yikes

applying to college has to be one of the scariest thing a young kid goes through during highschool. With all of the stress from school tests, finals and sports there is, enough on the poor kid's plates. Then you throw in apllications, essays, and all the time that they require. Kids are getting entirely too much work to do. How can we expect the best from these kids when we give them minimal time to get it done. Then there is another stressor added upon that for athletes. Recruiting is beggining younger and younger and kids are being forced to stress themselves out 3 years in advance to their actual arrival upon that college campus. How is it fair to make a 13 year old boy or girl make a decision about their life, when that time frame is still 3 to four years away. This seems incredibly unrealistic. Not only does it force children to make an early choice that will echo on in the future, but it also puts a strain on school, their relationships, family time, traveling expenses, not to mention how frustrating it is to be constantly bombarded by recruiting emails. I am currently dealing with this and have been for about a year. It is quite awful and I am so frantic, if anyone even says the word college in front of me I lose it, and frequently have to step or run away from the conversation. Going through this stress at an even figure out what you are going to wear tyounger age seems impossible to me, how could your head even wrap itself around the idea of that big of a decision. How can you picture yourself in four years, when you can not even figure out what to where tomorrow, or what you want to do this weekend.