Written by Emily Card

When you are accepted to college, you feel a sense of overwhelming achievement and excitement. Coming home to find an envelope from your applied to college in the mailbox or on your kitchen table amongst bills and other rubbish, truly creates a variety of emotions: anxiety, anticipation and eagerness, all at once. “Congratulations you’ve been accepted”. Nothing makes a perfect day like reading that across the top of an acceptance letter. All of those long endless hours filling out applications, writing essays, meeting with guidance counselors, and meeting the demand of deadlines is finally paying off and showing some positive results. Now comes the time to prepare for college visits. What an exciting time.
The hard part is done with. Isn’t it great to be able to kick back and relax the rest of senior year and ‘wing’ your classes? Who cares? School grades don’t matter anymore. You’ve already been accepted. Goodbye to The Morgan School and possibly Connecticut.
Many students will find themselves experiencing many of the above symptoms, what is known formally as, Senioritis. One student at The Morgan School, Kristine Adams exclaims, “I am suffering from a serious case of senioritis. I don’t want to do any work what-so-ever, and I’m embracing the disease, and just trying to slide by.” As it can be clear, senioritis interrupts seniors’ desire to do well and to stay focused in their classes because instead of studying they find themselves daydreaming about lounging in their college dorm or walking about campus. Additionally, another student and senior, Stephanie Strucaly emphasized that she “comes in late because I feel like it.” Students are drastically losing interest in school all together. However, as Evan Doolittle said, “you don’t have to be a senior to suffer from senioritis”. Individuals in lower grade levels find themselves racing to graduation, and it feels as though it cannot come quick enough. Not to fret, this is the correct article to be reading if you find yourself in the same position, concerned about staying on track with your studies, and determined to successfully move onto the next step in life. Those who choose to continue daydreaming will be in a world of hurt, and their future could possibly end up suffering, due to a few lazy mistakes.
Although it may be easy to sit back in class and feel as though work at high school is history, this is an open invitation for grades to spiral down into a bitter ending-not the ideal finish to senior year. Because students begin to get accepted into various schools, they feel as though their grades in school are no longer of importance; however, this is dramatically incorrect. Colleges want to see everyone finish out strong, and if they come across poor grades on a final report card, which they really do take a close look at, the students could, ultimately, be rejected from that college or put on probation which means the college will give the students time to prove themselves worthy of attending their campus in the fall. Good luck, explain that one to Mom and Dad. Additionally, students may lose out on amazing scholarships.
Not only should the fear of being rejected from your formally accepted to college be enough to keep seniors of high school focused on their studies, but also what type of precedent is being set for the future? Now is the perfect time to set up sufficient study skills and a concrete foundation for approaching work after Morgan. Professors in college will not create outlines and study guides; those are skills which should be developed in high school. If afternoons are spent browsing Facebook, looking up the latest music, ‘stumbling’ for hours, and shrugging off school assignments, down the road, it is safe to say that the same rut will be revisited, grades plummeting. Fix this while there is still time!
This period in life should be embraced, but be responsible. Many have already reached the age of 18 and need to begin taking control of the future. Additionally, because there is no other choice than to spend the next few months at Morgan, make the best of it to assure that when June comes around, and the class of 2012 walks across the stage, everyone does it with a sense of achievement and triumph, prepared to take on whatever comes next in life.