high school pressure

high school pressure

Grades, friends, competition: They stress our high schoolers more than you might think

By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown, Natalie Dunlap, Marta Leira, Kailey Gee and Alex Carlon | April 17, 2020

Looking back, Jazsime Vanpelt wishes she could have done her freshman and sophomore years differently. Checking her grades multiple times a day, loading too many extracurriculars onto her schedule and unnecessary pressure to do well in school created stress and anxiety in and outside of the classroom. Jazsime Vanpelt, Iowa City High School student (Photo by Jhakyra Banister)

The pressure wasn’t from Vanpelt’s parents. She did it to herself, the Iowa City High School senior said. “I would like to freak out if my grades went down, even a little bit,” Vanpelt, 17, said. 

Making good grades is but one of several pressures high school students interviewed for a new IowaWatch High School journalism project said.