Frank Bruni has a column in the Times this week about kids in well-heeled community, who are plain miserable. Some are so miserable that they commit suicide.

The stress level in our own community is no secret. The PTA has a health and wellness committee, which is specificially aimed at keeping kids from mental health disasters. Friends send me newspaper links to a local girl who jumped off a building during her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. Kids do have a lot of pressure.

I go to bed every night before my son finishes his homework. Now, my son is a world class procrastinator, but his late nights can’t be blamed on poor work habits. It’s pretty common around here. The kids go to school for seven hours, then they have two to three hours of sports or theater, and then they have four to five hours of homework. It’s a lot.

They are keeping track of their activities for college applications. They are taking the SATs and the ACTs. They have parents who making sure that they do all those things. (I still haven’t figured out the ACTs yet.)

A certain amount of the backlash to standardized testing comes from the fact that the kids simply can’t take one more stress event in their lives.

Kids in these communities are having an entirely different life experience than kids in inner city or even in middle class suburbs outside the coastal communities. It makes it really hard to make education policy for schools or any social policies, when these populations are so different. Some kids need a break. Others need a shove. My kid probably needs a little of both.

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Alright, I’m goofing off today. So, let me give you another anecdote about stress on kids around here.

At this week’s PTA meeting, the school guidance counselor told us that the latest trend in college admissions was long waiting lists. Kids are applying to 15 to 20 colleges. Colleges are receiving way more applications than spots, but they don’t actually know which kids are really interested. So, colleges have super long waiting lists. Some kids don’t know which school they’ll go to until a few months before September.

To get off the waiting list, the guidance officer said that it was very important to demonstrate interest in the school by asking for information and going on the tours. You want to get on the school’s radar. One parent said that you should make a reference to the school in the essay. At my niece’s high school, her guidance office provided her with a list of “tips and tricks” for attending college fairs. One tip was to bring ready-made labels with her name, address, and e-mail address, so she could quickly stick it on information cards at the college tables. This way the school could document that she “showed interest” in the school.