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DesperateDad
Member
| Joined: | Tue Mar 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 871 |
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Posted: Sat May 24th, 2008 06:48 pm |
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| interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal discussing the pressure of junior year....
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outwest
Member
| Joined: | Sun Mar 4th, 2007 |
| Location: | CA |
| Posts: | 644 |
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Posted: Sun May 25th, 2008 03:40 am |
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The end of junior year is brutal. Test after test after test plus the pressure to keep your grades really high coupled with surging teen hormones and college choices make it the hardest year of them all. With, perhaps, the exception of the last month of high school. I have repeated, "Keep the grades up!" a billion times in the last two months.
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mackinaw
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
| Posts: | 794 |
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Posted: Sun May 25th, 2008 12:58 pm |
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Here's a link (may need subscription to read entire):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121158515508718929.html
High School's Worst Year?
For Ambitious Teens,
11th Grade Becomes a Marathon of Tests,
Stress and Sleepless Nights
By JONATHAN KAUFMAN
May 24, 2008; Page A1
FARMINGTON, Conn. -- Jennifer Glickman, a 17-year-old high school junior, gets so stressed some days from overwork and lack of sleep that she feels sick to her stomach and gets painful headaches.
A straight-A student, she recently announced at a college preparatory meeting with her mother and guidance counselor that she doesn't want to apply to Princeton and the other Ivy League schools that her counselor thinks she could get into. . . .
Last edited on Sun May 25th, 2008 01:02 pm by mackinaw
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scoop
Member
| Joined: | Wed Oct 4th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 626 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 11:02 am |
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I was able to read the article with no problem. I think this article was spot on. I really do have a problem with kids coming home after a full day of school and having five hours of homework. This is typical for my daughter and she is taking one AP class this year. Next year she will have more, all by choice. She loves the class atmosphere and the work, she deals with the homework. She is not getting enough sleep. I have expressed my opinions on homework to the school administrators after they encouraged high achieving kids to read for pleasure during the school day. Don't get me started Last edited on Tue May 27th, 2008 11:03 am by scoop
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mackinaw
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
| Posts: | 794 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 02:13 pm |
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I think 11th grade has been more intensified also by the widespread move to early applications, which encourages our kids to find their one true love rather than to play the field. The timeframe is so compressed now. Take your tests, find your one true love over the summer and put in your bid.
I think the fact that I had the "old" mentality helped my kids in some ways, by encouraging them to identify a variegated basket of good prospects, put in their "rolling admission" safety in October, file other applications in December and January, and make their decisions in April. No early applications.
But 11th grade is definitely a crazy year.
Last edited on Tue May 27th, 2008 02:18 pm by mackinaw
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CarolynLawrence
Administrator
| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 3396 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 05:47 pm |
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I agree with you, Mackinaw. Actually, I see more and more kids feeling that pressure to find their "dream college" in sophomore year as well. I often get phone calls from parents whose kids are in middle school wanting to hire me as a college counselor as well. In one case, I had a mother ask me to give her some "college essay prompts" for her son. She was going to have him "practice" writing his college essays for two hours every day over the summer. He was going into the SIXTH GRADE.
While parents and students obviously need to do some planning ahead, it seems sad to me that high school has become just a holding pen for college. There's emotional growth and intellectual development separate from "the college question" that needs to get done in high school, yet that all seems to increasingly take a back seat to the panic about getting into college.
In terms of stress, as a counselor, I think sophomore year is really hard for a lot of kids. In freshman year, there's still some coddling going on, but then, bam!, in sophomore year suddenly teachers start piling on the work, APs and honors courses come into the picture, and parents start worrying about college admissions. I see more kids with drops in their grades in sophomore year than junior year.
Last edited on Tue May 27th, 2008 05:52 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Mrs. Aardvark
Member
| Joined: | Thu Jan 31st, 2008 |
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| Posts: | 107 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 06:32 pm |
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Once again, my daughter bucks the trend... she's found time at the end of junior year to attend three proms , appears no more interested in colleges now than one year ago....
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WestrnMom
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| Joined: | Fri May 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | West Coast, USA |
| Posts: | 1267 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 07:09 pm |
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Sophomore year was the toughest for my children. By junior year they had it all together and weren't stressed about college. I was determined to make the entire application process as stress-free for our entire family as possible. It worked. We did the early and rolling route so it didn't have to carry over the winter break and into January. For us, that worked out best. My children were relieved to have it all behind them.
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Deja
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| Joined: | Thu Apr 13th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 204 |
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Posted: Tue May 27th, 2008 09:51 pm |
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We still have 13 days left of junior year here. There were times that several courses (notably AP Bio) had a lot of work. And there were a few awful weeks throughout the year -- one particularly hellish week was in March when he was juggling preparing for Regional Forensics then State Forensics, Regional Debate, All-Star televised high school quiz bowl show, State Mock Trial championship, and was Asst Stage Manager for a theatre production (late rehearsals). And of course meanwhile the homework marched on. Things got a lot better after that. It was a harder time than the recent AP-a-thon.
I foresee that next year is going to be difficult because of college applications.
Last edited on Wed May 28th, 2008 06:40 pm by Deja
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