Co-Editor-In-Chief: Ian Bowen

A terrible plague is sprouting among the student body of Nyack High School. It rears its ugly head at the same time every year, with many students falling ill. Symptoms include faulty attendance, declining work ethic, excessive procrastination, and overall academic apathy, disproportionately affecting 12th graders. If you haven’t already guessed, “Senioritis” is the mysterious disease, defined by Merriam Webster as “an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences, and lower grades.”

The term Senioritis is often implied as a joke or term of sarcasm by teachers and students. A few empty desks in your Government class this morning? Wow, Senioritis must be starting to kick in. A few groups forget to turn in their lab writeups in your science class? Probably due to some acute cases of Senioritis. An exam or quiz went badly in your math class? Sounds like Senioritis. People perceive this widely utilized term as a silly play on words or an excuse for lazy students. Granted, there is no recognized medical condition called Senioritis; you wouldn't hear the term in a doctor’s office and there’s no information from the MayoClinic. However, the loss of motivation and feeling of academic burnout is a very real phenomenon for many students and can have consequences ranging from unnoticeable to dire.

Younger students have also been known to partake in the behaviours associated with Senioritis and burnout. As a result, it’s important that the underclassmen are well versed in the causes, symptoms, and treatments for Senioritis, as it can help minimize the decline in your future academic performance. This condition is primarily associated with a lack of motivation, largely stemming from the imminent end of a student’s high school career. Picking up steam throughout the year and really setting in during the second semester, Senioritis preys on students who already have college applications submitted, or even acceptance letters in hand. They think they’re all set and nothing they do (either hard work or a lack thereof) will have effects.

But that’s just not true! Universities are able to rescind admission offers if second semester grades decline too much, and it’s especially relevant for students taking AP Exams. By scoring highly on the exams, many schools will count the APs for credit at their institution, saving the students time and money. The difference between a 3 and a 4 on AP Exams can be crucial, and it’s not worth retaking a class just because you didn’t want to study. Many universities also have specific requirements for class grades in the second semester, for example maintaining a C or above, but it depends on the school, so seniors attending college next year should check the fine print on any offers of admission.

As seniors, we have rushed full speed ahead through four years of classes and tests, homework and essays, so it’s understandable that academic burnout shows up during senior year. There’s nothing wrong with feeling tired or fiending for graduation, but throwing in the towel is not the answer. Senior year is all about balance. Academics are still a major part of your time, but instead of traditional homework a lot of your time will be spent working on college applications and doing extracurricular activities. Alongside all this, senior year is the perfect time to have fun! This is the last year you’ll be together with many of your classmates and friends and now is the time to take advantage of the small, social moments that can nicely wrap the four years of focus. 

All that being said, you should be realistic about time commitments you want to make. Refrain from joining too many new extracurriculars or honor societies just to put them on your resume, and avoid enlisting in a billion AP classes because you don’t know if you can handle the workload. That’s a recipe for major burnout and a case of Senioritis.

So seniors, it’s time to close it out. If your time at Nyack High School is a nine inning baseball game, you’re in the bottom of the 8th with two outs. Now isn’t the time to start throwing wild pitches. Focus up, do your work, and as is now common teacher lingo: lock in!