As spring semester winds down, many SMU students are struggling to juggle their responsibilities. A typical day for any student includes hours of class, meetings and mountains of homework.
The amount of classwork is not only a pain, but could also be causing depression, stress and eating disorders.
Often, college students became coffee-guzzling, snooze-button-hitting, overworked robots because of the pressure to overachieve. A huge contributor to the problem of overachieving is the college admissions process. As society continues to put more stock in a college diploma, more people are applying to college. With more people applying, the standards for admittance have become more difficult to meet.
Many of America’s top universities had an extremely selective admissions process in the past year. A recent New York Times article entitled, “A Great Year for Ivy League Schools, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them,” stated that, “more applications poured into top schools this admissions cycle than in any previous year on record, [but] rejection letters have overwhelmingly outnumbered the acceptances.”
For SMU admissions standards, “the average SAT score of the first-year undergraduate class has risen nearly 80 points in the last seven years.”
Writer Alexandra Robbins (known to many SMU students as the author of “Pledged,” which referred to SMU Greek life in parts of the book) tackled the subject of overachieving in her most recent book, “The Overachievers.” After profiling students in Bethesda, Md., Robbins commented on the stress being put on students to achieve and get into a good college.
One student with almost perfect SAT scores and a 4.0 GPA was told that admittance into a major college would require having “lived in Mongolia for two years or been in a civil war.”
Merilee Jones, dean of admissions at MIT, said that the most, “anxious, sleep-deprived, steeped-in-stress, judged, tested [and] poorly nourished generation,” needs parents to back off, colleges to lower the pressure and increase time to be teenagers.
The problem of overachieving concerns more than just high school students and their parents, but rather American society as a whole. The pressure to succeed does not end once one gets into college, but continues in one’s adult life.
Erin Elliott, a first-year at SMU, thought that her stress level would decrease upon becoming a college student.
“In high school I took every AP class possible and thought I had the most stress ever,” Elliott said. “But after coming to college I realized the high levels stress could reach as I once again packed my schedule with tough classes and activities. Unfortunately, studying all night has become an unhealthy norm.”
The stress of dealing with more than time allows is causing more health issues with Americans. A Kansas State University study showed that from 1989 to 2001 the number of college students getting help for depression has doubled. In addition, Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that 19 percent of students admit to having used Ritalin or Adderall to improve academic performance.
SMU is working to combat these growing trends through campaigns in dorms featuring the saying, “Adderall or have it all,” and by sending out e-mails during finals concerning testing for depression.
A major problem for many is getting a good GPA, whether in order to get into college or to get a job.
The Hunt Scholarship remains a positive step SMU has taken to lower the pressure on those applying to college. The scholarship puts much emphasis on being involved in campus activities, such as being student body president. While applicants must be in the top 25 percent of their graduating class, students who are not valedictorians still have a chance to receive a large scholarship.
“Hunt gives applicants who are heavily involved on campus a chance at a major scholarship whether or not they have a perfect GPA or SAT scores,” Hunt Scholar Rebecca Lovelace said.
Sophomore Martha Aranda agrees that looking at a person as a whole, rather than just at a GPA, should be more important in the admissions process.
“I could have a 4.0 if I never got involved in anything and just stayed in my room studying, but college is so much more than that,” Aranda said.
