By Juliette Amaya
Sophomore year sounds great in theory. Being 15 and 16 comes with the freedom of getting older without the burden of “real adult problems.”
What many consider stressful seem to only include responsibilities associated with financial accountability for oneself, and often, family. While adult life is stressful, we often overlook the very demanding lives of teenagers.
Emphasis on standardized testing, excessive homework, unrealistic expectations are conditions that many experts agree raise stress levels, particularly for high schoolers in their freshman, and particularly, sophomore years.
The result is that all this stress sometimes overwhelms young high school students, depriving them of important social and cultural development, according to students, some administrators, and experts.
“Unhealthy stress causes unhealthy responses such as ‘fight, flight, or freeze’,” said Michael Monahan, assistant principal at Newport’s Rogers High School. “Students avoid things they need to do or make decisions that will negatively impact their responsibilities.”
Anecdotally, from conversations with all groups, and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), increasing stress for freshmen and sophomores, who enter a more competitive high school environment, has resulted in alarming numbers of students who contemplate and even attempt suicide.
A CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that in 2023 that about 20 percent of highschoolers have seriously considered attempting suicide, and nearly 10 percent have actually attempted suicide.
There are two types of stress: good and bad. Good stress is temporary, triggered by a task that feels doable and leads to productivity, increased energy, and focus. Bad stress is recurring, negatively affecting energy levels and the ability to function normally.
“Sophomore year can be stressful in a quieter way,” said Gina Picard, superintendent of Chariho Regional Schools and mother of a high school sophomore. “The newness of high school has worn off, but expectations are increasing. Students are developing independence, but many are still learning the coping strategies that help them manage pressure.”
ASCD surveyed more than 50,000 high school students who reported completing an average of 2.7 hours of homework each weeknight, and three hours over the weekends, according to an article in the Washington Post. Research from Stanford University found that homework becomes counterproductive after it reaches two hours per night. An excessive amount of homework leads to elevated levels of stress, often forcing students to choose homework over personal hobbies, interests, and social activities, all valuable life experiences.
Mia Soprano, a sophomore at Johnston Senior High School, said she spends four hours each weeknight on homework and two to three hours over the weekend if she does not have a test on Monday.
“Academic stress makes it hard to focus on other things, such as family, social life, and extracurriculars,” she said.
Success Daniel, a Lincoln Senior High School sophomore, said she also spends up to three hours on homework on a busy weeknight.
“I always have stress from school,” she said.
Stress unique to sophomores are the PSAT’s. The test is meant to provide information for the school to help students improve their scores when they take the SAT’s, which many colleges use as a measure for admission.
“It is important for schools and families to make sure that they do their best to help students put into perspective that a test is just one snapshot of the student’s achievement and does not define the student,” Monahan said.
Nonetheless, several students said they experience overwhelming pressures to succeed in any test they take. Some said they even notice a positive change in both mental health and academic performance once they put less importance on test scores.
“Everyone is not perfect and everyone makes mistakes,” Soprano said. “One lower grade will not change my entire future. By changing my mindset, I have become less stressed about school.“
Asked what they enjoy most about their sophomore experience, many students said it is the opportunity to socialize.
National Library of Medicine (NIH) experts found that building friendship increases motivation, decreases stress, and overall creates a more welcoming environment for students. All of this resulted in a positive correlation between GPA and friendship, meaning students can even benefit academically from a positive social life.
“My social life is definitely a positive part of my high school experience,” Daniel said. “I get to interact with my friends daily more than I would on a usual day.”
Other students said, however, that workload can hinder their ability to spend time with friends.
“School has played a huge role in making friends,” Soprano said, “although school has also limited my social life when it comes to trying to hangout throughout the week, due to the excessive amount of work.”
Students often put pressure on themselves to excel academically, to achieve personal goals, but sometimes to impress others.
“My parents themself have never made me nervous about succeeding, but I have always wanted to impress them,” Soprano said.
“On one hand, [pressure] makes me strive really hard to achieve what I want,” Daniel said. But she said pressure can “lead to isolation from being so hell-bent on the future that you forget to live in the present too.”
It is not surprising that students’ mental health has become a major concern.
The CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey found mental health among students, a major issue. The CDC found that in 2023 some 40 percent of high school students surveyed reported feelings of being sad or hopeless, besides the high rates of suicide contemplation.\
The National Institute of Health found academic stress very strongly linked to depression and mental health issues. High levels of academic stress, the survey said, were a major cause of burnout, often resulting in depression.
Then, there is the added pressure to act happy. Some students said besides academic stress, they experience additional stress because of expectations to maintain a positive attitude.
“Many teachers and peers in school expect everyone to be happy just because ‘we are kids’,” Soprano said. “It causes unnatural and unhealthy expectations of being happy and perfect all the time. This is not the reality. It is normal to be upset and have emotions, and no one should feel as though they need to be perfect and keep their head up throughout every hour.”
Some administrators have made it clear that for this reason, creating a welcoming environment for students should be a top priority. They claim that talking to a trusted adult is imperative in developing the coping skills necessary to deal with the stress of high school–but creating safe spaces where students feel comfortable seeking help is a critical first step.
Chariho Regional schools have a Peer-to-Peer program (P2P) at both the middle and high schools. The program develops a support system for students dealing with stress by creating a space where they can talk with peers about struggles they may be facing. Picard said that by normalizing conversations about mental health among students, leaders of this program believe students will be better able to deal with stress.
“Research consistently shows that students who feel connected to at least one trusted adult at school are more resilient academically, socially, and emotionally,” Picard said.
“The goal is not to eliminate stress entirely,” Picard said. “Some challenges help students grow. The goal is to make sure students have strong systems of support when stress becomes overwhelming.”
(Juliette Amaya is a sophomore at Lincoln High School, who is interested in pursing journalism as a career. She is taking a journalism course at the high school, has prepared this article for WhatsUpNewp and is also interning in a program at Brown University.)
