At Urbana High School in Ijamsville, MD, many students say the pressure to excel has intensified over the past few years. This creates a level of burnout that feels increasingly difficult to manage. As course loads grow heavier and expectations rise across Frederick County Public Schools, students report that the support systems meant to help them keep up have not expanded at the same pace.
National research reflects what Urbana students, Charlotte Thibodoe and Emily Dinh, describe. A 2025 BMC Psychology study found that burnout among students now exceeds levels seen in the general working population, with high rates of emotional exhaustion and academic disengagement. While the study focused on college students, its findings mirror patterns Urbana students say they see every day: long nights of homework, pressure to take advanced classes, and limited time to rest.
A 2025 longitudinal study in Frontiers in Psychology found that sustained academic stress accumulates over time, eventually leading to burnout even among high-achieving students. Many Urbana students experience this same cycle, balancing AP and honors courses, extracurricular sports, and college preparation with little room for breaks.
Students across FCPS share similar experiences Adrian Kabiritsi, a student at Tuscarora High School, described the weekly pressure of assessments: “The most overwhelming part of my week is the tests. I usually have at least one every week, and studying for them while keeping up with my other classes while also doing sports after school gets really overwhelming.”
Support systems exist at Urbana and now other FCPS schools, including counselors, wellness initiatives, tutoring, and teacher office hours. But even so, students often feel these resources are not enough. A 2024 study in Psychology and Education found that even students who actively use coping strategies and school-provided support still report high levels of exhaustion. The study concluded that individual effort isn’t enough when institutional support doesn’t grow alongside academic demands.
Kabiritsi says he doesn’t really utilize school resources:
“I don’t really use any school resources. I don’t think the school provides enough academic support for stress. If I’m stressed, there isn’t much the school can do; I just have to deal with it myself.”
Urbana students describe the same pattern.
Two Urbana juniors, Charlotte Thibodoe and Emily Dinh, say the academic pressure has only intensified this year.
Charlotte, who is enrolled in the IB program, described her workload as “extremely heavy, especially with IB and all my IAs going on.” She said the pressure to take advanced courses is common at Urbana High and even influenced her own decisions:
“Yes, which is why I actually decided to do IB. I wanted to do the most rigorous work that I could do.”
For her, the stress doesn’t end when the school day does.
“Mostly all of it continues at home due to workload and homework, and because my days rotate.”
Emily, also a junior at Urbana, shared similar experiences. She said her workload this year is “definitely harder,” and she feels pressure to take advanced classes because “everyone takes them; it will be good for the future.”
The middle of the week is the most overwhelming for her, especially when tests pile up and the days feel long. Like Charlotte, she gets about eight hours of sleep, and she also does not rely on school resources for academic stress.
The experiences of students at Urbana and across FCPS point to a growing disconnect between academic expectations and the support available to meet them. As workloads intensify and pressure to take advanced courses becomes the norm, many students find themselves navigating stress with limited institutional help. Research shows that burnout doesn’t appear suddenly; it builds over time, especially in high-achieving environments where rest is scarce and rigor is constant. Students say the challenge is not a lack of motivation, but the difficulty of sustaining high performance without enough support. Their voices highlight a need for schools to reassess how they balance rigor with well-being, ensuring that students can excel without sacrificing their mental health in the process.
