Student Blog: Avoiding Senioritis

The second half of August historically brings a tidal wave of new commitments, anticipations, and worries to students across the world. For me, it has been this way for the past 11 years, with each year becoming slightly more intense than the previous.

So, at the helm of my senior year of highschool, I feel like I am about to enter the culmination of the grade-school work I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. In a way, all my previous years of school have prepared me for this – the highest level coursework I’ve done yet, along with a massive commitment to the college application process.

And still, senior year is the most anticipated by many. Figuring out the next four years of your life is objectively a stressful process, especially because those four years tend to play a large role in how one’s long-term future plays out. However, this process comes with exciting qualities, too: many of my friends are going through this exact process at the exact same time, and in discussing it with each other, I suspect there is a healthy anticipation for the future that we can bond over. For example: considering where my friends and I will be in 15 years from now, and how our paths may or may not cross again.

The grueling college application process is largely to blame for what is commonly referred to as “senioritis,” a euphemism for the “I’m basically finished” mindset that seniors tend to share, leading to a lack of effort in high school on their part once they’ve been admitted to college. It’s a combination of burnout from previous years, burnout from all the writing they’ve done for their applications, and lack of incentive – why bother keeping up high school grades if you’re already into college?

But there is reason to, as admissions officers and guidance counselors have made clear. We’ve heard horror stories about students’ admissions offers being rescinded after their GPA drops greatly in their final year, forcing them to attend a school that was not as much to their liking, or to even take a mandatory gap year. With all that rising seniors hear about senioritis and the impact it can have, I feel less and less likely to fall into the trap of no longer caring - but I also would like my motivation to continue to do well in my last year of high school to be internally driven, rather than externally forced.

While some of senioritis is obviously inevitable — many can’t help but look forward to graduating — I believe its academic consequences are preventable. Maybe I’m totally wrong. You can’t pre-diagnose academically fatal senioritis, and I haven’t even started my senior year yet. But, as a current outsider looking in, I’ve taken advantage of one of the benefits that a senior year of high school offers to set myself up for success: freedom of course selection. My school offers seniors the freedom to pick, from a vast selection of rigor, courses that they are genuinely interested in. Many seniors have also already accumulated obscure credits needed for graduation, creating an even wider range of possible schedules. And, after looking at the schedule I was emailed last week, I believe the courses I have chosen will set me up for success in the upcoming school year, despite the natural challenges that come with it being my last. I’ll let you know my choices in my next post!