Guess what? The stress level for juniors is through the roof!

But, Does that really surprise anyone?

Let’s do a recap.

Reasons Juniors are stressed:

• This is the year they need to be making the best grades because the colleges are watching, but it’s actually the year they feel they are doing the worst.
• Many of them are still trying to figure out what college they should go to, which also means figuring out what they want to do with their lives, and let’s be honest it’s not a small decision.
• They need to figure out a way to pay for, not only college, but applying to college, high school AP classes, dual credit tuition, and anything else along the line.
• Many students are under a tremendous amount of pressure from their families, and from the competition they face from their fellow peers.
• To top it all off, they’ve got about four tests, three essays, twenty questions of homework due tomorrow, and dealing with the turbulent emotions of a teenager. YIKES!

But “these are the years they will miss the most” and “I wish I could be young and carefree again” and yada yada.

It may be shocking, but the high school experience has evolved quite a bit over the years.

Furthermore, according to Psychology Today, “due to varying pressures around school, work, families, relationships, social media, and the seemingly endless series of transitions involved in simply being an adolescent, teens today are indeed under more stress than ever before.”

In fact, “teens routinely say that their school-year stress levels are far higher than they think is healthy and their average reported stress exceeds that of adults,” according to an annual survey published by the American Psychological Association.

And while teenage stress is nothing new, with the ever increasing competition that occurs with population growth it would seem that each generation is more stressed than the last.

As a junior myself, I too have experienced the pains of junior year, at least, to the furthest extent I allowed myself before descending into the careless void of apathy I now reside.

At the beginning of the school year, I worked long and hard, ambition in my very breath, I slept little and ate even less, but at least I was proud of my work.

That was until this sort of lifestyle caught up with me. I fell behind and my grades reflected that.

My reaction to this, was much like any juniors: pure panic.

That’s how many juniors end up in fact, scrambling to keep track of everything without breaking down in tears. The ones that can take it will probably keep going strong, the others though…will probably end up careless, like me.