Pressure to Perform

Academic pressure to perform well in school is a stressor for most high school and college students. When grades can greatly broaden or narrow your chances at getting into a university or getting the career of your dreams, who wouldn't want a boost to set themselves up for success? Doctor prescribed amphetamines administer that necessary boost, and many students are choosing to use these drugs whether or not they have a prescription.

The problem with prospective colleges and employers is that they often love to see their applicants' "stats" on paper (e.g. SAT scores, grades, and other standardized test scores). Unfortunately, the more students feel pressure from teachers and parents to perform better, the more likely they are to turn to questionable means in order to obtain higher scores. If, as New York Times writer Alan Schwarz claims, up to one-third of students choose to take these academic performance-enhancing drugs, will these scores maintain their integrity for much longer? In the end, these scores that colleges and employers value so highly will consequently mean less and less due to the unfair advantage some students using amphetamines have over their non-drug-abusing counterparts. We can't weed out the scores that were enhanced by drugs from the scores that were genuinely earned.

Educational institutions and employers may need to find other ways to measure the aptitude and abilities of their prospective applicants if they hope to provide equal opportunities for everyone. Teaching to the test and pressuring students to study harder if they want to have a future adds enough strain to force some students to resort to some desperate measures. Is this a sign that our educational system needs some revising? Possibly. But the issue also screams "white-people problems!" It is difficult for us to label our upper-middle-class white youth as deviant, but societal pressures can even make our most privileged population turn to illegal means if that's what it takes to please and impress the right people.