Editor’s Note: Ayesha and Penny are pseudonyms to protect the subjects’ identities.
Whether it’s the frantic race to attend the best college and fit in with the school’s hyper-academic culture, or the constant comparison of their lives to the romanticized lives of others, students interviewed by The Falcon say they believe peer pressure is undeniably apparent, both inside and outside classrooms.
On average, experts say feelings of peer pressure increase during early adolescence, peak around age 14 and decline after that. The American Psychological Association’s 2020 Stress in America survey shows that teens’ average stress level is 5.8 on a 10-point scale, higher than the national average of 5.0 for adults.
Peer pressure arises inside the classroom
With an intent focus on academics, SHS and Los Gatos High have had high enrollment in advanced courses, like the district’s AP program. While the average American high school offers eight AP courses, Saratoga High and Los Gatos High together offer an average of 22.5 AP courses each. Between the two schools, over 1,872 exams were administered last year, with an average score of 4.3, and 94% of scores being above the passing score of a 3; the national average is 2.98.
Additionally, SHS has an average SAT score 300 points above the national average, which is 1050 and is ranked 16th place for best high schools in California with an average graduation rate of 97%.
As a result, peer pressure caused by the high standards of academics is significantly higher at school. Several students told The Falcon they feel stress regarding college admissions and keeping up straight A’s. Sophomore Misha Khairom admits the environment here can be tough.
“My biggest stress factor is where I’m going to go to college — I don’t feel qualified at all and I’m really worried I’ll end up working some awful job that pays me a barely livable salary,” she said. ”I feel a lot of pressure to take classes just for college applications, especially because all my friends take advanced courses and do well at them, while I’m struggling to keep up with the basic subjects.”
The pressure to take advanced classes in an effort to impress colleges is one the school has dealt with for decades, but certain departments have seen the downside of this trend more than others.
“For at least the past six years, we have experienced how the courses students select against teacher recommendation in math have been especially disruptive to students, teachers and the overall master schedule,” principal Greg Louie said.
According to Louie, a significant number of students are accelerating their math learning too quickly, through online or summer courses, allowing them to skip that course during the regular school year. As a result, these students, lacking a deeply rooted understanding of subjects like algebra and geometry, are often ill prepared for the next course in the sequence.
This leads to a large number of students requesting level changes or dropping math altogether early in the first semester. Louie said that during the 2024-25 school year, at least 74 students made math-related changes to their schedule — more than double the year prior — when there were only 30.
Algebra 2 Honors and Pre-Calculus Honors teacher PJ Yim believes that this trend correlates with the rise of private college counselors — typically hired by parents — and their tendency to push students to an agenda that might not be best for them educationally.
“Doing what Einstein did when he was young doesn’t mean you’re going to become Einstein,” Yim said. “[Parents are] falling for that fallacy of logic.”
Peer pressure exists outside the classroom
For teens here, parental pressure can be just as challenging as peer pressure. Sophomore Ayesha told The Falcon she feels less pressure from her peers and more from her parents to take hard classes.
“In general, I am pretty motivated to go into medicine since I have been surrounded by it all my life,” Ayesha said. “However, this year, my parents made me take [AP Computer Science A] because they thought it would be a good skill for me, even though I am not interested in it. It’s my most stressful class so far, and it’s been my biggest regret in high school.”
Ayesha believes the issue mainly lies with the fact that she doesn’t think the class is right for her, but was pressured into taking it by her parents.
Ayesha doesn’t blame her parents for wanting her to learn more skills, and, grade-wise, she has the same goal as her parents — keeping straight As. However, what she finds most unrealistic is their desire to drop her extracurricular activities in order to prioritize academics, which she continues to have open conversations with her parents about.
Finding balance with pressure
But academic pressure that comes from parents and peers doesn’t necessarily have to be negative, said Wellness Center therapist Taylor Greulich.
She notes that it’s common for students to be affected by the views of their peers — but, while peer pressure often carries a negative side, it can also be positive.
“On the flip side, you have friends holding each other accountable,” she said. “If you surround yourself with people who are working hard, then you’re more likely to be pressured to do the same thing.”
She hopes that the Wellness Center can create an environment of acceptance, where students can be themselves and find help lessening the impact of negative peer pressure.
Recent studies by Harvard have found that peer pressure can be used to motivate students. Because peer pressure can directly change how a student’s brain responds to different stimuli, researchers found that placing a student in a class with students motivated in a subject can make them more engaged.
The darker societal peer pressure
Compared to many American high schools, the culture of SHS mainly revolves around academics and less toward parties, sports or social gatherings.
Though sophomore Penny is particularly close with her friends, she said she still feels daily pressure to conform to their behavior of making fun of some peers, while ignoring others her friends don’t like.
“I feel like, if I don’t agree with my friends, they’re probably gonna get annoyed with me and not going to like me anymore,” Penny said. “I want to be with my friends but I still want to be who I am. That’s a big stress for me.”
Even though Penny feels the pressure to act the same as her friends socially, she believes all of them feel the pressure to conform to their broader social group, specifically by participating in pre-dance parties and going on dates to parties.
“For pre-formals or different parties, if you don’t get invited, that’s a big deal,” Penny said. “That was a big thing with my friends this year — we didn’t get invited to some of the big [parties] our other friends [went to.]”
Penny has observed that this feeling is exacerbated by social media, where people only show their best side. On Instagram, students often post photos from Winter Formal or Homecoming to show an idealized version of themselves. Penny said that, after seeing these photos, “People think: ‘These people are always having so much fun,’ and start to think ‘Why don’t my friends and I do this? We should be doing this too.’”
On the other hand, Penny believes that societal pressure can have positive effects, such as fostering connection-building with other people. For example, Penny felt pressured by her friends to go to a party in October, but ended up having a great time talking to classmates that she’d never talked to. She also said that it exposed her to kids from other schools, allowing her to learn about the different cultures of other Bay Area schools.
Still, this pressure plays out in ways big and small here. The pressure to drink, smoke, vape, and take drugs is an ongoing concern for teens. The prefrontal cortex — the decision-making part of the brain — does not fully develop until age 25, which makes teenagers particularly vulnerable to risky behaviors influenced by their peers.
Although the school is considered highly academic, it is not immune from those pressures. While not as common in daily lives, as other types of social pressure, the effect of smoking and drinking can be much more harmful or even deathly. Back in 2012, sophomore Audrie Pott was sexually assaulted at a party with stolen rum and vodka by three 16-year-old boys she knew, with nude pictures of her being sent among peers.
Days later, she died by suicide. Her tragic story, which received national attention at the time and was recounted in the 2016 Netflix documentary “Audrie & Daisy,” is a reminder of the lasting harm negative peer pressure can inflict, especially when it fosters dangerous and exploitative situations.
