Cooling Burnout.

• Author: ZERNIKE, KATE
• Position: Brief Article

Top colleges are urging do-it-all high school students to ease up on the quest to get in. But how?

The only free time Amy Phan gets these days is for meals--and that's because her school requires her to attend them.

A 17-year-old senior, she takes Advanced Placement English and four other academic courses. She plays three varsity sports. She performs in a wind symphony. She volunteers with the March of Dimes Youth Council. She gives tours at her boarding school, Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, and was chosen by her teachers for a leadership society that organizes open houses for visitors. In her dormitory, she is a prefect, meaning she has to be on duty at all hours to give advice and comfort to younger students.

She put it all on her college applications, including the one for Dartmouth, her first choice.

"Sometimes I feel it's too stressful, but everyone else is doing the same thing," Amy says. "We all want to do everything we can to get a leg up on getting into college."

JOCKEYING FOR ADMISSION

She's right. In fact, admissions officers at the most selective colleges say the application process has become such a high-stress exercise in resume packing that the nation's top students are arriving on their campuses on the brink of burnout.

At Harvard University, the admissions office issued a report on burnout, available to students, lamenting that they "seem like dazed survivors of some bewildering lifelong boot camp." And at a recent meeting of the College Board in New York, admissions officers packed shoulder to shoulder into a discussion group about how to make sure high school students get more sleep.

"We think this generation is wonderful in every way, but we worry that unless something changes, we're going to lose a lot of them," says William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard. "Too many of them are going to experience one form or another of burnout, and that would be a tragedy."

Charles A. Deacon, dean of admissions at Georgetown University, agrees. "My biggest worry is, the ages of 15 through 18 are critical years for kids to have a balance," he says. "The ones who are driven into these top schools and are in certain top prep schools or affluent public schools don't have it."

The admissions process may have spun out of control, unfairly benefiting those who can afford expensive tutors, consultants, college essay services, or summer travel. And admissions officers say applicants seem to have...