In the typical ‘80s movie, high school is divided. The cliques, although exaggerated, serve as plot devices. The band kids do band, the cheerleaders cheer and the smart kids focus on their grades. Everyone seems to have a traditional role, and most don’t venture out of it.

Of course, real life was never an ‘80s movie. However, it does seem like current high schoolers are different from those in the past. To meet rising standards, especially for colleges, most students striving for success must overload themselves with a plethora of different activities. 

A smart kid cannot just be smart anymore. A band kid cannot just do band. They must be involved in sports, clubs or other extracurriculars to show they are well-rounded.

While it’s understandable that expectations for students have changed, the current expectations are too high. It has become too hard to be successful as a high schooler.

Overall, this change seems to be driven by rising requirements to get into college, in part because the number of applicants continues to get higher and higher. According to Common App, the number of college applicants after March of 2023 through March 1, 2024, increased by over 6%, compared to the same period the previous year. That’s 70,517 new competitors for students in that year alone.

With this newfound competition, colleges must look for students who are even more impressive than the last batch. Even if students know they can get into a school, they must continue to perform at the top level to gain necessary scholarships.

There is no more room for mediocre.

Another embodiment of the high expectations students must meet are AP classes. They’ve been around for a long time, but why does it seem that only recently, they’ve become an expectation? While taking them is obviously not a hard-and-fast rule, it’s still unnecessary to expect high school students to be performing on a college level. They are not college students, so stop judging their academic performance as if they are one.

With all these different measures of success putting more and more weight on students’ shoulders, it’s becoming practically impossible to be a teenager. It’s no secret that mental health is on the decline, but it’s impossible to prioritize oneself if that sets off an academic decline.

All in all, the raising of expectations for high schoolers was, of course, not a conscious decision. Nonetheless, students are harmed daily by its effects. Once this phenomenon is realized, students already performing highly academically should not be pressured into doing more than they can handle. High schoolers are still kids, so let them be average.