The Goal of Getting into College Taking Its Toll on Teens - East Idaho News
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The Goal of Getting into College Taking Its Toll on Teens

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getty 020615 collegeadmissions?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1423227882811iStock/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) — Oh, these high school seniors today…they all seem to be acting more responsibly than their counterparts from more than a quarter century ago.

But there’s a catch and it’s a big one, according to the UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute survey of more than 150,000 freshman at over 225 college and universities. Seniors in high school are so preoccupied with trying to get into a college that socializing with peers is falling by the wayside.

While that might not seem all that important to adults, teens are feeling the effects of all the extra pressure they’re putting on themselves so by the time they start college, they’re aren’t feeling as great about it as they had long anticipated.

How bad have things become? Back in 1987, 18 percent of high school seniors said they hung out with peers five hours or less per week. By 2014, 39 percent of seniors said the same thing.

Meanwhile, “partying” six or more hours each week dropped from 35 percent to just nine percent over that same time span.

As for their emotional well-being, 50 percent of the survey respondents put it at above their peers while almost 12 percent said it was lower. That’s compared to 3.5 percent in 1985.


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