In this society, students are constantly struggling with stress. The students in this generation have more anxiety, and higher stress levels than previous generations. Alexandra Robbins, the author of “The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids,” developed student’s stress as the theme throughout the book to put emphasis on how the rigor levels of schools increased causing students to overachieve. Yet while overachieving school goals, it led to student’s stress trying to juggle school and life at the same time while trying to get into a prestigious university.
Julie, the school’s superstar who does it all, undergoes under the same stress everyone has. Julie is an “A straight A student without exception…. Walt Whitman High School’s most talented female.” (pg.1) everyone expects her to get into Stanford hassle-free
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However, Julie gets stressed out, “Junior year had been stressful, both academically and socially” (pg.1). Robbins begins to develop her theme with Julie to make the audience realize no matter who the student is – if you are popular, or an unknown individual, you will still get stressed from trying to get into college and juggle school as well as your own basic necessities like socialize. Julie’s stress even becomes a conflict as her hair “gradually had begun to thin...the doctor informed her that ‘stress can cause hair loss’” (pg.2). Julie thought if she challenged herself, she could be accepted into her dream school, Stanford. Julie obtains stress by taking Advanced Placement courses but in the end she is being told not to even think about applying early to Stanford actually being told not to even waste her time since she is just “’mildly interesting’” (pg.3). After being told