MVLA schools consistently post impressive college-acceptance stats, but parents and students increasingly talk about burnout, anxiety, and a culture where a B feels like failure. Are we raising high achievers or manufacturing stress disorders?
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Add your commentI taught at MVHS for eleven years before retiring. The students I worried most about were never the ones struggling academically. They were the ones getting straight A's with hollow eyes, who had no idea what they actually liked or wanted because every choice had been optimized for a college application since middle school. Brilliant kids who couldn't answer 'what makes you happy' without pausing for a very long time.
My daughter is a junior at Los Altos right now and she slept four hours last night. On a Wednesday. She is 16. I don't care what the college acceptance stats look like — I would trade every Ivy admit for a school culture where my kid isn't running on caffeine and cortisol. We have completely lost the plot here.
I graduated from Mountain View High in 2019 and honestly? Both. It pushed me to get into a school I never thought I'd get into, AND I had a full-blown panic attack in the parking lot before AP Calc every single Thursday morning for an entire semester. Those two things coexist and people need to stop pretending they don't.
Can someone explain to me why we keep citing 'college acceptance stats' like that's the only metric that matters for a school district? What are the stats on student mental health referrals? On sleep averages? On kids who said they genuinely enjoyed high school? Because I'm guessing those numbers tell a very different story.
To the people saying 'just don't take so many APs' — have you MET the social dynamics at these schools? My kid dropped from 5 APs to 3 last year for her mental health and her friend group treated it like she'd announced she was dropping out. The pressure isn't just institutional, it's peer-enforced. You can't opt out of the culture by changing your schedule.
Moved here from Ohio two years ago for work and I was NOT prepared for how these kids talk about school. My son came home his first week saying he felt dumb because he 'only' got a 94 on a quiz. A 94!! Back in Columbus that's a celebration. Here it's apparently cause for a study group intervention. Something is off.
Genuine question for parents who went through this themselves and turned out fine: do you actually remember what it felt like, or have you just retconned the stress into 'character building' in hindsight? Asking sincerely because I think a lot of this conversation is adults misremembering their own adolescence.
born and raised in MV, my parents both worked at NASA Ames, this pressure is not new people. we were doing this in the 90s too. the difference is now kids have instagram showing them everyone elses acceptance letters in real time. the academics didnt break us. social media is breaking them. fix that first
ok but can we talk about the tutoring industry that has basically built a second economy in this zip code?? there are kids in my son's friend group whose parents are spending $400 a week on private tutors ON TOP of regular school. at that point who is actually achieving anything, the kid or the team of adults propping him up
Fun fact: Stanford actually PREFERS students from less competitive high schools because grade inflation at places like MVHS makes it impossible to distinguish applicants. So all this pressure isn't even giving kids a real advantage — the admissions offices already know and discount it. Look it up.
Hard disagree with the premise of this whole discussion. MVLA schools offer literally dozens of non-AP pathways, sports, arts programs, vocational tracks. Nobody is forcing anyone into six AP classes. Parents and students CHOOSE this treadmill and then blame the school. Personal accountability exists.
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