| Some students experience avoidable stress and pressure regarding college admissions, which sometimes starts as early as middle school and in extreme cases even earlier.
In many, if not most cases the stress and pressure experience by the student is the direct result of parental expectations, some reasonable and some not. And any undue pressure prior to hs junior year is almost always from the parents. This is a same because, while we parents should encourage and nurture our children, we should also let them be children and engage in oh so important play and social activities.
I can honestly say that we exerted no undue pressure on our son other than to emphasize that education was important and that he needed to take it seriously. He did good in hs but could have done better. But he had a blast outside of the classroom and nothing he did could have been remotely considered to be resume building. He did not apply to any "reach" colleges and was not pressured to do so by us or his gc, so no pressure there.
The result is that he is an extremely happy college junior who is succeeding in the classroom beyond our wildest expectations. Nary a bump in the road thus far with the exception of a lone alcohol incident frosh year which has not been repeated. |