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By Shreya Surapaneni
Aah. Senior Year. When students think of senior year, they believe it is the final stretch of making your best effort as you submit your college applications. It’s going to be your last homecoming and your last prom before you go off to college. However, let’s not forget one crucial thing: Senioritis. Specifically, when a student gets diagnosed with Senioritis, school is probably not the most important thing on their mind, especially during their second semester.
But – is Senioritis just in the second semester, or have students begun to catch this “illness” right around now?
For example, the most common symptom students begin to experience is that they are prone to be less motivated in doing their best work on their assignments especially towards the end of the semester compared to the beginning. For example, Elyse Smith ‘25 explains that it is a struggle to provide the same care and attention to her classes now as she did at the beginning of the semester.
“At the beginning of the semester, I was a lot more motivated,” Elyse said. “But now that we’re towards the end of the semester, I’m just really tired and it’s been harder to kind of have a clear point of what I would want to get done.”
However, students like Chido Uzoije ‘25 already felt tired by the start of her senior year after surviving three years of high school. From the beginning of her senior year, she was already planning to go off to college.
“It’s yet another [year] of restless nights and going to and from school,” Chido said. “I was just ready to get it over with, like applying to colleges and just finish[ing] that chapter of my life.”
Another important aspect of what’s keeping Senioritis alive this early is that after the early round of college applications is done, students find it hard to keep paying attention in their classes. Justin James ‘25 adds that he is only motivated in his courses because he still has regular applications to submit, which require first-semester senior-year grades.
“If I didn’t plan on doing Regular Decision, then I would probably be super locked out, like sleep in my classes,” Justin said.
In addition, senior Andrejs Smith ‘25 adds that school also feels somewhat optional to him after he finishes applying to early college application rounds.
“After finishing applying to college, a lot of school work seems tedious, and I don’t feel like doing, like, any work anymore,” Elyse said.
However, even as students’ motivation levels drop little by little, their grades are not being affected as much. For example, Andrejs adds that his grades felt better than ever, especially compared to his freshman year, despite taking more challenging classes.
“I wasn’t locked in when I was an underclassman; [however], last year and this year I was so locked in,” Elyse said.
Elyse Smith ’25 working hard on her Economics homework. Photo courtesy of Elyse Smith ’25
Lastly, as seniors are asked what advice they would give to the new senior class (current juniors), they provide various pieces of advice. For instance, Elyse Smith ‘25 encourages juniors to start out standardized testing early, from the start of junior year instead of waiting until the start of senior year to wrap up testing.
“ My advice for the current juniors would be to start standardized testing now, [and] not wait till the last minute to start,” Elyse said.
Other seniors also added that although it is important to study and work hard in your classes and extracurricular activities, it is also important to relax and enjoy your final year of high school. Looking back, Chido Uzoije explains the importance of still having fun and taking advantage of all the opportunities that Woodward offers.
“I was so like tunnel focus[ed] at, like, my work and everything, so I did miss out [on] a lot of opportunities,” Chido said. “So I just say, try to live a little you know.”