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Oh, the pressure! (To get into a top college)

By Isabella Alvarez-Gomez

On a typical school day, Aryan Vadlamudi, 16, dashes through the front doors of Troy Athens High School at 7:20 a.m. From then until 3 p.m., he trips from class to class: AP chemistry, AP US history, honors pre-calculus and honors English.

When classes end, he dives into his duties as treasurer of Science Olympiad, treasurer of his school’s chapter of Health Occupation Students of America, president of the Japanese club, president of  the medical club and trumpeter in the Red Hawks Marching Band.

He leaves the building at 11 p.m.

“I guess there’s really no time for social life,” said Vadlamudi, from the lobby of Weinstein Hall. “And mental health-wise, I guess it’s just really stressful. Everything.”

In some ways, Vadlamudi, a participant in NYU’s Simmons Science Exploration 2023 summer program, is trying to keep up with his older brother. Big bro had taken 14 AP classes while at Troy Athens, before enrolling as a pre-med student at Michigan State University,

He comes from a family of scientists. Vadlamudi’s mom, a biochemist, was a researcher for the Karmanos Cancer Institute.

A Pew Research Center study, published in 2018, found that 61% of teens “feel a lot of pressure” to succeed academically; 28% “feel a lot of pressure” to fit in socially; and 20% “feel a lot of pressure” to participate in extracurricular activities. Best Colleges found that 52% of high school students feel pressure to make decisions about their future too soon.

Adolescent motivational psychologist Jessica Koehler said she’s seen too many students measure their self-worth by their academic performance. If their grades decline, so does their perception of self, said Koehler, a former teacher who co-founded Phare, French for “lighthouse.” Its services include one-on-one coaching for students.

“Not only are you risking not getting that perfect score,” she said, “you’re risking having to rethink your entire identity.”

For some, there’s too much early pressure to figure out their futures.

While 16-year-old Nia Mccurdy is fascinated by her studies of molecular biology at NYU’s Pre-College Program, art is McCurdy’s true passion, even if an artist’s paycheck is iffy.

“The problem is I love art … It’s just that, like, I know, it’s really hard to make money in certain ways,” McCurdy said. Her interest in the STEM fields arose after she started doubting a future in the humanities.

Watching students from wherever share on social media about before-school, after-school and weekend activities, feeds her anxiety: “You always see, like, these students who are just doing so much and excelling in every single area of their life. And it makes you a little insecure sometimes.”

Almost all of her classmates back at Bergen County Academies in New Jersey were stellar students and overachievers, said Dartmouth College graduate, Emily Chang, 24.

Her GPA was lower than most of theirs, Chang said. To compensate for what she perceived as her academic deficit, she showcased her strength in other places. She became captain of the varsity golf team, president of the club raising money for UNICEF, president of the World Vision project, senior class representative, member of the Distributive Education Clubs of America. She interned at Prana Marketing & Media Relations and the Studango startup at the NYU Entrepreneurship Lab.

None of that kept her from feeling like an imposter. Nor did it ease her anxiety: “I was, like, yes, I know, I’m here … But, like, everyone else is also, like, so stellar and so smart.”

If she could do high school all over again, she’d be less hard on herself.

Shafa Galani with her dance troupe.

Shafa Gilani, 17, would be the first in her family to attend college. If she’s overly ambitious, she said, it’s because her parents, hair salon owners, have worked so hard on her behalf since moving from their native India to Georgia in 2010.

“Both of my parents’ biggest motivations for moving into nicer areas was for my education, was so that I could have a good future,” said Gilani, who’s also in NYU’s science exploration summer camp. “I want to be able to give back to them. They deserve everything they’ve given me and more.”

Back home in Georgia, Gilani juggles. She is co-president of the National Spanish Honor Society and a member of the English and social studies honor societies. She’s a Georgia Muslim Voter Project youth ambassador and is her mosque’s team lead for the Northwest Ismali Youth Volunteers. At her dance studio, she’s a bollywood dance choreographer.

More than stress, though, she feels grateful to be involved in all of that.

It took leaving high school, Emily Chang said, for her academic stresses to disappear.

“I just, like, think back to so many long nights where I was just, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m actually gonna die.’ And then it ends up okay. Like, it’s really not the end of the world.”