High Pressure Culture

Cover image credit: https://www.helpscout.com/blog/overachiever-culture/

This is actually my essay for English from last semester. It's about overachievers. No, you don't have to put in a works cited on your post unless you want to.

Picture this: a sophomore, still finding his place in the world, feels the insistence to be competent in school at all times, including maintaining an A in classes like business and financing as well as having to succeed in extracurricular activities such as music to be admitted to an elite business school; this is high achievement pressure. It is having to go beyond standards at all times. Adolescents feel the need to succeed in everything they do, including academics and arts. Pressure for high achievement causes them to do the activities they love just for reputation, endure the competitive nature of activities, compete with their peers, and experience overwhelming stress beyond school; this can take a huge toll on all aspects of their lives.

Having to overachieve in treasured activities can cause teens to solely do them for acceptance to reputable colleges such as Harvard, rather than for unalloyed happiness. Jennifer Breheny Wallace of The Washington Post reports that students feel the intense pressure to succeed in every aspect of their lives, including their favorite activities just to get into the top colleges, which have low acceptance rates. Wallace says that “even activities that once were stress-reducers, like playing a musical instrument or a sport, have become a means to an end, that end being a spot at one of the country’s most competitive colleges and then on to a prestigious, high-paying career” (Wallace). By all means, Wallace is stating that activities that teenagers have loved for a while can suddenly be done in a competitive nature. They will not be able to enjoy what they love to do anymore. This is significant because even though college and career readiness does help students plan out their future post-secondary education, the pressure of that has gotten in the way of pure enjoyment of activities amongst adolescents.

Sometimes, teens do what they love just to preserve their reputation at school, in which they feel pressured to do. In Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino, the protagonist, mentions that she thinks the cheerleaders at Merryweather High School…

"... operate in two realities simultaneously. In one universe, they are gorgeous, 

straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their 

sixteenth birthdays. Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. They know the 

first names of the staff. They are the Pride of the Trojans. Oops—I mean Pride of the 

Blue Devils. In Universe #2, they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. 

They worship the stink of Eau de Jocque. They rent beach houses in Cancun during 

Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before the prom (Halse Anderson 30)."

In this small excerpt of the text, Melinda is saying that the cheerleaders act differently when they are around school than when they are with each other. Halse Anderson is illustrating the pressure that high school students face, using them as an example. They might be acting like perfectionists just to maintain their prestige as cheerleaders, since they are school ambassadors. When in reality, they are promiscuous, but they do not act that way when representing Merryweather High. They might have loved cheerleading for a while, but once they start doing that for their school, they are held to a higher standard of reputation and they have to sustain that, even though it might mean having to put on a different persona.

In addition to reputation and competitive nature, teenagers are expected to compete with their peers to be admitted to prestigious colleges, causing mental health issues. For instance, Knowledge@Wharton, a network of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, explains that “Teens are more focused on productivity than on learning, for example; they also measure their self worth by comparing themselves to the achievement indices set by elite college entrance requirements. They are wracked with anxiety and they are sleep-deprived; they suffer from eating disorders, panic attacks, and depression” (Knowledge@Wharton). To elaborate, due to teens focusing more on looking good for colleges, they eventually experience mental health issues. They feel anxious, they suffer through depression, and even think of commiting suicide because of the pressure put on them. Moreover, with the stress that society is putting on teens academically, they will not be able to live ordinary adolescent lives - they will just be sucked into the world of constant mental difficulty.

To again extend on the fact that pressure culture is taking an immense toll on teens in numerous aspects of their lives, they often experience overwhelming stress beyond academics because of that. Karen Ann Culotta et al. of the Chicago Tribune report that…

"… the primary causes of unhealthy stress vary among students and can include not only academic anxiety, but also worries about family problems and social situations. But officials say there are some common threads. Many teens are experiencing a lack of sleep, increasingly rigorous college prep courses, several hours of homework a night and the demands of juggling the multiple extracurricular activities required to burnish college applications (Cullotta, Karen Ann, et al)."

This connotes that aside from prospering academically, teenagers feel obliged to do more within their school, like partaking in multiple extracurricular activities such as football, writing club, marching band, etc. to appear as versatile students to the colleges they want to apply for. With these obligations, they will less likely be able to have downtime, such as spending time with family or getting eight to ten hours of sleep. Joining extracurriculars is mainly because of college applications, if not for genuinely wanting to do them. In the end, some of those activities will just be a waste of time, although the college application will look a little bit more attractive, but that would not be of any help to the person’s issues.

High achievement pressure is also prevalent among American Canyon teens. Students from [ACHS] often experience overwhelming stress because of that. One common justification for this is discouragement from studies, which is connected to high achievement pressure. This is especially true for students taking advanced-level courses. Multiple students are taking accelerated courses for their grade level such as Math 2 for freshmen, AP Calculus A/B, AP Biology, Honors Spanish 2, etc. Though they do challenge and extend on one’s knowledge of the subject, taking these types of courses can result in losing motivation or interest in it, even though they might need those courses for their transcript. I am one of those students, so I feel the pressure to level up and stay advanced with my peers.

As can be seen, high achievement pressure is having to go beyond the status quo persistently. This pressure is caused by including, but not limited to: maintaining reputation, competitive nature of activities, and competing with peers, with the result of unbearable stress at and beyond school. However, all of this does not have to ruin adolescents’ lives entirely. They can talk to someone, listen to music, take a break, write about it in a journal, or find the means to face the pressure. There is hope that with the right support and changes in perspective, the stigma of high achievement pressure can change.

Works Cited

Cullotta, Karen Ann, et al. “'No Worse Fate than Failure': How Pressure to Keep up Is Overwhelming Students in Elite Districts.” Chicagotribune.com, 13 Nov. 2017, www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ct-teen-anxiety-part-one-tl-1116-20171120-story.html.

Halse Anderson, Laurie. Speak. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.

"‘The Overachievers’: A Look at High School Competition Misses the Bigger Problem — Underachievers." Knowledge@Wharton. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 10 January, 2007. Web. 04 December, 2019 www.knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-overachievers-a-look-at-high-school-competition-misses-the-bigger-problem-underachievers/

Wallace, Jennifer Breheny. “Perspective | Students in High-Achieving Schools Are Now Named an 'at-Risk' Group, Study Says.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 24 Oct. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/09/26/students-high-achieving-schools-are-now-named-an-at-risk-group/.