At a school such as West Campus, it’s no secret that academic achievement is highly valued. Among the student population here, the highest achievers – those who excel most in academics – are often thought of as having everything under control. We, as a school culture, equate good grades with mental wellness almost as a rule. However, with this assumption prevailing, and perhaps because of it, it may very well be that these high-achieving individuals are the ones most left behind in the conversation around mental health.
It goes without saying, when tackling the issue of grades and student mindsets, that a student’s GPA and the stress in maintaining it can negatively impact mental health for anyone. Countless studies have pointed to this conclusion, whether you’re a student aiming for an A, a B, or just surviving to pass the class. In this regard, such stress is often universal among all types of students and is widely known.
On the other hand, with students who are uniquely on the higher end of academic performance, a complex and lesser-known challenge presents itself. An effect, which I’ll call high-performance isolation. It occurs, it seems, as a result of the way we address mental health in academia.
Normally in high school, when the grades of a certain student start to tank, a set of alarm bells go off. The school is alerted – the counselors especially – and the parents by extension when progress reports come around. Upon seeing visible signs of struggle, this invaluable network of support then reaches out to aid struggling students. In doing so and working closely with students in this situation, counselors often become aware of and can assess said student’s struggles with mental health. Once to that point, counselors can work towards pointing students toward the help they may desperately need.
For the students who perform significantly well in school, a surprisingly different story can play out. When individuals in this category suffer with mental health, there isn’t such an obvious alarm as that which manifested itself in the previous scenario. And when no counselors are alerted and no parents are worried by falling GPAs, no assistance arrives. Alone, these students who struggle internally are unintentionally hung out to dry. In cases such as these, the student must be the one to reach out to help themselves, rather than someone making a motion towards them. As anyone who has struggled with mental health knows, this is an initiative that is easier said than done.
Particularly for students who have higher grade expectations and pressures on them, impostor syndrome can be a contributing factor that stifles any urge to find assistance. As if wearing a declarative banner, students who consistently get good grades in their classes are identified as the typified “high-achievers.” Operating with this ever-present label, students under these conditions, no doubt, begin to feel a sense that they may not really be as intellectual or “brilliant” as society and solid grades dictate. Hence, they feel like an impostor and that any misstep will give them away. Keeping this in mind, it becomes much easier to identify why reaching out for help or for the assistance of counselors can be so daunting for these types of students. Pupils such as these are frequently discouraged because they feel, in asking for help or admitting they can’t handle something alone, that they’d be betraying their reputation as the great student they’ve been made out to be. Whether consciously or subconsciously, this roadblock feeling can turn a simple walk to the counselor’s office into an insurmountable task.
It is necessary to point out that people, especially teens, handle mental health in differing ways. This is why placing grades as a monolithic indication of a student’s mental health leaves out, or isolates, some groups of students from support. Students who have been raised to place the utmost value in grades, are occasionally ones to neglect their personal lives or their own health in the pursuit and maintenance of their academics. Once again, the grades show no signs of struggle because the GPA becomes the biggest priority, while everything else slips.
Predictably, the way we deal with mental health leads “stellar” students struggling with mental health crises, impostor syndrome, and this effect of isolation to an impasse:
They don’t share what’s going on or how they feel, but at the same time, few ask. The combined effect being, these students don’t get the help they need.
On paper, our stellar students seem to be thriving, with good grades and activity in clubs. But with the way some prioritize grades above all else, this can serve as merely a facade. In this way, a student can be wracked by depression, anxiety, and stress or grappling with world-shifting personal events and changes. But if you look at the gradebook, you’d never think so. And so the student in question is put in the “doing-just-fine” category and viewed with very little to worry about.
As we can see, the current criteria our school system employs to assess whether it must intervene to speak with a student, including grades and attendance, may work for some types of students, but may not be an accurate gauge of mental wellbeing for others. This isolation of a portion of our population comes across as a truly problematic reality.
Changing this reality comes down to dedicating more time and shifting more resources to counseling and supportive staff at our schools, as well as widening the net we cast to assess the mental health needs of our student population. With this and other small acts on the personal level, we can extend a hand to those around us and improve the culture of West Campus as a whole.
So, as we journey into May – a month dedicated to mental health awareness – let us all try to reach out to the people around us and simply check in. On top of that, let us seek out those we may normally dismiss as “doing well.” You never know when a smile on the outside and an A in the gradebook could be hiding some deeper troubles on the inside. Lastly, let us give thanks to our counselors on campus and in the district, who undoubtedly do their best and give their all.
