New Sickness Infects High School Students Nationwide Suzanne Lassise

ELLICOTT CITY, MD--- It is 12 AM and parents everywhere believe their teenagers are snug in bed. However, instead of sleeping, their kids are wide awake, studying every ounce of information they could be tested on in a matter of hours. Believing that their children are hardworking individuals, parents are oblivious to the serious malady that is afflicting their offspring. That affliction is often ignored, but no less tragic - a sickness called Numberitis.

Symptoms of Numberitis can be subtle but can include acute anxiousness over acronyms such as GPA and SAT/ACT, obsessive-compulsive focus on miniscule assignments yielding less than 5 points on one’s grade, inability to deal with criticism relating to the depth of academic rigor, and a sheer feeling of worthlessness, especially in comparing class ranking. It can start as early as freshman year and generally lasts until second semester senior year, when it is replaced by a new illness (see Senioritis, page E4).

While the cause is unknown, scientists speculate that in this competitive day and age, millions of prospective college applicants stress over mere numbers in order to prove to colleges that they are intelligent. While most pupils deal with this stress through hard work...