In a recent survey, 65% of surveyed Uni students indicated that their parents do not put too much pressure on them but 60% of surveyed students also said that their parents have pressured them to come to school even though they were sick.

One purpose of the survey, which was designed by the journalism class, was to explore the issue of parental pressure at Uni — something students often complain about. The other objective was to find out how much pressure Uni students want their parents to put on them.

Uni parents care a lot about grades: the majority of surveyed students rated how much their parents cared about their grades as 7 or higher on a 10-point scale. Less than 20% of parents check PowerSchool more than once a week. About 20% of parents check PowerSchool a few times a month. However, the same amount of parents don’t know the password to PowerSchool so not all parents care as much about grades.

Grades are also a popular conversation topic between Uni parents and students. About 28% of surveyed students reported that they discuss grades with their parents a few times a month while about 24% of surveyed students said they discuss grades with their parents a few times a week. On the other end of the spectrum about 11% of surveyed students almost never discuss grades with their parents and 10% of surveyed students only discuss grades with their parents at the end of the semester.

Most surveyed Uni students seem content with a middle ground between a lot of pressure and not enough pressure.

“I think it’s unbeneficial if they [parents] exert a lot of pressure because that makes things overwhelming, but if they don’t put enough pressure then I’m not getting the guidance I need,” commented one student.  

However, some surveyed students feel that their parents are putting too much pressure on them.

“I think it would be nice if they gave me a break once in awhile. I always feel so pressured to meet their expectations (which I never seem to do), that it causes a lot of stress on me.

There are even a few surveyed students who wish that their parents would put more pressure on them.

“My parents never ask or talk about how I’m doing in school, which I feel isn’t that great because I don’t have a lot of support to fall back on or helpful motivation.”

More stories will be coming out about pressure to do extracurriculars, pressure to apply to colleges, and other related topics.