Yesterday, I registered a student for six AP classes plus one Honors course—a schedule that would make most working adults crumble. Not a single free period. No time to see friends, eat lunch in peace, or just breathe. When I gently suggested leaving room for downtime, they looked at me like I'd suggested they drop out of school altogether.
Here's what I tell students caught in this academic treadmill: "I know you can handle these classes individually. You're capable. But when you put them all together? This becomes unsustainable if you want to sleep, eat, and see your friends." This has become my mantra, repeated so often I sometimes say it in my sleep.
"But which course would look best for college?" they reply earnestly.
This is the academic competition we've created – a race with no winners, only casualties. Our high-achieving students are drowning in a sea of AP, Honors, and Dual Enrollment courses, desperately trying to stay afloat in the college admissions race they've been told they must win at all costs. The hidden cost? Their well-being, their social development, their joy.
The human body and mind weren't designed for this constant pressure. The daily grind is relentless: early morning classes, rushing between subjects all day, barely enough time to eat lunch, then hours of extracurriculars, followed by a mountain of homework that keeps them up late into the night. Wash, rinse, repeat. Day after day, week after week, for four long years. If you're thinking, "hey this is good they work hard," I challenge you to reconsider. No human—especially not a developing adolescent—should live like this. Yet we've normalized it, celebrated it even, as if running yourself into the ground is a virtue.
The real cost of this culture becomes clear in those quiet moments of reflection. I can't stop thinking about that senior who sat across from me during their exit interview, acceptance letter to their top-choice university proudly mentioned in the first few minutes. By all traditional metrics, they'd "won" our culturally crafted academic competition. Perfect GPA. Leadership positions. Research experience. The works.
Then I asked what they'd miss most about their high school experience.
Their eyes welled up unexpectedly. "I don't know," they whispered. "I never really got to have one."
As we talked more, a devastating truth emerged: In four years of high school, this student had never once gone out for boba tea with friends. Never experienced the simple joy of an unscheduled afternoon—just hanging out at someone's house, sprawled across couches, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. Those seemingly trivial moments that actually form the connective tissue of teenage social development.
"It sounds stupid to be sad about boba tea," they said, wiping their eyes. "But I kept thinking I'd have time later. And now high school is over."
This is the hidden cost of our academic pressure – moments lost forever. It might sound trivial to some—missing out on coffee or tea hangouts—but for Gen Z, these small social connections are increasingly rare and precious. This generation has grown up with phones as their primary social interface. They already spend countless hours on screens while face-to-face interaction continues to decline. Even before the pandemic isolated them further, they were experiencing record levels of loneliness.
Pile academically crushing expectations on top of this already fragile social development landscape, and we've created the perfect storm. We're not just in a race to nowhere—we're in a race to the bottom of what makes a healthy, connected human being.
Every time I have this conversation, I feel a mix of frustration, exhaustion, and frankly, anger at the culture we've perpetuated. What are we doing in this never-ending cycle of achievement? This relentless race to... where, exactly?
The problem isn't just ambitious students. It's the ecosystem we've created around them. The prestige bias that fuels the competition, telling them a "regular" class is somehow shameful. The conformity bias that has them comparing schedules with friends and panicking if they're taking "fewer" advanced courses. The college admissions process that seems to demand superhuman achievement.
What these students don't realize is that college admissions officers are increasingly concerned about burnout and mental health. They're looking for balanced humans, not academic machines who've sacrificed their adolescence at the altar of achievement.
I'll be honest: counselors like me are exhausted by this unsustainable academic culture. Every fall, like clockwork, our offices fill with overwhelmed students seeking schedule changes, struggling with anxiety, and fighting through exhaustion. We're tired of watching bright, promising teenagers break down in our offices, crying over B+ grades and convinced their futures are ruined.
We need to reframe how we approach high school course planning. Instead of "how many AP classes can I possibly squeeze in?" the question should be "what combination of courses will allow me to learn deeply, pursue my interests, and still have time to develop as a person?" We need to stop this unsustainable grinding before it claims more casualties.
Parents need to show up differently, too. Not as enforcers in this achievement race, but as guardians of their children's wellbeing. When your child is awake until 2 AM doing homework night after night, that's not dedication—it's harm. When they haven't seen their friends in weeks, that's not focus—it's isolation. When they're moving mechanically through their day—classes, practice, homework, sleep, repeat—that's not discipline, it's dehumanization.
How do we make this better?
Collectively, we need to change the narrative. Schools can create policies that limit the number of advanced courses students can take simultaneously. Colleges can continue to emphasize that they value quality over quantity. Parents can prioritize their child's mental health over bragging rights. We need to acknowledge that humans weren't meant to live like robots programmed only for achievement—we need rest, connection, joy.
And students? I hope they learn that their worth isn't measured by the number of AP courses on their transcript. That college is just one step in a long journey, not the final destination. That the skills of balance, self-care, and knowing your limits will serve them far better in life than another advanced course crammed into an impossible schedule.
Those tears weren't just about missed boba tea outings. They were mourning four years they can never get back—years when they excelled at being a student but never learned how to just be a teenager. Four years of 7:30 am to midnight grind that no human should endure.
Let's stop this unsustainable grinding before it claims another generation.
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