academic stress in college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A weirdly high number of kids have committed suicide at William & Mary, supposedly because of the stress.

http://www.wydailyarchives.com/local-news/5232-surge-in-deaths-leaves-william-and-mary-battling-suicide-school-reputation.html

I would be interested in knowing where the most recent three suicides hail from.

Whitney Mayer was from Plano, Texas.

Ian Smith-Christmas was from Stafford, Virginia.

Dominique Chandler was from Portsmouth, Virginia.

That article's 4 years old.

It's still relevant.

"However, gifted students also face unique societal and cultural obstacles, Cross added. For instance, within their own families, they can encounter ridicule, misunderstanding or mixed messages about their giftedness. At school, too, they can be singled out and teased by peers. Many try to hide their talents in an effort to blend in while others attempt to find ways to completely lose the gifted label by acting in an opposite manner." https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2013/cross-book-explores-suicide-among-the-gifted123.php

[Anonymous]

First of all, they don't track suicide by IQ and there is no indication that gifted kids are more at risk. Suicide is a problem for all teens and young people (all age groups, actually.)

Second, while a cluster of suicides is terribly troubling, its important to note that suicide is contagious, especially in small communities like a school or college, so that one suicide often begets another. I'm not sure its a great metric for mental health issues at a particular college.

There are a lot of important issues around mental health at colleges and they vary widely in how they manage these issues. But if your DC is in high school and is already showing some vulnerability, it is far, far better to aggressively address those issues now. In several situations of which I'm aware, there was a crisis in college but the warning signs at been there much earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a college. Basically the high achievers tell me high school stress was nothing compared to college stress. Half of them take Adderall to stay awake, Xanax to keep form panicking and drink alcohol to 'relax'.

They are just as perfectionistic in high school but with even higher stakes - the job market looming. they are trying to do as much service and extra curriculars as they can while also working and playing a sport.

As often the high achievers are in programs where you basically had to be a high achiever to even get accepted to the program, the competitiveness is fierce.

It is also the age when mental illness and mental health problems explode and depression is rampant in this age group - partly due to poor self care that wears them down (no sleep, poor nutrition, too much drinking). Then they start to feel suicidal or like quitting but they can't because there is too much internal pressure and sense of external reputation to hold up. Anxiety is rampant especially around exams and project times.

Agree with the above. I've been surprised at the number of students I have each year who are very smart, very well-prepared, and have serious stress related issues that really impede academic success. Since you know that your daughter is predisposed to stress, I would really encourage you to find her some formal stress management program/therapy before she goes to school.

Eh. I went to a top fifteen SLAC and my boyfriend went to an Ivy and we worked way harder and more intensely at my SLAC than he and his friends did at his Ivy. And I didn't feel they were any smarter than the kids at my school.

Go to the top school and then you don't have to stress as much because a) most of the ivies still have grade inflation up the wazoo and b) it's easier to get into grad school with a 3.5 from Yale than a 3.5 from a lower ranked school.

I don't think either of us were saying that OP's daughter should go to a top school, but rather that she should have a plan in place to manage her stress (and a better plan than: "I'm going to read this buzzfeed about the top 5 ways not to stress in college." Some college counseling centers have stress support groups-which might be an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a college. Basically the high achievers tell me high school stress was nothing compared to college stress. Half of them take Adderall to stay awake, Xanax to keep form panicking and drink alcohol to 'relax'.

They are just as perfectionistic in high school but with even higher stakes - the job market looming. they are trying to do as much service and extra curriculars as they can while also working and playing a sport.

As often the high achievers are in programs where you basically had to be a high achiever to even get accepted to the program, the competitiveness is fierce.

It is also the age when mental illness and mental health problems explode and depression is rampant in this age group - partly due to poor self care that wears them down (no sleep, poor nutrition, too much drinking). Then they start to feel suicidal or like quitting but they can't because there is too much internal pressure and sense of external reputation to hold up. Anxiety is rampant especially around exams and project times.

Agree with the above. I've been surprised at the number of students I have each year who are very smart, very well-prepared, and have serious stress related issues that really impede academic success. Since you know that your daughter is predisposed to stress, I would really encourage you to find her some formal stress management program/therapy before she goes to school.

Eh. I went to a top fifteen SLAC and my boyfriend went to an Ivy and we worked way harder and more intensely at my SLAC than he and his friends did at his Ivy. And I didn't feel they were any smarter than the kids at my school.

Go to the top school and then you don't have to stress as much because a) most of the ivies still have grade inflation up the wazoo and b) it's easier to get into grad school with a 3.5 from Yale than a 3.5 from a lower ranked school.

I don't think either of us were saying that OP's daughter should go to a top school, but rather that she should have a plan in place to manage her stress (and a better plan than: "I'm going to read this buzzfeed about the top 5 ways not to stress in college." Some college counseling centers have stress support groups-which might be an option.

And the OP and her daughter should consider colleges where DD can not only get a good education but also BE HAPPY, which this focus on "THE top school" and "Ivy" and "grades" and "getting into grad school" completely ignores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about a school like UVA? That strikes me as a school where people are incredibly smart, yet not all gunners and cut throat.

Not all gunners at UVA, but a lot of them are. Lots of kids from TJ and the top VA public schools. As another PP pointed out, these kids were strivers in high school, and they're not going to become slackers overnight.

[Anonymous]

The school will not make a lick of difference. An eager beaver will work hard and stress because that is their nature. That being said, there are certain majors that will be hyper competitive depending on the school, and that may enhance the stress, but not much.

Friends and not worrying about where they will be in 10 years career wise will keep the stress down.

[Anonymous]

Obviously the more competitive colleges for admission are probably more competitive when you get there, too, but are there some schools that are especially known for being pressure cookers?

[Anonymous]

Obviously the more competitive colleges for admission are probably more competitive when you get there, too, but are there some schools that are especially known for being pressure cookers?

The ivies (especially Columbia), Chicago, Swarthmore, Reed, MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, WashU (especially if you are in biomedical engineering)...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Obviously the more competitive colleges for admission are probably more competitive when you get there, too, but are there some schools that are especially known for being pressure cookers?

The ivies (especially Columbia), Chicago, Swarthmore, Reed, MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, WashU (especially if you are in biomedical engineering)...

Yeah, I tend to be in the stressed-out-people-will-stress-in-any-evironment camp, but then I think about how crazy people got when I was at Chicago (grad). There was the poor student who shot himself in the head in the bathroom of the library on Sunday night. Almost everyone I knew developed some stress-related issue-gaining or losing tons of weight, insomnia, skin picking, hair pulling, stress vomiting, tics, and a strangely large number of young people who got shingles. It was also the first time I met people who used beta blockers to improve performance.

[Anonymous]

Oh man, don't get me started on grad school (PhD). Everyone except two people in my lab were on SSRIs.