In modern day high schools, students are getting more and more ambitious. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as students are becoming more productive members of society before they are even fully fledged members to begin with. But a quick conversation with a parent or someone of the previous generation will yield one overlying theme: today’s children are under too much pressure.

The pressure to get into a good college, especially at a school like ours, is very real. This pressure should drive you to get good grades and make yourself look good on college resumes, but how good can you really look good if you’re simply aiming at a state school? As I see it, volunteering every weekend, playing two sports, and taking five or six AP classes is an honorable thing to do, but where do you get time to be yourself? If you somehow make that work without succumbing to a mental breakdown, that’s an accomplishment in itself.

In the past, people didn’t feel this enormous pressure to be perfect to the extent that they do now. People were able to have fun in high school and didn’t spend every waking minute outside of school doing something school related. School is a priority, but you should also be making time for yourself and your personal needs. Don’t let school dictate your life, but rather let it be an aspect of your life, like a planet rotating around the sun. It shouldn’t be the other way around. I’m not saying to slack off and fail out of high school, but getting a B in a class will not eliminate your chances of getting into the University of Texas. Some people act as if it will, but it frankly makes no sense. The average GPA at leading state schools like Texas range from a 3.7 to a 3.8. Most of these colleges are more flexible with these things than your superiors may lead you to believe.

In conclusion, people are stressing themselves for no good reason. If you want to get into Harvard, well then you might need to stress yourself out a little bit, but those schools are another story.