Students in top high schools try to cope.

• Position: Academic Stress

Over time, selective high schools have oriented themselves to address a context of increasingly competitive college admissions. School work, college applications, extracurricular activities, and parental expectations all contribute to teenagers' stress.

"School, homework, extracurricular activities, sleep, repeat--that's what it can be for some of these students," says registered nurse and research scientist Noelle Leonard in a study published in Frontiers in Psychology.

According to Leonard, academic, athletic, social, and personal challenges have been regarded as domains of "good stress" for high school-aged youth. However, there is growing awareness that many subgroups of youth experience high levels of chronic stress, to the extent that it impedes their ability to succeed academically, compromises their mental health functioning, and fosters risk behavior.

Furthermore, this chronic stress appears to persist into the college years, and Leonard warns it may contribute to academic disengagement and mental health problems among emerging adults. "We are concerned that students in these selective, high-pressure high schools can get burned out even before they reach college."

When exploring how students managed the various sources of stress described in the study, researchers found they used a variety of coping strategies ranging from healthy, problem-focused coping (including listening to or playing music, playing video games, meditating, or getting away from school) to less adaptive, emotion-focused, internal and external avoidance coping strategies.

'Three main themes emerged as the most dominant adaptive coping strategies, notably, sports and exercise, preventive activities such as good planning skills, and maintaining a balanced perspective on school and grades," explains coauthor Michelle Grethel. "On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is...