The stress level of high school students has remarkably grown over the past five years due to the overwhelming amounts of classes, tests, extracurricular activities, and the daily lives of people in general.
More and more high school students fear the difficulties of not getting into a college of their choice due to the increase of competition from other students applying. This is causing the students to overwhelm themselves with as many AP classes as they can. They have begun to chose homework over sleep and food, and have turned to copying for homework that they weren’t able to complete due to a long night of studying for tests that could determine their grades.
College has become more competitive since the time of the baby boomers. With an increased number of students applying, and jobs requiring a college degree, spaces are becoming limited for most colleges. The director of administration at Pitzer College, Angel Perez, told the Baltimore Sun, “Our culture has created a system that makes students believe they must be at their best to attend college.” Students must be at their best, students with C’s and D’s aren’t into colleges like UCLA and Stanford. These colleges are accepting students in the top 2% of their class; in some schools, that’s still not good enough.
Not only do academics need to be as high as possible, but students also need to participate in extracurricular activities, such as joining clubs and participating in visual arts. If you add all of this onto being a school athlete, the amount of stress grows.
Athletes usually have the most stress with practices everyday, homework, games, and the need to constantly improve lingering over them. Most athletes hope for a college scholarship to continue to play the sport they love. The stress placed on student athletes is greater, as they also have to represent their school, and are looked at as role models around campus.
Junior at Pitman High, Deenpal Kaur,  is currently taking four AP classes, playing the violin, on the varsity tennis team, and helps out in Key Club and FBLA. She constantly deals with the stress of homework practice, both tennis and violin, and participating in clubs.Chelsea Adwere-Botang, junior, at Pitman High  is also currently taking four AP classes, playing the violin, on the varsity water polo team, secretary of Key Club, treasurer of Interact Club, vice president of orchestra club, and vice president of the junior class. She now believes that, “Life has now become school”.

Society needs to remember that kids are kids. That the four years in high school are meant to be fun, they’re supposed to be the best four years of your life, but many are spending Friday night doing homework or studying, instead of enjoying a school football game and time with friends. These are memories every student should have and not worry about the stress of school.