Next Office Hour - Rethinking Achievement Culture and the College Search

The college search has turned into a series of hoops that students jump through each year of high school: they feel like they need to take demanding classes, score high on the SAT/ACT, and make sure they have a legion of extracurricular activities for their applications. But for what—to do it all again in college?   

As the author Jennifer Breheny Wallace examines in her new bestselling book, “Never Enough,” this achievement culture has only resulted in skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and even self-harm among American teenagers. We’re crushing our kids all in the hopes that they get into the “right” school (whatever that means) and end up on the right side of the economic divide. Whatever happened to just being a normal teenager who does well in school and participates in activities they like and then heads off to a college–but not necessarily one with an acceptance rate…