essay on college pressures

College Pressures Essay

Introduction, college pressures, conclusions.

I totally agree with William Zinsser on the four pressures working on college students. Just like in the 70s, college students of today face ‘economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure and self induced pressure’. I am also in agreement with Zinsser in his argument that ‘there are no villains, only victims’.

As this paper will show, the degree of pressures on college students tends to be higher now than it might have been in the 70s. Additionally, the prominence of given sources of pressure has also shifted. It is hypothesized that while parental pressure was high in the 1970s, economic pressure and self induced pressures have more prominence in the lives of college students today.

Just like in the past, getting a college degree or qualification remains a very expensive affair. Consequently, students are under pressure to pay fees and meet their educational obligations. Moreover, the economic terrain in our country and in most countries of the world has shifted. It is no longer the traditional workers who have money.

Rather, the creative and those who tap into technology make lots of money driving economies up and placing pressure on the underprivileged to think of how to improve their economic welfare. This implies that while college students in the 70s had to deal with economic pressures relating to high cost of education, current crop of college students have to deal with high cost of education and pressure related to being creative or not being able to tap into a fast shifting economy.

To make matters worse, recent economic slumps and credit meltdown related challenges only imply increased difficulty in accessing credit facilities. Government support for students has relatively expanded since the 1970s but pressures the economy make government interventions largely wanting. Jobs are hard to come by and as unemployment bites, fees related complications are compounded.

Although parental pressure on children has been decreasing over the years, parental pressure on students still remains. Parents expect value for money spent on children’s education. They want children to work hard and meet given minimum educational standards and requirements. Parents expect students to undertake certain majors. All these expectations exert considerable pressure on college students.

However, present day parents are more liberal in their attitudes compared to their 1970’s compatriots. Students are expected to exercise their free will and be more responsible towards their own success in life. Factors such as changes in how economy runs, best paying jobs, how to succeed in life and beliefs about wealth creation have contributed a lot towards lowering parental pressure on college students.

Peer pressure remains an important aspect in a college student’s life. Peer pressure is very high in our highly consumption driven economy. The masters of consumerism are always producing new gadgets and goods with appeal to college students. Students are under pressure to match their peer in terms of what gadgets they have or own.

Most crucially, competition among college students has transformed from focus on academic excellence or college activities to exploits in the world of trade and even sport on the world arena. There are so many young billionaires and millionaires around. There are so many young achievers in our world of today. This has an influence on individual college students in terms of what they do with themselves.

Coupled with increasingly liberalist attitudes, college students have great influence on each other in terms of how they live their lives. Peer approval plays a more critical role in determining what is a considered right or wrong among college students of today than was the case in the 1970s. Parents of today tend to be liberals and even where the exhibit rigid traditional attitudes, students are more rebellious towards traditional values and principles.

Finally, the pressures and challenges in the world of today and numerous and very diverse. The world of today is a fast changing reality where nothing is given. The things and processes that traditionally worked no longer work. Globalization has opened new frontiers and also opened a Pandora’s Box of challenges. In such like circumstances, each individual college student is personally much challenged. A key question for the youth of today is how to make quick Buicks or get rich very quickly.

Anchored on information technology, quite a number of young people have made it big. The idea that traditional ways of life no longer work have also provided impetus. Consequently, personal or self induced pressure is very high for present day college students. While students in the 1970s were under pressure to get good grades, college students of today have high self induced pressure geared towards creativity and building systems to tap into opportunities in society.

From the foregoing discussions, it is clear that the pressures students of the 1970s endured are the same as those faced by students of today. However, the prominence of pressures like parental pressure has waned while self-induced pressures have gained prominence. Additionally, changing socio-economic circumstances have transformed the expression of or how the different pressures register.

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Analysis Of College Pressures William Zinsser

In his essay, College Pressures,” William Zinsser discusses the various burdens faced by college students, including economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures. The essay is written in a straightforward manner and uses understandable metaphors to make the reading more interesting. Zinsser uses rhetorical questions and classical appeal to explain the situations without using complex terminology that only college professors can comprehend. He explains how each pressure affects the students and encourages parents to be supportive of their children during this time in their lives. Zinsser ends the essay by reassuring parents that it is okay for their children to be unsure of what they want to be and that things will work out in the end.”

William Zinsser’s essay “College Pressures” highlights the various burdens faced by college students. These pressures, which include economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures, are introduced by Zinsser in a way that may initially confuse the reader.

The writer begins by someone writing notes to another person, but it is not clear who is speaking. Zinsser then clarifies that the notes are written by a student to his dean, expressing the student’s overwhelming pressure and desire to give up. Zinsser effectively moves the essay forward by using rhetorical questions, which he promptly answers to support his argument. The use of ethos is evident in Zinsser’s utilization of classical appeal in College Pressures.

He is explaining to the parents the thoughts and self-imposed stress that students experience. College Pressures is written in a clear and direct manner, avoiding complex language that only academics would understand. The author also employs relatable metaphors to make the reading more engaging.

In this classification and division essay, Zinsser discusses the various pressures faced by students. For instance, when discussing the lack of blame for these pressures, he empathetically states, “Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt” (Zinsser 244).

In the essay, Zinsser details the various pressures that students face and provides an engaging narrative that captivates the reader’s attention. He is determined to communicate his message to parents and discusses the impact of each pressure on students. Throughout the essay, Zinsser portrays a negative perspective of students.

In expressing his understanding, the author acknowledges that he has presented a gloomy portrayal of modern-day students, leading them to appear quite serious (246). However, this was never his intention; rather, he seeks to convey that college should not be a period marked by excessive self-imposed stress.

In his essay, William Zinsser reassures parents that it is common for college students to change their career paths multiple times before deciding on their desired profession. By doing so, he emphasizes that it is perfectly acceptable to enter college without a clear career goal in mind. Ultimately, Zinsser aims to alleviate the pressure on college students who already have numerous concerns by urging parents not to further burden them with directives on life choices.

He desires for parents to provide maximum support for the sake of their children.

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COLLEGE PRESSURES -- William Zinsser An Article from The Norton Reader, Norton-Simon Publishing, 1978     Dear Carlos: I desperately need a dean's excuse for my chem midterm which will begin in about 1 hour. All I can say is that I totally blew it this week. I've fallen incredibly, inconceivably behind. Carlos: Help! I'm anxious to hear from you. I'll be in my room and won't leave it until I hear from you. Tomorrow is the last day for ....... Carlos: I left town because I started bugging out again. I stayed up all night to finish a take-home make-up exam and am typing it to hand in on the 10th. It was due on the 5th. P.S. I'm going to the dentist. Pain is pretty bad. Carlos: Probably by Friday I'll be able to get back to my studies. Right now I'm going to take a long walk. This whole thing has taken a lot out of me. Carlos: I'm really up the proverbial creek. The problem is I really bombed the history final. Since I need that course for my major I .... Carlos: Here follows a tale of woe. I went home this weekend, had to help my Mom, and caught a fever so didn't have much time to study. My professor ..... Carlos: Aargh!! Trouble. Nothing original but everything's piling up at once. To be brief, my job interview ..... Hey Carlos, good news! I've got mononucleosis. Who are these wretched supplicants, scribbling notes so laden with anxiety, seeking such miracles of postponement and balm? They are men and women who belong to Branford College, one of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University, and the messages are just a few of the hundreds that they left for their dean, Carlos Hortas -- often slipped under his door at 4 a.m. -- last year. But students like the ones who wrote those notes can also be found on campuses from coast to coast -- especially in New England, and at many other private colleges across the country that have high academic standards and highly motivated students. Nobody could doubt that the notes are real. In their urgency and their gallows humor they are authentic voices of a generation that is panicky to succeed. My own connection with the message writers is that I am master of Branford College. I live in its Gothic quadrangle and know the students well. (We have 485 of them.) I am privy to their hopes and fears -- and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night ("Does anybody ca-a-are?"). If they went to Carlos to ask how to get through tomorrow, they come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don't want to hear such liberating news. They want a map -- right now -- that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media -- the million dollar athlete, the wealthy executive -- and the glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villians -- to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are are no villians, only victims.     "In the late 1960's," one dean told me, "the typical question that I got from students was, 'Why is there so much suffering in the world?' or 'How can I make a contribution?' Today it's, 'Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?' Many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said, "They're trying to find an edge -- the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal." Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale's official system of grading, A means "excellent" and B means "very good." Today, looking very good is no longer enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh, Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170 students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000. It's all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it's nice to think that admission officers are really reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with A's that they regard a B as positively shameful. The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the "gentlemen's C," when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses -- music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion -- that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would employ graduates who have this range and curiousity rather than those who narrowly purused safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don't know if they are getting A's or C's, and I don't care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can't. Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now comes to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60% of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what colleges receive in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs higher every year, of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers -- colleges, parents and students, joined by the common bond of debt. Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part-time at college and full-time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years -- loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used "he," incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themsleves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn't yet caught up with that fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people. "Do you want to go to medical school?" I ask them. "I guess so," they say, without conviction, or "Not really." "Then why are you going?" "Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They're paying all this money and ..." Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well; they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy -- subjects with no "practical" value. Where's the payoff on the humanities? It's not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do, indeed, pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics -- an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective -- are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many thaters would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession -- courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or as I sometimes put it, "pre-rich." But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obligated to fulfill their parents' expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them. I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one -- she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-rounded person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a "dumb" thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the "dumb" courses her father wants her to take -- at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students -- no small achievement in itself -- she deserves to follow her muse. Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year. "I had a freshman student I'll call Linda, " one dean told me, "who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn't tell her that Barabra had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda." The story is almost funny -- except that it's not. It's symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clack of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due : "Will I get everything done?" Probably they won't. They will get sick. They will get "blocked". They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. Hey Carlos, Help! Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment. "Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting," one dean points out, "it's just bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic works, psychologically." Why can't the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor's main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and doesn't know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He didn't sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought from home. That's what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for. To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students don't have as much time to spend. They also are overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their fingernails onto a shrinking profession. If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments -- as departmental chairmen or members of committees -- that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe. Ultimately it will be the student's own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents' dreams and their classmates' fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future. "Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience," says Carlos Horta. "College should be open-ended; at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along, it's almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist -- that they've got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best-paying slot." "They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to a life of colorless mediocrity. They'll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing." I have painted too drab a portrait of today's students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story: if they were so dreary I wouldn't so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are unusually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known. Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extra-curricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, peform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it. This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the '60's they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale's residential colleges as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions -- as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians -- with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies. They also can't afford to be the willing slave for organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper whose past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr. -- much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that "newsies" routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today's student will write one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I've never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet. If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it's because that's where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It's why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one "right" way to get ahead -- that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians -- a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitious route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.                    

More Pressure?

In William Zinsser�s essay, �College Pressures,� he discusses the pressures that college students faced in the late 1970�s.   Zinsser focuses on four main pressures, which include economic, parental, peer, and self-induced pressures.   Zinsser feels that these college students are under so much pressure, but they should also realize that there is no �right� way to get ahead, and a career does not have to be preplanned.   While I agree with Zinsser that these four kinds of pressures exist, I also think that there are new and different pressures today.

Zinsser says that we live in a brutal economy, when explaining why he feels that students are under economic pressure.   The costs for most private colleges, in the late 1970�s were about 7,000 dollars per year.   He says that students never got ahead, because after they graduated, they were working to pay off their loans (128-129).   I agree with Zinsser that there is a lot of economic pressure.   Today, costs for private schools are soaring at anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 dollars per year in Minnesota.   Quite a jump from the costs he was talking about.   Most of us college students don�t make that much money each year.   Most college students I know are likely to be working a full time job, just to pay for their schooling.   And even when they do that, there are still loans they need to pay for all of it.   Zinsser never mentions that students did this in the late 70�s.   Although I know there were pressures when Zinsser was writing, I believe that there are more now, and there will continue to be a greater number of pressures.

Zinsser discusses parental pressure by saying that the parents are pushing their children to go into a high paying profession.   He says that parents wanted the best for their children by trying to get them into good professions, but some of the students wanted to do other things.   The college students wanted to fulfill their parents� expectations, while they also knew that the expectations that are right for their parents, may not have been right for them (130).   One thing Zinsser doesn�t mention of the seventies, that is important today, is that most parents don�t pay for college.   It seemed as if most students back then had much of their education paid for by their parents.   This may be one reason that parental pressure is not quite as great today.   Maybe the parents of the 70�s felt they had a right to say what their children did, since they were paying for it.   Today, I don�t think most parents would have the right to tell their children which profession to go into, because most of us pay for it ourselves.   Many parents I know don�t have enough money pay for all of their children�s college education.   Yet, even the parents who do have the money to pay for it don�t always do so.   One possibility for this could be that education is valued less today than it was in the 70�s.   I think the parental pressure is different now.   Sure, many parents want their children to do well, so they are still pushing them in that way.   Yet at the same time, not all parents are helping to pay for it.   My parents want me to go to college, but it seems as if they don�t realize that it costs me money.   I have paid for this first year with scholarships and high school graduation money.   Next year, I will probably have to take out loans to pay for everything.

The third pressure Zinsser talks about is peer pressure.   He says his �students think that every student is working harder and doing better, so the only solution is to study harder still� (131).   I think this might happen sometimes now, but not nearly as much.   Most students now have so many priorities, such as school, work, sports, family, and having a social life.   This makes overexerting themselves with unnecessary homework unheard of.   I don�t usually worry about whether another student has done more work than I do.   I do what is required to get the work done well.   On some assignments, I just do what is required because I have so much other homework to do also.   But most of the time, I would rather write a good paper that is of average length, than a long paper that makes no sense.

Zinsser says the students at Yale pressured themselves also.   They juggled their school with extra-curricular activities (132-133).   I think most students try to do a lot of things in their life.   I juggle school, homework, work, softball, singing, family, a social life, and anything else that may come up every day.   When I am feeling self-pressure, or any other kind of pressure, it can help to have someone to talk to.   Sometimes, when I am feeling pressured with homework, I try to find someone at home who can help me.   Most of the time, my mom and dad are just as clueless as I am, so it doesn�t help.   It seems as if the students in the 70�s had many people to talk to.   They also lived on campus, so they always had peers and other people around to help them with their schoolwork.

Zinsser feels that students at Yale in the 1970�s had many pressures.   They had economic, parental, peer, and personal pressures.   I think that these pressures are very common for students in all colleges.   Although many of the pressures Zinsser writes about are the same as they are today, I think we have more pressures now.

(6 paragraphs, 937 words, 3 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font)

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"College Pressures" By William Zinsser Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Students , Education , College , Family , Parents , Stress , Pressure , Literature

Published: 2021/01/31

There can be a lot of pressures that any person may encounter in life. It can also influence one’s nature. One very good example for this is the situation when students have to deal with different pressures from peers, parents, concerns, and monetary issues during the course of their college life. Meeting new friends, teachers, places and encountering new experiences can be an issue. Pressures can be regarded as affirmative or undesirable dependent on the burden it conveys an individual. This paper is a discussion based on an essay entitled, ‘College Pressures’ by William Zinsser. It has a particular purpose on making parents aware of the loads of complications that college students face during the course of their college life. The essay instigates with some sort of conversation from a student. But one maybe confused as to who the person is and who is he or she talking to. Afterward, it will be revealed that the student is actually talking to his dean. In this manner, readers will be able to get the idea that the writer is merely illustrating what is inside the mind of the student. He relates four types of pressures that students may encounter such as financial, parents, peer, and those that are self-induced. It can be detrimental to someone who is not ready to accept that it is but normal to encounter new things, people and atmosphere.Nevertheless, there are also persons who perceive this pressure as challenges. When one deems any form of pressure as a challenge, he or she becomes resilient. Although this essay is based on the students’ pressure encounters during the latter part of 1970’s, it has the same intensity as to how it proposed as a means for contemplation for everybody that reads the paper. The writer tactfully relates that no one is to blame for these pressures and that it is normal to experience them. He first relates that there exists the problem on money to support oneself for college education. And that the economic difficulty has been brutal to everybody and it does not exempt students. On the part of the parents or guardians, the writer strongly suggested that they should be responsible enough to handle their children or kids going through college. Parents sought the best for their kids by stimulating to have good careers, but there are students who desired to sort out other ventures.  It creates pressure for some college students who desired to accomplish their parents’ or guardians’ anticipations, despite the fact that they likewise recognized that the anticipations that are correct for their guardians or parents, may not have make them fulfilled.

Moreover, the third pressure that the writer deliberate about is peer pressure.

Peer pressure is mostly experienced by freshmen students. He inferred that peer pressure is a feeling of contending with a classmate or of an acquaintance academically. The writer sets an example of two young ladies in their freshmen year who never realized that were just putting pressures on themselves as they thought of each other as a competition. The more each of them think that one is performing better than the other; both of them exert mote efforts in studying. This kind of situation is apparently observed during 1970’s of which reveals the fact that the students are more focused. On the other hand, nowadays, most of the students tend to have varieties of distractions. It is quite typical for students to have a lot of priorities. Students are mostly inclined to engage themselves to a lot of extra-curricular activities that frequently keep them very busy. However, they are not aware that they are just instigating or creating their own personal pressure. The writer also divulges that he seemed to have perceived the students in negative way but he realizes this fact and tried to explain that it is normal for a student to go through pressures. Zinsser conferred that these identified college pressures had been a burden for the college students to relish or appreciate their peer undertakings. To pick their own college paths to follow and to ensure whatever stuffs they discover motivating and more pleasurable to organize. The burdens he had recognized are measured as interruption for the students to follow their special ideas. He deliberated that these identified pressures had been upsetting the students but he did not expose that these pressures in due course will be regarded as precious for the students. It is a fact that these identified pressure which Zinsser deliberated as glitches and interruptions for students will be a significant feature in completing their true aspirations in life. He concludes this essay in a manner that illustrates the parents that numerous individuals enter college and alter their pathways numerous times before really picking what they desire to be. He ensures this notion as a means of expressing that it is okay to enter college uncertain of what one desires to turn out to be. Everything will fall into place in the long run. The writer is mustering some efforts to inform parents that college students obtain sufficient knowledge or innate abilities on themselves and certainly it is not anymore necessary for parents to contribute them a tough time concerning decisions on what to prepare or organize with their lives. He strongly suggested that parents should just remain as support force for their children. The statistics acquired through numerous studies focus the problem or pressure of college student anxiety and the numerous concerns students go through because of the exceedingly stressful setting in schools and institutions of higher education. In William Zinsser’s paper, “College Pressures,” he deliberates the pressures that college students confronted in the late part of 1970’s. He was able to present significant details about the real situation of students in their college life. Although there might be a few differences form the pressures of complications he discussed but in general aspects most of the essential factors are the same. The four leading pressures, which take account of financial, peers, parents and personal pressures are still pertinent nowadays.   Just like what Zinsser feels that the four main causes of pressures for college students before are still felt by students now. The solutions are correspondingly the same.  Zinsser’s essay served as a compelling piece for readers to ponder and reflect upon.

Works Cited:

Zinsser, William. “College Pressures”. The Norton Reader, Norton-Simon Publishing, 1978. < http://www.life.umd.edu/classroom/univ100i/zinsser.html Lewin, Tamar.“Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen”. The New york Times. January 26, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27colleges.html?_r=0  Thaque 29. “Response to Zinsser’s “College Pressures”. November 16, 2013. <https://wrt30306fall2013.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/response-to-zinssers-college- pressures-2/

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Should college essays touch on race? Some feel the affirmative action ruling leaves them no choice

CHICAGO — When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action . The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds.

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, his first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child. Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “I wrestled with that a lot.”

Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Oregon, had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Decker wrote he felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” wrote Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane, in New Orleans, because of the region’s diversity.

Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

The first drafts of her essay didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said.

Her final essay describes how she came to embrace her natural hair. She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“Criticism will persist,” she wrote “but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

Ma reported from Portland, Oregon.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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This year, colleges must choose between fast financial aid offers, or accurate ones

Sequoia Carrillo

Countless prospective college students are eager to commit to colleges, acceptances in hand, but are stuck waiting for one last piece of the puzzle: their college financial aid package. Those offers are coming later than normal this year, due to the troubled launch of the U.S. Education Department's new federal student aid form, or FAFSA.

Some institutions are doing anything they can to get those offers out as soon as possible – even if it means they aren't a guarantee. For example, Cal Poly Pomona has decided to send "provisional" aid offers for now, with final offers coming by the time students officially start classes.

This year it's a slow crawl to financial aid packages for students

"The goal is to have these done, you know, for sure before school starts," says Jeanette Phillips, head of financial aid there. Phillips says other financial aid administrators in the California State University system, the largest in the country, have decided to do the same thing.

With students and families eagerly awaiting the results of their FAFSA applications, college financial aid offices are in a tough position: They need to send aid offers out as soon as possible to give students time to weigh their options, but they also don't yet trust the FAFSA data the Education Department is sending them.

That's because the data has been "riddled with errors or incompletions," says Justin Draeger, the president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

To navigate this dilemma, Draeger says, "different schools are trying different tactics."

"Some schools are going to send out provisional or estimated aid offers as soon as they can. Other schools aren't able to sort through the data. They feel like they are stuck until they get more information."

At Oregon State University, the financial aid office is taking its time. Keith Raab, the head of financial aid at OSU, tells NPR they've had the conversation about provisional offers, but ultimately decided against it.

Exclusive: The Education Department says it will fix its $1.8 billion FAFSA mistake

"Our experience has been that those mostly add to confusion instead of making things more clear," he says. "Students and families don't understand why things change and we don't want to add to their stress."

Instead, they're trying to be transparent about timelines, and sending frequent updates to students and parents who have already submitted their forms.

Towson University, outside Baltimore, is taking a similar approach. Boyd Bradshaw, who runs the admissions and financial aid offices there, says he wants families to know the school will be flexible.

"We're going to work individually with each student to make sure that their financial aid package doesn't deter their attendance," he says.

Compounding FAFSA delays have forced colleges to act

The revamped FAFSA got off to a slow start last year, debuting three months late , and pushing back the timeline for colleges to start processing student financial aid offers. Those offers were further delayed while the department worked to fix a FAFSA math error that failed to take inflation into account. The department said it would start sending financial aid data to schools in the first half of March, just weeks before the traditional college commitment deadline of May 1.

Schools did start to receive student data in March, but in many cases, it was only by the handful : single-digit numbers of student files to start, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. The department finally cleared the backlog of applications last Friday, but shortly after, it announced that about 20% of the data was impacted by other errors.

A new FAFSA setback means many college financial aid offers won't come until April

The department said it "recognizes how important it is that schools and states have the information they need to extend financial aid offers and that families have the information they need to make critical education decisions."

In an email to NPR, a department spokesperson said they are working to make it easier for students to apply for and receive financial aid.

The compounding delays have pushed many schools – including George Mason University in Northern Virginia and Colorado State University – to shift their commitment deadlines to mid-May or June.

And while the department is working to fix many of the errors, one is still causing difficulty for some mixed-status families, or families where the students are citizens, but the parents or guardians are not. For a while it wasn't possible for parents without a social security number , which many non-citizens don't have, to fill out the new form. In mid-March the department said they had fixed the problem, but was aware of continued difficulties for some students.

Some students are still locked out

Georgina García Mejía, a senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, D.C., has been trying to submit her FAFSA since the beginning of February.

"I try like, four times a week," she says. She submits the form over and over hoping for a different response. García Mejía has citizenship, but her mom does not, so she falls into that bucket of students from mixed-status families who are still locked out.

Yet another FAFSA problem: Many noncitizens can't fill it out

García Mejía hopes to go to Towson University, where she's already been accepted, to stay close to her family and work toward a nursing degree. Towson's commitment deadline is May 15.

"I'm scared that the deadline is coming really soon," she says. "And I won't be able to get the help that I want."

The only guidance her counselors can give her is to call the FAFSA helpline and see if someone picks up. She says she hasn't been calling every day, but definitely most days. "I'm never able to get to someone."

Boyd Bradshaw, at Towson, says he's been hearing from a lot of mixed-status students like García Mejía.

"We've heard the same story," he says. "And there's no real answer to why it works for some and not for others."

His advice for mixed-status applicants is to try the FAFSA helpline first, and if that doesn't work, reach out to Towson's financial aid office.

"We're not going to shut our doors, particularly with students who are having these challenges."

His office is hoping to get aid offers out to students by the end of April. Towson has already extended its commitment deadline once, and Bradshaw says he's not opposed to extending it again, if the errors continue.

"What I can tell families: 110% we will be flexible after May 15," he says.

This year, everyone is flexible, whether they want to be or not.

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Elite College Admissions Have Turned Students Into Brands

By Sarah Bernstein

Ms. Bernstein is a playwright, a writing coach and an essayist in Brooklyn.

“I just can’t think of anything,” my student said.

After 10 years of teaching college essay writing, I was familiar with this reply. For some reason, when you’re asked to recount an important experience from your life, it is common to forget everything that has ever happened to you. It’s a long-form version of the anxiety that takes hold at a corporate retreat when you’re invited to say “one interesting thing about yourself,” and you suddenly believe that you are the most boring person in the entire world. Once during a version of this icebreaker, a man volunteered that he had only one kidney, and I remember feeling incredibly jealous of him.

I tried to jog this student’s memory. What about his love of music? Or his experience learning English? Or that time on a summer camping trip when he and his friends had nearly drowned? “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “That all seems kind of cliché.”

Applying to college has always been about standing out. When I teach college essay workshops and coach applicants one on one, I see my role as helping students to capture their voice and their way of processing the world, things that are, by definition, unique to each individual. Still, many of my students (and their parents) worry that as getting into college becomes increasingly competitive, this won’t be enough to set them apart.

Their anxiety is understandable. On Thursday, in a tradition known as “Ivy Day,” all eight Ivy League schools released their regular admission decisions. Top colleges often issue statements about how impressive (and competitive) their applicant pools were this cycle. The intention is to flatter accepted students and assuage rejected ones, but for those who have not yet applied to college, these statements reinforce the fear that there is an ever-expanding cohort of applicants with straight A’s and perfect SATs and harrowing camping trip stories all competing with one another for a vanishingly small number of spots.

This scarcity has led to a boom in the college consulting industry, now estimated to be a $2.9 billion business. In recent years, many of these advisers and companies have begun to promote the idea of personal branding — a way for teenagers to distinguish themselves by becoming as clear and memorable as a good tagline.

While this approach often leads to a strong application, students who brand themselves too early or too definitively risk missing out on the kind of exploration that will prepare them for adult life.

Like a corporate brand, the personal brand is meant to distill everything you stand for (honesty, integrity, high quality, low prices) into a cohesive identity that can be grasped at a glance. On its website, a college prep and advising company called Dallas Admissions explains the benefits of branding this way: “Each person is complex, yet admissions officers only have a small amount of time to spend learning about each prospective student. The smart student boils down key aspects of himself or herself into their personal ‘brand’ and sells that to the college admissions officer.”

Identifying the key aspects of yourself may seem like a lifelong project, but unfortunately, college applicants don’t have that kind of time. Online, there are dozens of lesson plans and seminars promising to walk students through the process of branding themselves in five to 10 easy steps. The majority begin with questions I would have found panic-inducing as a teenager, such as, “What is the story you want people to tell about you when you’re not in the room?”

Where I hoped others would describe me as “normal” or, in my wildest dreams, “cool,” today’s teenagers are expected to leave this exercise with labels like, Committed Athlete and Compassionate Leader or Environmentally Conscious Musician. Once students have a draft of their ideal self, they’re offered instructions for manifesting it (or at least, the appearance of it) in person and online. These range from common-sense tips (not posting illegal activity on social media) to more drastic recommendations (getting different friends).

It’s not just that these courses cut corners on self-discovery; it’s that they get the process backward. A personal brand is effective only if you can support it with action, so instead of finding their passion and values through experience, students are encouraged to select a passion as early as possible and then rack up the experience to substantiate it. Many college consultants suggest beginning to align your activities with your college ambitions by ninth grade, while the National Institute of Certified College Planners recommends students “talk with parents, guardians, and/or an academic adviser to create a clear plan for your education and career-related goals” in junior high.

The idea of a group of middle schoolers soberly mapping out their careers is both comical and depressing, but when I read student essays today, I can see that this advice is getting through. Over the past few years, I have been struck by how many high school seniors already have defined career goals as well as a C.V. of relevant extracurriculars to go with them. This widens the gap between wealthy students and those who lack the resources to secure a fancy research gig or start their own small business. (A shocking number of college applicants claim to have started a small business.) It also puts pressure on all students to define themselves at a moment when they are anxious to fit in and yet changing all the time.

In the world of branding, a word that appears again and again is “consistency.” If you are Charmin, that makes sense. People opening a roll of toilet paper do not want to be surprised. If you are a teenage human being, however, that is an unreasonable expectation. Changing one’s interests, opinions and presentation is a natural part of adolescence and an instructive one. I find that my students with scattershot résumés are often the most confident. They’re not afraid to push back against suggestions that ring false and will insist on revising their essay until it actually “feels like me.” On the other hand, many of my most accomplished students are so quick to accept feedback that I am wary of offering it, lest I become one more adult trying to shape them into an admission-worthy ideal.

I understand that for parents, prioritizing exploration can feel like a risky bet. Self-insight is hard to quantify and to communicate in a college application. When it comes to building a life, however, this kind of knowledge has more value than any accolade, and it cannot be generated through a brainstorming exercise in a six-step personal branding course online. To equip kids for the world, we need to provide them not just with opportunities for achievement, but with opportunities to fail, to learn, to wander and to change their minds.

In some ways, the college essay is a microcosm of modern adolescence. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a forum for self-discovery or a high-stakes test you need to ace. I try to assure my students that it is the former. I tell them that it’s a chance to take stock of everything you’ve experienced and learned over the past 18 years and everything you have to offer as a result.

That can be a profound process. But to embark on it, students have to believe that colleges really want to see the person behind the brand. And they have to have the chance to know who that person is.

Sarah Bernstein is a playwright, a writing coach and an essayist.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Angel Reese Bids Farewell to LSU, College Basketball With Heartfelt Video Essay

• Author: Karl Rasmussen

In this story:

Angel Reese announced Wednesday morning that she intends to enter the 2024 WNBA draft following LSU's season-ending defeat against Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Monday's Elite Eight .

Shortly after her announcement, Reese bid farewell to the Tigers and all of her fans across the country on a more personal level, sharing a heartfelt video essay to her social media accounts. In the video, Reese thanked her supporters and expressed her gratitude to those who helped her along her journey.

"I'm leaving college with everything I've ever wanted," Reese said. "A degree. A national championship. And this platform I could have never imagined. This is for the girls that look like me, that's going to speak up on what they believe in, it's unapologetically you. To grow up in sports and have an impact on what's coming next.

"This was a difficult decision, but I trust the next chapter because I know the author. Bayou Barbie, out."

Grateful for these last four years and excited for this next chapter. #BAYOUBARBIEOUT pic.twitter.com/EvkzUW08JV — Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) April 3, 2024

Reese played two seasons at LSU after transferring from the University of Maryland. With the Tigers, she racked up a multitude of accolades and won a national championship last season, vaulting herself into the national spotlight in the process. Across 69 games for LSU, Reese averaged 20.9 points and 14.4 rebounds.

After wrapping up a legendary college career and bidding an emotional farewell to her fans, Reese has officially declared her intention to enter the WNBA draft, where she projects as a first-round pick in what figures to be a loaded draft class.

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Trump and allies pressure Nebraska to change how it awards electoral votes

F ormer President Donald Trump and his allies have ramped up pressure for Nebraska lawmakers to change the method the state divvies out electoral college votes, an effort that underscores just how narrow the race for 270 electoral votes could be in the November rematch with President Joe Biden.

The proposed change would move the state to a winner-take-all allocation system from the current system that splits electoral votes between statewide winners and winners of congressional districts. The proposal appeared to have little traction until a last minute push by prominent Republicans placed national attention on the change.

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk kicked off the effort on Tuesday, sending a message on social media urging Nebraska Republicans to act. Hours later, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen voiced support for the change, after not making it a priority during his first 15 months in office.

Trump weighed in himself on Truth Social, saying that he too supported the change.

“Governor Jim Pillen of Nebraska, a very smart and popular Governor, who has done some really great things, came out today with a very strong letter in support of returning Nebraska’s Electoral Votes to a Winner-Take-All System,” the former president wrote. “Most Nebraskans have wanted to go back to this system for a very long time, because it’s what 48 other States do – It’s what the Founders intended, and it’s right for Nebraska. Thank you Governor for your Bold leadership. Let’s hope the Senate does the right thing. Nebraskans, respectfully ask your Senators to support this Great Bill!”

The Nebraska law dividing the state’s electoral votes by congressional district has not been a subject of serious discussion during the legislative session this year and was not a priority of Pillen until Trump’s allies began mounting a pressure campaign on Tuesday.

The sudden move, which caught Nebraska Republicans off guard, comes only two weeks before the state legislative session is scheduled to end April 18.

The speaker of the Legislature, Sen. John Arch, a Republican, seemed to close the door to acting on the matter this year.

“In the Nebraska Unicameral, we have a process,” Arch said in a statement Wednesday. “It includes bill introduction, a committee hearing on every bill and the prioritization of the session’s agenda by the committees and individual members of the Legislature. LB 764 was not prioritized and remains in committee. I’m not able to schedule a bill that is still in committee.”

It remains an open question whether pressure – from the governor or the public – can change his view.

Lawmakers opened a spirited debate Wednesday evening in the State Capitol in Lincoln about whether they should formally consider the winner-take-all measure by attaching it to another piece of legislation, a procedural move that would open the door to a likely filibuster from critics.

“When you realize you can’t win with the current rules, you go back to the drawing board to change the rules so you can win?” said Sen. Jen Day, a Democrat from Omaha.

While the legislature is technically non-partisan, the political lines became clear Wednesday night as the debate stretched on. Several lawmakers who rose in opposition to the proposal said there was nothing preventing Trump from winning the Omaha district, saying he has the same opportunity to make his case to voters as Biden does.

“Come take the electoral vote from Omaha,” said Sen. Megan Hunt, an independent from Omaha. “Come and earn it.”

Nebraska lawmakers rejected one attempt Wednesday night to attach the winner-take-all electoral vote measure to a broader government spending and policy bill.

Supporters said they would try again on Thursday to attach the Trump-backed proposal to another unrelated measure.

Nebraska and Maine are the only two states in the country that divide their electoral votes by congressional district – an unusual system that in 2020 allowed Biden to win one vote from Nebraska, a red state, and Trump to carry one from Maine, a blue state.

For all the last-minute bluster, it’s notoriously difficult to push legislation at the 11 th  hour in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, the nation’s only one-house body of government. A Democratic lawmaker told CNN that a filibuster would be mounted if Republicans pushed the electoral college bill.

“Nebraskans want to keep our fair electoral system in place which is why previous attempts by some Republicans over the last 30 years have failed to undo our split electoral votes,” said Nebraska Democratic chair Jane Kleeb on Wednesday. “We are proud of our unique electoral vote system and know all too well the economic benefits it generates with a national focus on our state.”

There are only two days left in the session for new bills to be introduced. The proposal’s sponsor, state Sen. Loren Lippincott, had previously suggested the necessary votes weren’t there for his proposal to pass.

“In essence, for right now, it’s probably stalled in committee,” Lippincolt told the Lincoln Journal Star on Tuesday. “I don’t like to report that, but that’s the facts.”

Republicans have unsuccessfully tried to repeal this law before. A current proposal has been stuck in committee since 2023, without sufficient votes for a full vote, and it was barely discussed this year until Trump’s allies began pushing for the change this week.

For weeks, the Biden campaign has had its eye on Omaha and its one electoral vote.

For all the talk of Biden’s blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, winning all three could still leave him short of 270 electoral votes. The 2020 census changed the map based on decreasing populations in Pennsylvania and Michigan, so one of Nebraska’s three electoral votes could become critical should there be a 269-269 tie with Trump.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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