In the life of any high school student, there are times when the pressures of life spike higher than normal. A time when all the commitments made outside of the school halls pile on at the same time as the busiest week of homework. And suddenly students find themselves buried under textbooks, notebooks, flashcards, and an unhealthy amount of stress. Especially for those who are at the top, this feeling can come more often than it would for the average student. 

From the outside, many of the students who walk into Francis Howell Central each day are high achievers; 4.0 GPA’s, student athletes, more clubs than you can count. But on the inside, so many of them are so close to cracking under the pressure of others, and maybe even moreso, themselves. The bar they set in the past now casting a shadow into their future; leaving doubts and a never ending mountain of outside opinions about their own lives. 

They get lost in the grips of perfectionism while having no free time to achieve perfect. They arrive home from two sports practices with two tests to study for and a 5:30 a.m. alarm. They miss meaningful opportunities for connections with friends at the expense of homework. And at the center of it all, they begin to find their definition of themselves in the work they do confined in rooms dimly lit with fluorescent lighting. Students from the top speak on their lives, their academics, and what that means for their mental wellbeing.