Crash Course

Pope's concerns were echoed by Doug Daher, a former psychologist at Stanford's health center. He believed the university was experiencing the fallout from the college admissions race: growing numbers of students reporting depression, threatening suicide or exhibiting other troubling behaviors, such as cheating and substance abuse. Together with other Stanford officials, he and Pope created SOS. The program, which is offered free to public and private middle and high schools, is supported by the California Endowment and the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health.

Schools that send teams to the SOS program don't fit the traditional definition of "troubled." All are well-regarded, high-achieving schools, many in middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods, where the definition of failure is getting into Harvard but being wait-listed at Yale. But the schools are represented here because they have come to realize that academic success often comes at price. It's no accident that promotional literature for the conference refers to SOS as an "intervention."

Although no Washington area schools have gone through the program, Pope said the problem is national in scope, and "the D.C. area has a lot of high-achieving schools that face many of the same pressures.

"Many, many parents will say: 'I know they're working too hard, I know they're overscheduled, I know I'm pushing too hard. But we don't really have a choice. You have to do this in today's society.'"

Demographics are fueling that perception. The number of high school graduates has increased every year since 1996 and is expected to peak in 2009, when 3.3 million students will graduate from high school, according to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. But the growing number of graduates has not meant more available seats at elite colleges. This year, Harvard, Princeton and Yale accepted fewer than 10 percent of the students who applied.

As a result, the push to achieve begins earlier than ever. More worry equals more pressure.

Martha Kreeger gets that.

"It's fear,'' said Kreeger, whose daughter, Moriah, attends Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, Calif. "I equate good grades with safety. If my child had good grades, then my child isn't going to end up hungry and on the street. Every little decision feels like it affects the bottom line -- and I think it's hard to get off that train.''

This summer, Moriah, a rising junior, applied for an internship at networking giant Cisco Systems. Her parents knew the opportunity would look great on her r¿sum¿ -- but at the same time they found out she needed back surgery. They considered putting off the surgery if she got the internship.

"And then I realized, that was crazy,'' Martha said. "Her health was more important than her r¿sum¿.''

THE SUN IS SETTING ON AN UNUSUALLY BRISK MAY EVENING IN SILICON VALLEY when the minivans and Volvos begin pulling into the Stanford parking lot. Car doors open and slam shut, and out pop small groups of adults and teenagers. Clusters of people weave past the campus post office and bookstore toward Kresge Auditorium.

It's Friday -- opening night for the 2007 SOS conference -- and the brightly lit auditorium is packed. People line the side walls; the lucky ones wedge themselves onto windowsills.