There was a day last November when Reece Farinas, then a junior at Moanalua High, had a couple of articles to write for his school newspaper, marching band practice, an agenda item for his school's Interact Club — and that doesn't even touch the classwork waiting for him when he got home.

"I was pretty much freaking out," Farinas recalled. "I realized I had put myself in a bad situation by trying to be part of more than one thing at a time. Luckily, I wasn't taking crazy-hard classes."

Those taking "crazy-hard" Advanced Placement classes for college credit have it even crazier.

"Of all the school years I've had, junior year is the most stressing," said Stephen Toyofuku, 'Iolani senior.

His classmate, Amelia Linsky, advised her junior-bound sister, Miranda, to wise up early and not overload.

"I took her advice for this year," Miranda Linsky said the day the pair was on campus to buy books for the coming session, which begins this week.

While senior year of high-school and its incumbent pressures get plenty of ink, the junior year stresses, especially for the growing number of achievement-oriented teens, just recently have become a subject of in-depth study. And what experts are learning isn't good.

"Already we've seen scary increases in adolescent anxiety and depression rates, mental and physical symptoms (of stress)," said Denise Clark Pope, a Stanford University researcher and author of "Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students."

HOW BAD IS IT?

Pediatricians are recognizing the problem: The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2006 issued a report stating, "For some children, this hurried lifestyle is a source of stress and anxiety and may even contribute to depression. Increased pressure to achieve is likely to manifest in school avoidance and somatic symptoms."

When narrowed to just junior year, new data is giving an even clearer picture. A 2007 survey by Stanford researchers, reported in the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by Pope, found that almost two-thirds of college-bound juniors reported being "often or always" stressed.

Half the 2,700 surveyed dropped an activity they liked because schoolwork took too much time; more than three-quarters had some stress symptom in the month before. While more than half had some form of headache, difficulty sleeping or exhaustion, another 9 percent illegally took prescription drugs (Adderall or Ritalin) to help them stay up and study, and 25 percent said they used stimulants such as Red Bull and No-Doz.

COLLEGE FEARS ABOUND

The major stressor for the pressured junior? College worries.

Toni Brown, a recently retired counselor at 'Iolani, said she's glad she's not trying to get into college today.

"I wouldn't want to be their age now," she said. "I don't think I could handle. Pressure!"

Plus, a college degree is more coveted than ever before.

"Educational economists say a college degree today is the equivalent of what a high school degree was yesterday," Pope said.

Honolulu experts agree that while some of the pressures are static (taking the SAT), others are dynamic: The baby boomers' kids are peaking, big-name colleges' admission rates are dropping, and a rise in expectations from the colleges themselves on what students will make the cut all add to the mix.

"It's upped the ante on all applicants," Brown said. "Shoo-in schools for Hawai'i kids are no longer shoo-ins."

It's twofold, she said: A student faces external pressure from those who think the rank of one's college on U.S. News & World Report's annual survey is an indicator of one's future success. Internal pressures? Worrying they may disappoint parents, or not be able to handle the homework load for an ambitious class schedule.

MATURITY MATTERS

While juniors may face less stress than what's awaiting them senior year — when the mailbox becomes a daily friend and foe, holding either college acceptance or rejection — juniors have less maturity to handle it, Brown said.

College-bound juniors don't start their year crazed, of course. The freakout, said Derrick Kang, a college counselor at Mid-Pacific Institute, starts on slow boil about the time of the PSATs in October. First-semester grades start rolling in around winter break, and life gets a little more hectic, he said. By the time juniors realize their college applications should include great leadership skills, they're in full deer-in-the-headlights mode.

"By January and February, the kids are just waiting for spring break, and they're all so involved in their extracurriculars," he said. "They're living for the college application."

Pope agrees.

"When we talk to parents of juniors, one thing we talk about is the notion of college," she said. "People make it seem if you do not walk on water or have (not) founded a nonprofit, you'll never get in anywhere. That's totally untrue, a myth. But kids buy in to it."

BECOMING DRONES?

While junior year has always been stressful, Liane Voss, Language Arts Department chairwoman and longtime newspaper adviser at Moanalua High who deals with about 120 students a year, mostly juniors, worries that today's students are narrowing their vision to the point of losing the big picture.

The pressure to excel and get better grades isn't translating into a better-rounded student. Among the losses: Comprehension of literature seems to have slipped, according to Voss, as has the ability to understand current events.

"It's harder for them to step back, tell me why (a story) is so significant, how this work is a universal statement," she said.

Voss tries to advise students to take a look at the big picture, instead of obsessing on GPA and SAT scores.

She urges them to show more academic risk-taking.

"We need more thinking out of the box," she said. "You don't want to be afraid to speak out because you don't want to be wrong."

Pope, too, fears that the emphasis on grades and meeting cut-and-dried criteria will fail to prepare students for the 21st century. "There's a lack of creativity," she said. "Yes, they're bubbling in test answers, but where's the practical intelligence, the creative intelligence? We're just not seeing it."

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

On a personal level, Mid-Pac's Kang wants to help dial down the pressure cooker, and encourage skills that help juniors find their own path to success: "We should be making sure we encourage balance in students' lives. Yes, do well and get involved, but also make time to be a teenager, doing things they want to do and not because they have to do it."

That means would-be artists shouldn't sign up for a class in advanced chemistry just to bulk up a college application. Focus instead on what incites passion, he said.

TAKE 'BABY STEPS'

On the national level, Pope has created a program, Stressed-Out Students (soon to be redubbed Students Challenge Success), with more than 50 schools participating. The 5-year-old program offers workshops for students aimed to improve mental/physical health, become engaged in learning and foster integrity.

Pope urges "baby steps" for the college-prep schools — such as refusing to publish a list of who's going where for college — as well as bigger ones: course scheduling that allows downtime, and assessments for different kinds of learning.

At the family level, Pope wants parents to know that there are "more than enough spots" to accommodate the growing demand for higher education, especially when community colleges are put into the picture. Also, she adds, it's best not to make the college hunt the topic of every conversation.

"The parent pressure really starts to build," Pope said. "A lot of students are so afraid to let (their parents) down. ... Remember the messages you send. If the first thing you ask when they get home is 'How did you do on the history test today?' (it seems as if you're saying) the grade matters more than anything."

STUDENTS' TAKE

Teens share stories about junior year: