Senioritis

We are all but done with our high school career, sending most of us to college, and from there to our chosen career paths. The fact is, all we really have to survive is these last few weeks before we are home free. The feeling that we get when we are so close to being done, and thus we kinda slack off academically, is called senioritis. So why is it that seniors fail all of their classes? Well, in truth, they don’t, but the statement is not born out of thin air. On average, seniors tend to perform suboptimally compared to their peers in other grades; this is most commonly referred to as senioritis. Gaining its suffix from -itis, meaning inflammation or any general affliction, in this case, by association, being a senior is the affliction. In one seniors words, “There really seems to be little logical reason, after having submitted college applications, to keep up this level of effort…I just want to be done.”

From a senior’s perspective, it is very difficult to pinpoint a reason why we sometimes slack off, but psychology might present an answer: “Some seniors recognize that they’re about to leave a community in which they’ve lived for the past four years, and this can result in them mentally checking out,” says Suzanne Rhinehardt, a counselor at Belmont University’s office of college services. She went on to say that senioritis might be the result of a universal fear of change. Like many researchers and psychologists, however, she goes on to recommend cures as opaque as “destressing” and “balance.”

This illness has mysterious powers, and no senior is immune to the pull (or push) of senioritis. Senioritis, in its general usage, refers to the academic slacking off of those in their senior year, especially in the latter half thereof. It affects everyone, and there is a pretty logical reason for it. As a senior’s year comes to a close, most seniors have chosen or committed to where they are going to school, and have certainly been accepted to some schools. It is therefore fairly logical to make the assumption that one is home free, and that whatever college they deposited at is reserving a seat for them. Oh, if only such a fairytale were true, however.

The National Association of Colleges reports that 21 percent of colleges readily revoke students’ acceptances for unsatisfactory grades. According to Forbes, “Every year, college and university admission deans from schools large and small, public and private, and of all levels of selectivity share stories (off the record as not to break student confidentiality) of admitted students they are forced to contact due to academic or disciplinary demise.” So yes, your grades still matter and will be looked at! Additionally, more selective institutions take extra care in looking over one’s final semester of high school.

However, it is exceedingly rare that a college will rescind an acceptance letter. What the National Association of Colleges reported is the number of colleges that will rescind acceptances and not the ones that actually do. All colleges are capable of revoking acceptances, but it is only common for disciplinary infractions, i.e., cheating, egregious attendance infractions, or any other noteworthy misconduct. Still, I do not intend to deter students from finishing strong, but that the consequences of getting a few B’s and maybe a C are not all that intimidating.

Seniors stop trying in many classes mainly because they assume that their secondary school career is coming to a firm end, but they rarely see that their higher education career is starting up in the following fall. Moreover, the classes that one takes in their second semester of senior year are probably the most critical to one’s college career. Take an intended engineering major, for example. It would be prudent for that student to absorb as much as they can in their physics and calculus classes with the prospect of testing out of those in college so that they may then move on to classes that interest them. “I really hope I don’t have to retake chem[istry] in college, especially when it’s required, but not very interesting to me,” said one senior who requested to remain nameless. Retaking core classes means that a student will have to spend valuable time retaking those classes that they might not have needed to take again had they studied those subjects harder.

This example is not true for everyone, however, and many students are not taking a single class that they will ever think of ever, ever again in their lives. For those students, I would still argue that your effort is necessary to close out your senior year without regrets. Remember that your teachers have put forth some incredible effort to prepare you for your APs, and even college in four months. It would be a great disservice to them to just stop trying so late and so close to the end. I encourage you to uphold the investment that these teachers have made in you and your future, and honor the commitment they have made to you, and that you have made to them. Do not taint your four years of high school in just two poor months.