Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen

The emotional health of college freshmen — who feel buffeted by the recession and stressed by the pressures of high school — has declined to the lowest level since an annual survey of incoming students started collecting data 25 years ago.

In the survey, “The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2010,” involving more than 200,000 incoming full-time students at four-year colleges, the percentage of students rating themselves as “below average” in emotional health rose. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who said their emotional health was above average fell to 52 percent. It was 64 percent in 1985.

Every year, women had a less positive view of their emotional health than men, and that gap has widened.

Campus counselors say the survey results are the latest evidence of what they see every day in their offices — students who are depressed, under stress and using psychiatric medication, prescribed even before they came to college.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27colleges.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

no hope of finding anything other than mcjobs.

academically perfect plus have a boatload of extra-curricular activities so they can get into a good college, that they burn out before they even get there. The colleges themselves are responsible for a lot of this. Meeting the expectations of admissions officers who want to see all AP classes, A's in all those classes, high SAT scores, and a resume showing a lot of involvement in clubs, sports, etc. is a lot to ask of a teenager. Some are up to the challenge. Others aren't. But the pressure is intense on everybody.