Academics can be a very pressure-filled topic in households, leading students to stress over success in school and life. Many high school students develop a mentality throughout their academic years of high school that a grade will define their entire life. Due to this ideology, most people believe that students who perform well academically tend to have more successful careers. Yet, students hear this and wonder if a ‘B’ will define their lives by preventing them from getting into their dream college or employment. Academic pressure is something many students have to deal with in their lives, due to the pressure of future acceptances from colleges or a future job.
“I feel some disappointment because I didn’t achieve what I desired to achieve,” Mark Andrawes (‘26) said. “Instead of just giving up, I use that failure to achieve my goal as the driving motivation to continue working towards achieving it.”
Stress can cause setbacks for students who are trying to achieve a certain grade. However, Baylor Lariat has proven that when students put less pressure on themselves, they succeed and achieve their desired grades. Yet, most students struggle with stressing out over their grades and determining what to sacrifice for them. Socializing and extracurricular activities usually need to be sacrificed by students wanting to strive for a good grade on a test.
“To achieve the grades I want, I need to sacrifice my free time especially since I have sports, and I don’t have any time for myself with the weekends, and usually during the weekends I have to work on my homework as well,” Emma Murray (‘27) said
According to Edutopia, a new scientific study has proven that a student’s stress after experiencing a bad grade is caused by a hormone called cortisol. This specific hormone plays an ideal part in an average student’s life when it comes to high school academics. The daily assignments and homework can create stress for the students as they struggle to work towards good grades.
“I would say I have always cared about grades, because I wanted to make myself stand out to my teachers, and I didn’t want to be [a basic] student,” Andrawes said. “I wanted to be the best and show everyone else that I am capable of getting good grades. I would say that it didn’t matter to get A’s in elementary or middle school, yet every student knows that high school grades are the only ones that truly matter.”
A subject’s difficulty can cause significant stress for the student, and typically, the more difficult subjects are mathematics and advanced sciences. Standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are very important and stressful mainly because they predict the student’s future success in college. Yet, according to Ed Week, these standardized tests are also the main causes of test anxiety.
“Direct pressure for my grades has never been a struggle for me, but I just build pressure for myself to impress [my family] and to prove to them that I get good grades and able to maintain them,” Murray said
According to Student Stress Statistics, seventy-five percent of American High school students struggle with stress over their academics. Also, a typical high school student spends an average of 17.5 hours per week on homework. This typical stress from academics can also cause mental health problems for students as well. Yet, a vast majority of students have difficulty managing their time according to Frontiers Psychology. According to Student Stress Statistics, eighty percent of college students worry about future finances and fifty percent worry about future jobs.
“I do not let my grades define me, because I work hard for my grades,” Scarlett Auyong (‘28) said. “Just recently, I got a bad grade on a test, but I had to remind myself that there are tests and I will be fine. I know that if I work, I will get the outcome I want.”
It may be difficult for students not to stress as much about their grades, although putting less pressure on students’ grades will provide better outcomes. Students struggle to comprehend that not doing well within the traditional education system does not mean that they are worthless. These traditional values are prioritized throughout a student’s life because most schools are known to value them according to Baylor Lariat.
“To maintain my grades, I have to figure out how the class is weighted and how to understand [my] teachers and what [I] need to do to stay within the curriculum,” Hannah Chan (’26) said.
Many students experience stress which is not healthy for a developing brain that’s just trying to get through life itself. GPAs may get a student to college, yet the entire portfolio that stages the student’s future is what is most important, including the knowledge and skills that will shape students for future college and employment. Stressing for future success doesn’t usually benefit the student, and it’s the hard work that makes the student successful.
