spends twelve to fourteen hours on homework and school-related activities alone (“Homework”). For example, if a student spends eight hours at school, then has sports practice for two hours, then comes home to do work for three AP classes, the stress put on that individual can be