Senioritis: disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include laziness, lack of studying Repeated absences, excessive wearing of sweatpants*, and general decrease in motivation, or slacking. Senioritis is a horrible sickness that takes over the minds of seniors and negatively affects them. It may sound dumb, but it is something serious!! Are you overcome by Senioritis?
Personally, Senioritis hasn’t affected me yet. I’m not going to be a senior for a while, but my cousin was and I’ve seen what it can do. When you have senioritis, you just don’t care about school. You have tunnel vision, the only thing you see is the end of high school, or partying away in college. But your senior year is your last and most serious year….or at least it should be. I mean think about it, during your last year of high school whatever you do is the last impression you’ll leave on others and the first impression on colleges, scouts, etc. There are serious tests, SAT’s, ACT’s , there’s graduation, college applications no time for fooling around! Am I getting to you yet?
How can we get rid of Senioritis? What are schools doing about it? Actually, schools are taking action towards the “epidemic”. Writers like James Coleman, Chairman of the President's Panel of Youth, urged changes in the high school curriculum to address the problem of senioritis. So throughout high schools around the country, “Senior Semester” was added. What it does is allow seniors to spend time outside of schools and attend courses they are specifically interested in, it’s basically an attempt to make school more interesting. Youth-serving organizations suggest that there are many ways schools can help young people make the most of their senior year by giving them opportunities through service-learning or other forms of experiential learning. There are consequences to Senioritis. Like what? I’ll tell you.
Due to Senioritis, students let there grades significantly drop and colleges withdraw their offers or you don’t get to college applications on time, like with my cousin. She put off college applications and by the time she got around to them the college she wanted to go to was no longer accepting. Now you definitely don’t want that happening to you. So try avoiding it, it’s really important staying on top of your game, even if it is the last time you're doing this. Here are some things to consider doing:
Continue your scholarship search: If and when you do, you’ll be sure to have college in mind. So you’ll constantly be reminded of the goals you’ve set.
Don’t give up extracurricular activities: This is your last impression on school
Don’t drop tough classes: Maybe challenging yourself will keep you interested. And if not good AP exam scores are a plus to colleges.
Talk about it: Yes this may be a stressful time, so venting out to someone can always help. Don’t obsess over every little thing!
Have fun: You can’t go back to high school once your done, so don’t take anything for granted or do anything you’ll look back on and wish you could fix.
I hope these tips are helpful. There isn't a cure for Senioritis, this isn’t a problem we can solve over night. Graduation does seem to help, but we’ll see. Hopefully you won’t become overcome by Senioritis. Good luck!!
