Working to be the very best can be stressful for students

Yeah, it's a high-class problem, but it's very real to the kids facing it.

On a recent evening at Neuqua Valley High School, parents and teachers from Naperville Unit District 203 and Indian Prairie Unit District 204 gathered to hear educators and counselors speak on student stress.

The biggest source of that stress is competition, whether in academics, sports or music. Jane Wernette of Naperville Collaborative Youth Team, and a parent in Naperville Unit District 203, presented information gathered from groups of teens, parents and counselors.

"When a high B puts you in the bottom 50 percent of your class, how does that make you feel?" Wernette said. "Many feel that if you can't be the best, it's not worth trying."

Success is defined as the ability to stand out, but in high-achieving super-schools of 4,000 students, that's difficult and students get frustrated by demands they feel exceed their capabilities.

Parents want the best for their children, but may not recognize today's playing field is uniformly more elevated than when they went to school.

Parents add to stress when they demand A's and assume kids are capable of achieving them 100 percent of the time.

"We are not at our personal best 365 days a year," Wernette said.

The schools and community also hold high expectations for student achievement.

College admissions are the ultimate driver of academic stress. College is now the norm. More kids attend, and each student applies to more schools, ratcheting the level of competition even higher.

Education is seen as the key to achieving long-range success in life, but that success is too often measured by material markers, leaving other indicators -- such as emotional health, relationships and internal happiness -- sometimes overlooked.

"To hear the kids talk, anything other than a 'name' school is failure," Wernette said. "It's becoming all-consuming and somewhat obsessive."

Some have the sense that a 4.0 cumulative grade-point is not enough. In districts 203 and 204, roughly 12 percent of the student body holds a cumulative 4.0 grade-point or higher.

"The perception is that they're going to 'name' colleges. The reality is that they're going lots of different places," Wernette said.

The college destination for the single biggest number of Neuqua Valley's Class of 2007 was College of DuPage, with 117 students starting there. (Data is based on a senior exit survey and seniors' final transcript requests.)

Next was the University of Illinois-Urbana, with 89 seniors attending, followed by Illinois State University with 58.

One went to Yale. Three went to Notre Dame. Three went to Washington University in St. Louis. One went to Stanford.

"There are perceptions, there is reality, and then there's what's right for your child," Wernette said.

Parents push for good grades, thinking it will lead to scholarship money.

Not so fast, said one parent of a Neuqua grad now attending highly selective Washington University in St. Louis. Her daughter's National Merit Scholarship standing gives her a couple thousand dollars a year. That's not much at a university where tuition and fees top $45,000 per year.

Scholarship money at elite universities is often need-based, leaving the smart but well-off students to pay their own, expensive way.

Wernette, who presented the information gathered from focus groups of teens and parents, urges adults to think: "What is success for the kids? That definition of success has to remain as broad as the number of kids in our schools."

• Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy is an Indian Prairie Unit District 204 parent who pleads guilty to adding to her children's academic stress. E-mail her at otbfence@hotmail.com.