What did CollegeData users find most stressful about their senior year of high school and what advice do they have for the high school grads of 2025? Here are the results of CollegeData’s 2024 Senior Stress Survey.
If you’re a high school senior, you’re likely well acquainted with stress. In a 2020 Yale University survey of high school students, almost 80 percent said stress was the feeling they experienced most often during a typical school day.
Senior year can be one of the most stressful times in a student’s life, especially for those applying to college. In addition to juggling school work, family responsibilities, social relationships, jobs, and extracurricular activities, many high school seniors are also navigating an unfamiliar and highly competitive college admissions landscape, figuring out how to finance their education, and making big decisions about their future.
We surveyed* registered users of CollegeData who graduated from high school in 2024 to find out what caused them stress, how stress affected them, and what resources helped them deal with stress.
The biggest senior-year stressors fell into the following areas:
Below is more detail on how students responded within each category.
For the third year in a row, the highest percentage of high school seniors we surveyed (47 percent) said applying to college was the most stressful part of senior year. This percentage includes students who said applying to college in general was their biggest stressor (61 percent) as well as students who cited specific aspects of applying to college, namely SAT/ACT tests (11 percent), the overall level of competition for admission (15 percent) and worries about not getting accepted (13 percent).
When we asked students what single aspect of applying to college was the most stressful, the majority of respondents (38 percent) chose college essays.
Application deadlines stressed out 26 percent:
Another 21 percent said completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was their main source of stress. This isn’t surprising considering the rollout of the new, simplified FAFSA form was plagued by delays, technical difficulties and calculation errors. Financial aid information was delivered to colleges months later than usual, delaying financial aid offers and requiring many students to make college decisions without knowing what their financial aid package would look like or to not enroll at all.
Less stressful factors included asking for letters of recommendation (8 percent), doing college research (6 percent) and college interviews (1 percent).
While applying to college brings on plenty of stress, paying for it can be an additional and constant worry for some students, even long before they’ve made their college lists. As reported by the College Board in its 2023-2024 annual survey of colleges, the average annual college budget (including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and personal expenses) averaged $28,840 for students attending in-state public universities and $60,420 for students attending private colleges. These costs spark anxiety for many students and families.
Of the students we surveyed, 21 percent said the most stressful aspect of applying to college was figuring out how to pay for it. Students mentioned the burden of taking on debt, the high cost of attending college out of state, and concerns about not being able to afford the college of their dreams.
Senior year of high school can be busy enough without applying to college. By senior year, some students have reached top leadership positions in clubs, sports teams, jobs, youth groups, or other activities, and these activities may require a larger time commitment than previous years. As one student explained, “I was the president of three clubs, vice president of one, and a mentor. I also worked 25 hours a week while taking college classes.”
It’s also the last year of high school, and many students want to spend time with their friends and participate in social activities that mark the end of their senior year. “It was very difficult to maintain my social life and my academic focus,” said one student. “I wanted to prioritize school work, but I also was scared of losing all my friends,” added another.
In our survey, about 16 percent of students reported that balancing schoolwork, social life and college apps brought on the most stress.
While junior year of high school can be the most rigorous academic year for college-bound students, many high school seniors continue to take demanding Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and honors courses to impress colleges. While just 8 percent of the students we surveyed cited more demanding courses as their biggest source of stress, other surveys site higher percentages. For example, according to Research.com, three quarters (75 percent) of American high school students and half of middle school students described themselves as “often or always feeling stressed” by schoolwork.
High school graduation is generally a time of celebration, but for 5 percent of the students we surveyed, life after high school was their biggest source of stress. This could be because college is unknown, or because they find the looming responsibilities of adulthood a little daunting.
Stress can impact students in myriad ways, affecting their academic performance; physical, mental and emotional health and well-being; and social relationships. As one student expressed, “This college application season made me feel like a walking corpse, withered and dried like a baked bell pepper.”
A large percentage of students we surveyed (48 percent) said their mental and emotional state was impacted by the stress of senior year. Some mentioned that the stress made them feel anxious, depressed, or less confident. “All the stress really did affect my mental health because I felt really behind. In a way, everyone else knew what they wanted and why, and I just felt stuck and behind.”
We asked students to rate several senior-year stress factors on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being “extremely stressful.” The highest percentage of students (36 percent) rated “paying for college” at level 10, while 34 percent gave the highest rating to “the thought of not getting into your first-choice college.” Another 29 percent gave the highest rating to “competition to get into college.”
Most of our survey respondents reported that they reached out to other people in their lives to help them deal with senior-year stress. Almost 50 percent said they reached out to their friends; 37 percent to their parents or guardians; and 21 percent to a guidance counselor. However, almost 10 percent of survey respondents said they did not talk to anyone about the stress they experienced senior year.
When asked what specific things they did to alleviate their stress, 47 percent of respondents mentioned seeking the advice and support of adults or peers. Students also reported using other stress-busting methods, including listening to music (39 percent), sleeping more (21 percent), exercising more (23 percent) and going online to watch YouTube, check social media or play games (31 percent). Some students (19 percent) eliminated one or more extra-curricular activities to reduce stress.
Here is some of the advice CollegeData users wanted to share with high school students on handling stress senior year.
We hope you’ll keep these survey results, student experiences, and advice in mind as you progress through your senior year of high school. If you are feeling stressed, consider reaching out to friends, family or other adults you know. Remember that stress is a normal human reaction. As these survey results show, if you are feeling stressed out senior year, you are not alone.
*Methodology: Survey results presented in this article were generated from an email survey of CollegeData registered users. The survey was sent to students who graduated high school in 2024. A total of 449 CollegeData registrants completed the survey. Responses were provided anonymously.