College Applications vs. Homework

High school can be a very stressful time between the multitude of different classes, to the social life, and all of the new experiences that young adults face. 

However, all of that is trivial in comparison to the biggest stress of them all, college applications. You reach a point in junior year where all of your life decisions need to be in place- whether or not you’re going to college, where you will go, or even what your major will be. The thought of deciding what you will do for the rest of your life while you're still in high school, is stressful enough. 

As students approach their senior year, these decisions begin to be made final- the workload of college applications, essays, resumes and more start to flood in. Students commence to embark on their new journey, to start a whole new chapter in their life, one like they’ve never experienced before. With that said, this is a time in a teenager’s life that can be more than stressful. 

To add on to all of the stress already building, teachers add to it with an extensive workload that many students find very hard to keep up with. The harder the workload, the harder it can be for a student to maintain good grades.

It’s clear that this creates a domino effect. The lower the grades, the harder it is to get into college. The harder it is to get into college, the more stress a student will feel.

One solution that might help students is to have teachers cut down the workload for a couple of months (mainly the months that deal with applications) because it can help the students who are looking for something more achieve it with less stress.

It is clear that most students want the best for their future and with so much going on; it is just hard to keep up. Most students are at least spending their free time doing something educational by applying to colleges and everything else that colleges want (such as? Give me some examples of what they are doing). Colleges demand so much from it’s applicants that students are filling their days to meet those demands.

Colleges want to see that you’re taking AP and honors courses, involved in sports and other extra-curricular activities, clubs, achieving high scores on SAT’s and ACT’s, etc. With that said, what student has time to do three hours of homework every night? The answer, close to none.

A typical statement made by teachers is that they, themselves, barely give homework, but what they lack to realize is that most students have at most seven other classes throughout the day that are doing the same thing- adding up to hours of homework every night.

Hopefully soon teachers will begin to notice that students have a lot on their plates and are having a hard time juggling their busy schedules and maybe they will think twice before giving out that surprise exam or additional homework.