As we’re now in college application season, many students are stressing about their own applications. As a junior myself, even though I’m not the one applying to colleges this year, I can see the stress in both seniors working on their essays and juniors worrying about their courses and extracurriculars. However, I feel that some students are manifesting this stress in unhealthy ways.
If you spend a lot of time online in the college admissions space, you may have heard of “collegemaxxing,” a term used to describe someone who plans every waking minute of their life (and probably every single sleeping minute, too), prioritizing their college admission chances over anything else. They fill their schedule with a plethora of AP courses and extracurriculars, sacrificing their time and health with the hope of attending a top 20 university. You may know someone like this.
Willson Zhu, a junior, is a self-admitted collegemaxxer. He has 17 APs on his course planner, competes in multiple national STEM competitions and participates in debate, math team, science bowl, and tennis. He’s done almost all of these activities since he was a freshman. He has a 4.7 GPA and his energy is almost entirely devoted to academics and extracurriculars, with little time left over for sleep or socializing.
“Especially during freshman year, I barely got any sleep… because of the classes I take, I find it hard to keep up with friends in my grade. For example, in AP Calculus, no one there was my age; it was hard to relate with people who weren’t in the classes I was in,” Willson said.
As someone who has known Willson since elementary school, I’ve seen all of these effects firsthand. I barely see him in school, only passing by him once a week or so. The only time we can hang out is online late at night, and even then, he’s studying for a math competition, researching for debate or both. He doesn’t take classes he wants to, like drawing or software engineering, because they aren’t weighted, and he could use that spot for an AP class.
At least for me, this level of stress feels absurd. Employers put more emphasis on work experience than on the university you attended. Holistic admission practices make admission dependent on so many different factors that it could just take one small component to decide whether you get admitted or not. I think it’s more important to have a balance between school, social life and activities rather than obsess over every little detail that could be put on a college application. Willson agrees.
“Especially for freshmen, don’t burn yourself out thinking about college applications… Keep a healthy balance between your future college goals and your current high school life,” Willson said.
