A new study has been released by Making Caring Common, a program run by the Harvard School of Education. The report, called Turning the Tide, is the first step of a two-year plan designed to fix all that is wrong with the college admission process. More than 50 universities have already embraced the idea, including Harvard, Yale, M.I.T, and the University of North Carolina.

The first issue Turning the Tide addresses is that kids are loading up on too many AP courses. The report states that modern-day students are taking too many AP courses in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the next applicant. It advises that no student take more than two AP courses at one time because taking more can result in damage to physical and mental health. It is shown that students who take more than two AP courses at once are likely to “burn out” after 10th grade.

A huge point in Turning the Tide is doing quality community service and meaningful extracurricular activities. So many students fill their community service hour requirements with short term and non-committal activities that don’t correlate with each other in any way. The report urges high school students to partake in meaningful community service projects that they can relate to and have a desire to make a difference with. Similarly, applicants participate in a variety of extracurricular activities in an attempt to impress colleges. Universities on board with the program would rather see one or two meaningful activities a student has committed to rather than several that they do purely for their applications.

Most importantly, Turning the Tide begs students to appreciate high school for what it is instead of purely a path to college. Students are throwing away their high school lives in an attempt to appear impressive to their colleges of choice, participating in activities they don’t care about, and taking too many time-consuming courses. These kids are burning out and going through the motions in desperation to get into a desirable college.

After reading this, you might want to consider how your application looks. Are you overwhelming yourself with too many AP courses? Are you overloading on meaningless afterschool activities? If so, turn the tide and live your high school life!