When I don’t perform well on a test, I feel as if I’m struggling to meet the expectations of my family and community. It’s difficult to return home with a poor test grade when your family expects you to excel academically from a young age. Since the beginning of my sophomore year, I’ve felt immense pressure to take AP classes that I don’t enjoy in order to boost my GPA and class rank. 

For me, specifically, I feel much of this pressure is cultural. The pressure can feel overwhelming at times when the Asian community expects you to get accepted into top colleges and earn outstanding grades. In my experience, students who aren’t willing to put in the hard work and earn good grades are essentially rejected by the community.

The cultural pressure that comes with performing well academically needs to be addressed because academics are frequently valued over a students’ health. Hard work is highly praised, but academic achievement should not come at the expense of a student’s health. Students are skipping lunch to fit in classes they enjoy because their available periods are filled with higher-level classes to please their parents and meet societal expectations. Furthermore, there is a lack of mental health awareness in the community. Even when students earn high grades, they may feel unsatisfied. 

“I also believe that this emphasis on hard work in the Asian society is essentially the reason for the lack of mental health acceptance and awareness in the community. Though mental health is being recognized much more than in the past, older generations still believe one must put aside their emotional health for the sake of greatly contributing to society. Many even assume that mental illnesses affect only a select group of people, these people being deemed outcasts to the community, when in reality, this is obviously not the case. This combination of cultural norms plays a significant role in the academic pressure to get into top colleges,” junior Samirah Rahman explained. 

“I was always encouraged to perform well in high school. Many find this harder said than done, but I think it’s a whole lot more manageable when you actually enjoy the classes you’re taking. That’s why whenever course selection season rolled around, I picked classes that I was genuinely interested in. The natural curiosity for these subjects was enough to move me forward without straining my mental wellbeing,” senior Mohammed Siam said. 

“I think that it causes moderate levels of stress, but more importantly sometimes results in feeling depressed. Even when grades are relatively high, there is a sense of dissatisfaction and looking for improvement,” junior Jacob Yin added. 

The tremendous pressure to perform well throughout high school can become overwhelming for numerous students and countless parents fail to recognize how this impacts their children. They believe that if children perform well in school, it is a good indicator that they will perform well later in life. The pressure to succeed is also linked to socioeconomic status. Because of the generous financial aid, students from families with immigrant parents are more likely to apply to top colleges.

“The pressure to get acceptance into top colleges and perform well academically is overwhelming because my parents always tell me that I have to get a scholarship to a good college… Asian culture puts a lot of emphasis on academic excellence,” junior Jennifer Le said. 

“There definitely is some correlation, although I think much of that correlation is a result of confounding from other factors, such as socioeconomic status and whether or not your family immigrated here. People who are well off likely have the financial means to pay for college without taking on hundreds of thousands in loans, so among the Bengali community around here at least, I noticed that very few of the well-off folks had serious ambitions for “high ranked” colleges. However, it’s a lot more different when it comes to those who aren’t as fortunate and may have immigrated here from a different country. For them, the biggest reason they work back-breaking labor is so their children can become successful. Parents from this category place a high emphasis on education, as they view it as the best opportunity for socioeconomic advancement for their family. And because they have to work so hard to earn for the family, it really hurts them when their dreams are shattered by a yearly $30,000+ bill for their children’s tuition. That’s why top colleges are so revered by this specific group of people, because they come with the great potential of socioeconomic advancement, while also remaining friendly to the budget,” Siam explained.

“Honestly speaking, I’ve felt this pressure for most of my academic career, so in a way, I’ve become used to it. It does become stressful at times when I’m trying to balance all of my assignments and activities. I don’t often have time for activities like socializing or hobbies and sometimes end up spiraling about college and my future because of that stress,” Rahman explained. 

In some cases, though, the pressure originates from not only college prestige but also pure finances. 

“Many people think, ‘Harvard, oh wow that fancy degree must cost a fortune.’ Or ‘Johns Hopkins, sheesh, how much is that going to bankrupt you?’ In reality, it’s quite the opposite. These top schools are generally the most generous ones; a Johns Hopkins education will not bankrupt me exactly because I can’t pay for it. Because I can’t pay for it, they’re more than willing to pay for it on my behalf. If I went to a state school, like Temple or Penn State, it would cost me about 2x more than what Johns Hopkins costs right now because their financial aid systems are not nearly as robust as Hopkins. Hopkins is by far the cheapest option out of all the colleges I got into… The reason my parents want me to get into top colleges and perform well academically is that they don’t want me or themselves to be in massive debt from my college education. They came to America with a vision that my brother and I will grow up to become successful and change the world, and top colleges are really the best opportunity for that, especially for those who aren’t already well off. These colleges are the best in terms of affordability and return on investment, as well as the connections they provide, which are invaluable when it comes to job searching,” added Siam.

Along the way, many students are taking AP classes they do not enjoy because of the GPA boost that is offered compared to Honors and 5.0 classes. Courses are assigned a numerical value depending on the level of the course. Earning an A-plus in an Honors class earns a numerical value of 6.3, which is the equivalent of a B plus in an AP class. Many Asian students feel pressured to take an AP class over Honors classes because there’s a higher weighted numerical value assigned to the AP classes, which is used to compute class rank. 

“In 10th grade, I only took AP classes because it would look good on my resume. I really regretted it because AP classes take up a lot of time, and it was hard to study for it if I didn’t enjoy the topic or was at least interested in it. This year, I am taking AP classes that sound interesting to me. It not only motivates me to learn, but I also don’t feel like I am wasting my time. I also skipped out on a lunch period to fit all the classes I wanted to take. I don’t think it was a good idea because being hungry all the time makes it hard to focus,”  Le explained.  

“I did take extra classes and had to sacrifice a lunch period for them. Part of it was indeed for the GPA boost, but please also see my point above; those were classes I willingly took because I found the subjects to be fascinating. It definitely was a lot to juggle 4 APs at once, but I managed it because of how interesting the subjects were. The lunch sacrifice had no impact on me because we were online the entire 2020-2021 school year, so I could eat during that one-hour break they gave us or in between classes,” Siam added.

“I’m definitely taking AP classes just for the GPA boost and for college applications. I don’t think I would ever take AP Econ if there weren’t 6 college credits available. The reason I’m not taking lunch is to fit in all these classes and a class of my interest, Ceramics. I take a total of  3 AP classes and 3 Honors classes, and it definitely is a heavy workload at times. I feel like I’m just becoming able to properly manage everything. Something I do want to call out is how there is the option to skip lunch. Some students might feel pressured to take more classes even if they can’t have lunch. I feel like this is honestly fueling eating disorders and overall feels unhealthy as academics are being valued over health, ” Rahman said. 

Cultural factors undoubtedly play a significant role in social competition to perform well. Hard work is highly praised and when parents see a great amount of achievement in the Asian community they want the same for their children. 

“There is an aspect of social competition. When my parents see so much achievement in the [Asian] American communities, they want the same. However, they are also worried about poverty in the future,” Yin said. 

“There is also a lot of pressure to go into the medical field… I think my parents want me to get accepted into top colleges and perform academically well because my cousins were accepted into good medical programs,” Le added. 

“I think culture is a big factor in Asian society to get into these top schools. From what I’ve personally noticed, the Asian work ethic is very different from other cultures. Hard work and succeeding from that hard work is highly praised. Those who do not want to put in this effort are essentially outcasted from the community… I think the fact that many Asian parents are immigrants also plays a factor. They had to face many difficulties in life and simply want the best for their children. This is also a reason for the pressure they put on us,” Rahman said.

Students should not have to be outcasted by the community for not meeting the academic expectations of Asian society. Always striving for academic excellence to please society can strain students’ mental health, especially skipping lunch for a GPA boost and higher class rank. While mental health is becoming more accepted, many are ostracized when they speak up about this issue. The emphasis on hard work is very different in this community compared to other cultures. Parents want children to do exceptionally well in school because they believe it will make their children succeed in the future and socioeconomic status is a factor that contributes to this pressure to perform well because it is difficult for immigrant parents to pay for college, making top colleges more sought after because they are generous with financial aid.