{"id":2301,"date":"2018-07-30T07:30:54","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T11:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/?p=2301"},"modified":"2018-07-30T07:34:22","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T11:34:22","slug":"conversations-that-count-making-mental-health-part-of-the-college-prep-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/07\/30\/conversations-that-count-making-mental-health-part-of-the-college-prep-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations that Count: Making Mental Health Part of the College Prep Process"},"content":{"rendered":"
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iStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Should mental health be a part of college admission and college prep process?<\/p>\n

Grace Gedye, a recent graduate of Pomona College (CA), thinks so.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I went to college four years ago, my parents and I had a \u2018work hard in class\u2019 talk and a \u2018safe partying\u2019 talk. But we didn\u2019t discuss what to do if stress morphed into anxiety or depression. We should have,\u201d she wrote a recent op-ed for the LA Times<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, that summer almost every conversation I had with an adult included some variation on: \u2018These are going to be the best four years of your life.\u2019 So I was prepped for highs. And when the lows hit, I thought I was alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But Gedye was anything but alone.<\/p>\n

Recent data<\/a> show that 51 percent of college students who visited an on-campus counseling center in 2015-16 reported struggling with anxiety. Other common concerns were depression (41 percent), relationship issues (34 percent), suicidal ideation (20.5 percent), self-injury (14 percent), and alcohol abuse (10 percent).<\/p>\n

Instead of only focusing on the positive, Gedye believes that all college-bound students should have an open dialogue about mental health with their parents, counselors, teachers, and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh school teachers and counselors who are already talking about success in college should work in mental health. To this day, my high school friends and I reference a speech a beloved chemistry teacher gave at our senior breakfast about his experience with depression during college,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the pre-graduation pep talk we were expecting, but it was valuable to see that someone we knew and admired had gone through such a rough period and come out the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashley Dobson is NACAC\u2019s communications manager for content and social media. You can reach her at\u00a0<\/em>adobson@nacacnet.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should mental health be a part of college admission and college prep process? Grace Gedye, a recent graduate of Pomona College (CA), thinks so. \u201cBefore I went to college four years ago, my parents and I had a \u2018work hard in class\u2019 talk and a \u2018safe partying\u2019 talk. But we didn\u2019t discuss what to do … Continue reading Conversations that Count: Making Mental Health Part of the College Prep Process<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Ashley Dobson","author_link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/author\/ashley-dobson\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peWmJq-B7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}