College takes whatever mental issues you’re prone to and magnifies it x100. Bad things happen to ill people who don’t get necessary treatment. You wouldn’t put off treatment if you broke your leg. You’d go straight to the ER. Depression, if left untreated, can be fatal. Mental illness impairs the mind’s natural ability to cope with, adapt, and resolve stress. Depression, for instance, can be so debilitating that the mind’s emotional processing center simply starts shutting down, until they can no longer process stress at all. When that happens, hospitalization is usually required. Mental health is no joke.
Bump.
What other kinds of answers are you looking for?
One of the most important things is to know yourself and your limitations (we ALL have them). The moment you start comparing what you can (and cannot) handle to what others appear to be able to do, you will put yourself in an even worse mental space. No amount of achievement is worth your mental health. My uncle was on his way to university and basically had a mental breakdown in the train station. He was under such pressure to excel academically (my grandfather was a mechanic in the war and handy, but he wanted more for his son). After stints doing different things (including being a policeman!), my very smart, very mechanically minded uncle wound up owning a successful HV/AC company. So, yeah, know yourself. That knowledge will tell you how much you can push yourself and when you need to ease up on the gas pedal.
What is the purpose of your life? Ask yourself this question. Then answer it honestly. No one will ever say It’s my GPA. If they do they need to go back and HONESTLY ask themselves the question again. College is but one small step in becoming an adult. Being healthy is priority #1, without your health you cannot do anything.
Not sure why this was bumped but I will comment that the original post showed a pretty skewed viewpoint:
"We say it’s not worth it, but nobody ever elaborates on it. Colleges don’t see your mental disarray, they see your GPA first. So WHY is this trade off not worth it if you’re gonna say it isn’t? "
Life is NOT about what colleges see. Period.
Often people with mental health issues continue to do well, actually. The “trade off” question relates to stress, I guess, and no, perfectionism or whatever problem the OP is alluding to that pits grades versus well-being, is not worth it.
My kids never knew their GPA. People forget that grades are a measure of learning. Grades have taken on a life of their own and become the goal, not the means to an end. Read Alfie Kohn’s books on the subject.
One thing that I might add to the very good advice above: At different times in a person’s life they might be able to take on different levels of stress.
For me personally, the university that I went to for undergrad was way too stressful. I wasn’t emotionally ready for it (although I was academically ready). I could have learned just as much and been much less stressed out at a slightly less highly ranked and less stressful university. I wasn’t ready, much of the time hated it, and sort of barely held it together for four years. I then studied for one year at a slightly less stressful school (top 50 worldwide rather than top 3 worldwide), did fine, realized I was in the wrong major, and worked for two years. Then I went back for a master’s in the right major at a different highly stressful school. I was ready for it, I knew why I was there, and I loved it and did very well.
Coming out of high school people are young. There is some limit on the extent to which they know themselves. Some are ready for highly stressful schools. Many straight A students would be better off at a “top 200” college or university (rather than a top 10 university) for undergrad. There are hundreds of universities and colleges that can give a very good undergraduate education, and no university has any unique secrets that they are going to teach in the undergraduate courses.