Stressed out seniors

By: Bella Dalba

According to a new survey conducted by the University of California -- Los Angeles (UCLA), today’s high school seniors aren’t partying, or even socializing, as much as their parents’ generation: they’re too busy trying to get into college. And once they get there, the stress doesn’t cease.

"We are a pretty stressed-out generation," said Ryann Stibor, 18, a senior attending high school in Simi Valley, California. She is taking six advanced placement classes in the hopes that it will help her be a competitive candidate, seeing as she applied to eight different schools. "It is a lot harder and becomes pretty cut-throat in high school. Everyone is competing for one spot in all these different schools - the one scholarship."

That pressure to get into a good college has taken a toll on students' social lives. UCLA's annual survey of college freshmen found that just 18 percent of students spent 16 hours or more with their friends each week during their senior year of high school. That's compared to 37.9 percent of students in 1987. “Honestly, it is only on very rare occasions that I leave my house. I’ve spent so much time alone while working on homework, writing papers, et cetera, that I am more comfortable in solitude. I’ve just come enjoy my own company better than anyone else’s,” says Claire Kinkead, a senior at Seckman Senior High School.

Kevin Eagan, the study’s lead researcher, says the so-called ‘senior slump’ has become the ‘senior sprint’: "You're seeing students take on more AP and honors courses, taking on more extracurricular activities to build that college resume. The main objective of high school is to pad their college applications. Those pressures are taking away from students' time to be kids."

They are also drinking less. In 1987, 34.5 percent of high school seniors spent six or more hours each week partying. That's dropped to just 8.6 percent. Those who admitted to drinking wine or hard liquor plummeted from 67.8 percent in 1987 to 38.7 percent in 2013.

Parents may be happy to hear their kids are drinking and partying less, but researchers worry that all work and no play may be why students are arriving on college campuses with high levels of stress and depression. Dominic Dalba, a junior at Seckman High School, is already experiencing the anxiety: "My number one priority in high school is to receive good grades, in the most challenging courses available. Your GPA is the first impression a college has of you: it’s the very first thing they look at, even before test scores. It’s the best indicator of how you perform as student, over an extended period of time: because high school and college both have durations of four years, it’s the most accurate prediction of how well you’ll do in college. If you’re applying to a competitive college of any sort, your GPA alone could make the difference between acceptance and rejection.”