By Alex Gryciuk
What does it mean to be a Junior? It seems that nowadays, being a Junior means getting a license, a job, and a heavier workload than previous years. However, a shared experience among all Juniors lowers the anticipation and excitement of students; less sleep and burnout are among the most common.
Juniors in today’s schooling system get overworked. As a general standard, the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association recommends that 10 minutes of homework should be given to each grade reached by students. Meaning that a Junior should get 110 minutes of homework and Seniors 120. However, as college admission becomes more competitive, students work harder, take more challenging classes, and complete more homework than the recommended amount. Over the past 5 years alone, applications for the top colleges have increased by one-third while space in the classroom stays the same. Higher graduation rates, easier applications, and increased support for college all contribute to exponential admission. In an effort to obtain “an edge when they apply to colleges”, more and more students take AP tests and challenging classes to get an edge on other applicants. By college planners, it’s recommended that most Juniors should take 2-4 AP classes; some students take even more. If a student follows recommended advice, they are left with 3-6 extra hours per week for each AP course added to an average 2.7 hours of homework per weeknight in homework. Simply put, Juniors are pressured into completing high amounts of school work that surpasses the recommended amount of school work.
For teens who regularly have to keep up with extreme workloads similar to a part-time job, getting enough sleep proves difficult. According to the Nationwide’s Children Hospital, the average amount of sleep that teenages should get is nine to nine-and-a-half hours. Yet, most teeenager get between 7 to 7 ¼ due to large quantities of homework. That number plunges when considering AP students’s additional homework load. A local high school, SJHHS, took a random poll and exposed that the average number was six hours. A deficit in sleep hours can be extremely harmful to one’s health. In fact, Better Health Channel states that “regularly not getting enough sleep leads to chronic sleep deprivation” can have drastic effects on everyday life. Low self-esteem, anxiety, increased risk of depression, and even lower academic performance result from a large lack of sleep. In such a competitive environment, students, especially Juniors who take many rigorous classes, sacrifice quality sleep and good health to stand out for colleges.
In addition to the harmful effects on physical health, Juniors experience a decline in mental health. Lack of sleep can cause higher rates of mental illness and lead to disorders like depression and anxiety. Perhaps most detrimental, Juniors face physical or mental collapse, burnout, from high workloads and stressful environments. According to the Student Research Foundation, students in AP classes face “excessive academic pressure” from AP classes to maintain good grades and boost their admissions application. Furthermore, “the additional stress caused by an exceptionally competitive environment” of AP classes and the additional workload forced on students cause burnout. As a result, Juniors experience large amounts of burnout, “marked by overwhelming amounts of stress that make it difficult for [them] to face any of [their] problems” according to Betabowl.com.
When just looking at workloads of homework and excluding other stresses, pressures, and time commitments like sports, clubs, or jobs, Juniors have to face extreme sleep deprivation and burnout. Therefore, if being a Junior means sacrificing physical and mental health for the sake of getting into a “good” college, then being a Junior is certainly not worth it.