DURHAM N.C.
SAT tutors. High-priced essay coaches. Over-the-top parents who make selecting a college feel like a matter of life and death.
They have become commonplace in admissions “hot spots,” largely in the Northeast and on the West Coast places where the college application process is palpably more intense than elsewhere.
But admissions anxiety is creeping into other parts of the country.
It shows up in this fast-growing region, where counselors at the public North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics are hearing more from pushy parents and seeing more pressure on students to apply to college early. Ravenscroft, a college prep school in nearby Raleigh, recently dropped an advanced placement class from the senior curriculum because students were already taking on too much.
A recent college fair in Chapel Hill attracted several parents researching colleges without their children. At Durham School of the Arts, senior Caitlin Millward says homework usually keeps her up past midnight, and she can hardly remember when she last read for fun.
“The colleges want to see kids who aren’t just cogs in a wheel, but nobody has time to be anything else but a cog,” says her frustrated mother, Cathy Millward. “I’m not really happy with the whole game.”
