Senioritis, a term applied to high school seniors, is defined as having a decline in performance, motivation or effort nearing the end of the school year. As seniors this year weren’t able to experience their full four years of high school in person, this has led some to believe that this term is no longer applicable to seniors this year, in comparison to seniors in years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many of the seniors disagree with this statement.
“I definitely feel like I’ve gotten it. Ever since the first day of school I felt it because I felt so drained and I am ready for a new adventure and as much as I love it here, I am ready to have fun somewhere else and get some sleep,” said senior Nina Shaw.
Although the majority of seniors looked forward to interacting with other peers when returning back in-person, they felt that this transition in learning has caused further strain to their experience with senioritis. This has been mainly due to the fact that some seniors are having difficulty adjusting to the amount of workload they received originally along with college-related work.
One main issue that has caused several concerns to arise in seniors was the uncertainty and changes involved in the college application process. Particularly with seniors that planned on applying to more competitive schools, canceled test dates for the ACT and SAT has left many worried about their chances of getting into these colleges.
“Even though a lot of the schools were going test optional, I still got really stressed over not being able to retake my SAT because I felt like it was something that would strengthen my chances of getting into my dream college,” said Ink.
Another concern was not being able to receive strong letters of recommendations from teachers. With seniors being forced to adjust to an online learning environment last year, many felt at a disadvantage having to form relationships with their teachers online.
“At some point I was really conflicted on what teacher to ask for my letter of recommendation. Because I felt like none of my teachers last year really got to really know me that well as a student last year through online, I initially chose to ask my teacher from sophomore year to write it,” said Shaw.
While many are motivated in keeping up with their academic work in hopes of increasing their chances in getting into colleges, some struggle to maintain this motivation once they receive acceptances into their colleges. As a result, they grapple with trying to find any purpose or meaning in doing their academic work at all.
“It just feels like everything doesn’t matter in the scope of things,” said Ink.
Despite the several struggles seniors have faced throughout the past few years, many are grateful to experience in-person learning again and school events, and activities such as senior luau and homecoming.
¨First is not worrying about going to high school again. Second is finding my passion in life and enjoying my journey throughout life. We only have one chance anyway, make the most out of it,”said senior Rhandy Yoon.