>> Originally published on LinkedIn on February 8, 2016

Time travel is an extraordinary thing.

Twice last month, I traveled in the closest thing the world has to a time machine—unless, of course, NASA or Elon Musk has something stashed in a bunker somewhere—and visited the not-so-distant past. I interviewed nine high school seniors looking to join the Northwestern University class of 2020 and, in doing so, was teleported back to late 2010—a time when I would have been sitting in their seats answering difficult questions about my aspirations.

If you have the opportunity to give back to your university and interview potential freshmen, I encourage you to do it. Being an alumni interviewer was an eye-opening experience. It forced me to rethink my demeanor as an 18-year-old going through the stressful college application process and allowed me to uncover insights on the priorities of today’s high school students. But above all else, I discovered high school students, more now than ever, are turning into grade-focused robots all in quest for the golden ticket to attend a top college.

In many of my interviews, it felt as if I was on the set of “Race to Nowhere”—a 2010 documentary exploring the over-stressed and overworked lives of high school students determined to attend elite universities.

When I was first discovering my passion for writing and journalism, I reported on how “Race to Nowhere” was relevant to my high school in hyper-competitive Westport, Conn. Five years later, I’m once again interviewing college-focused students, but the situation has become even more intense.

“I’m a passionate person, and I will work that much harder to get one more point on an exam,” one student said in answering my question about something he wanted to tell me that wasn’t on his application.

The students I interviewed were beyond passionate. One had started her own international nonprofit to teach senior citizens how to use technology. Others could talk for hours about their formative experiences as Eagle Scouts. Another explained how her love for Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” sparked her interest in international affairs. As they spoke, I could hear the passion in their voices. Unfortunately, these passions did not fuel their motivations. Instead, a different driver—the academic and extracurricular game of getting into college—simultaneously motivated them to succeed and created lots of stress.

This is a reality I faced throughout high school, as a little more than 10 percent of my graduating class went on to attend an Ivy League university. Living in a hypercompetitive and college-focused community is no easy task. Students who are forced to endure this pressure feel can feel like the only way to escape it is to do more, score higher and be better than their peers—creating an environment centered around grades and resume-padding activities.

When I asked a student about his proudest accomplishment, he answered, “That would be my video project from last summer.”

“Okay, tell me about it,” I probed.

“Wait, actually, can I change that?”

“Of course,” I answered, now intrigued.

“On Oct. 13, 2013 my mom had an aneurism. I had to take on a lot more responsibility than before. I did chores and errands she would do. I took care of my sisters and was there for my family. We came out alright. That’s my proudest moment.”

I praised this student for opening up to me and being honest instead of giving his original answer. Then I asked why he even wanted to give that answer in the first place.

“It seemed more geared towards my major,” he said.

In society’s “race to nowhere” we’ve forced teenagers to subdue their uniqueness to pursue the cookie cutter and stereotypical image of what top applicants look like: students with high GPAs and high extracurricular involvement.

While GPAs are surely an indicator of effort and ability and extracurricular involvement demonstrates interest in a given field, both are not strong indicators of someone’s success in college, in the workforce or in life. What is a strong indicator, researchers say, is the ability to ignore temptation and have self-control (see the marshmallow experiment).

Further, the American Psychological Association found in 2004 that “...students who are more involved in setting educational goals are more likely to reach their goals. When students perceive that the primary focus of learning is to obtain external rewards, such as a grade on an exam, they often perform more poorly, think of themselves as less competent, and report greater anxiety than when they believe that exams are simply a way for them to monitor their own learning.”