STRESSED OUT Some say students trying too hard (see San Mateo Times, plus photo)
ON a typical day, 17-year-old Nick Cacharelis has classes from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., football practice until 6 p.m. and homework until midnight. Throughout this hectic schedule, his mom tries to make sure he eats. But if he's going to get into the University of Notre Dame or the University of Southern California, the Burlingame High School senior said he has to put in the hard work. For him, this means taking a heavy load of advanced placement classes, writing first-rate essays for his college applications, taking the SAT a second time for a better score, going to football practice six days a week and spending five to six hours every night on his homework. "It's really stressful because you're competing with high-quality applicants and there's always pressure from my parents to get A's," said Cacharelis, who plans to major in medicine with a focus on orthopedics. The fall deadline to get applications sent for many colleges and universities is quickly approaching. And many high school seniors like Cacharelis are giving their personal statements and applications final proofs before sending them to these institutions. But some experts say many students are stressing out too much about getting into the most popular universities. Doctors at the American Academy of Pediatrics are concerned about these pressures on kids, says Kenneth Ginsburg, a Philadelphia adolescent-medicine specialist and academy member. "We worry about eating disorders, mutilation and the consequences of perfectionism," said Ginsburg, 43. "There is a fear of failure that comes from kids being pushed too hard." Across the nation, the number of college students diagnosed with depression has increased 56 percent over six years, to 16 percent of students in 2005 from 10 percent in 2000, according to a 2005 study by the Baltimore-based American College Health Association, which represents campus health services.
Three years ago, Stanford University lecturer Denise Pope was so concerned about the stress teens go through, particularly over getting into college, that she started S.O.S. (Stressed Out Students) in collaboration with the university's School of Education. "I found these successful students were not learning in school, they were doing school to get into these high-ranking colleges," said Pope, 39, who is author of "Doing School: How We Are Creating aGeneration of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students." For example, many students she talked to were simply memorizing everything right before a test and later forgetting all that they learned. A school willing to participate in the S.O.S. program forms a team of administrators, teachers, students, parents and counselors. This team attends workshops with Pope and other Stanford officials that focus on strategies for helping students deal with stress. There are 35 schools, mostly in the Bay Area, that have S.O.S. teams. In San Mateo County, these programs have been established at Burlingame, Junipero Serra and Menlo-Atherton high schools, Central and Tierra Linda middle schools, North Star Academy and Woodside Priory School. A common misconception among many of these stressed-out teens, Pope said, is that you will make more money if you go to a higher-ranking college. She said about 80 percent of kids are applying to 20 percent of the colleges and universities in the country. "There's a lot of hype around going to college right now," she said. "There are more people than ever going to college so there's this fear that they won't get into college." … Most college admission officials, she said, know when applicants participated in activities just for the sake of putting it on their college application. More students, Kleeman said, should consider applying to some of the lesser-known colleges and universities. They may find that these schools would work better for their goals than some of the big institutions, she said. "If you pursue what you enjoy in high school you will have many college options," she said. "There is plenty of space left in many colleges in this country."
Christy Frantz, owner of The Learning Studio, a college consulting business in Burlingame that helps applicants with everything from finding the right college to writing scholarship applications, agreed. Often when students say they want to attend high-ranking universities like Harvard, they later discover that's not the right fit for what they want to do. At The Learning Studio, Frantz said, they let students know what the options are and help them decide on a college that coincides with their goals. In doing this, they also talk to parents about how they can help their kids. "We meet with parents one-on-one and talk about success stories at some of the not-so-big-name colleges," said Frantz, who used to teach English at Hillsdale High School. Burlingame High School graduate Sophia Zerebinski, 18, will be going to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this fall, but she had the option of going to UCLA, one of the most difficult universities to get accepted to in the country. Of the 47,258 applicants, UCLA admitted 12,094 prospective freshmen for fall 2006. This was a 12 percent increase in applications over last year, according to UCLA officials. For Zerebinski, UCLA is too big. Besides, Cal Poly has a better program for her major, bio-medical engineering, she said. And it wasn't easy getting accepted to UCLA, she said. She took as many advanced placement courses as possible and was in the band for four years, on the cross-country track team for two years and was a member of the Red Cross Youth Chapter for three years. She was also involved with several school clubs. "I did things I really liked, but I think I over-scheduled myself," she said. "Getting good grades isn't enough anymore." While Cacharelis' mom said she would be happy if her son were accepted into the University of Notre Dame or USC, she wouldn't be disappointed if he went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or Santa Clara University. "I would like him to go someplace where he's comfortable," she said. And she doesn't believe all of her son's hard work is to make his college resume shine. "He likes the challenges," she said. "He likes doing things the hard way
– Written by Fiona