Tips on How to Survive Senioritis

Although it is hard not to suffer from the sickening senioritis, there are ways to prevent it from happening:

• Prepare for college in your junior year
• Narrow down your major, if still undecided, that's okay too
• Research colleges that interest you
• Prepare for and take the SATs
• Request college information
• Study, and study hard
• Split up your time wisely, and practice time management
• Make time for your homework, friends, family, sports, etc
• Buy a planner and get a calender
• Stay organized
• Do not procrastinate!
• Ask at least three teachers, counselors or authorities for letters of recommendation
• Write your college essay
• Have it proof read by a teacher and/or parent
• Make changes
• When you feel it is done, keep rereading it
• Common Application and the SUNY Application
• Make an account if the college you are planning to attend requires the Common App or you are going to a SUNY school
• Plan to visit colleges you would like to attend, or have an interest in
• It is essential to visit a college because that could potentially be the place you will spend the next four years of your life at, and you have to at least go there to see if you actually like it and can see yourself living there. You can look at the pictures they provide you in their view book, but nothing will compare to walking on the campus yourself (Ask the Dean-College Advice )
• When you're there you can talk to college students, admission officers, counselors, professors, couches, etc. and get their advice
• You might also get the privilege to apply right there without paying the fee
• Fill out transcript request forms and hand them in to your counselor
• Preferably before Christmas break
• These are required for colleges that you apply to because the office has to send your transcript off all your grades thus far of high school to the colleges of your choice
• Apply to at least five colleges
• One that is your top choice
• Two that you feel greatly about
• Two that you know you will definitely get into if all else fails
• Request for fee waivers
• Review all of your graduation requirements
• Community service
• Retakes for regents
• Number of credits received
• Apply for financial aid/scholarships
• Become aware of what it actually is
• Get the proper paperwork
• The more money you receive to help you pay for college, the less you will pay in the future, and the less your parents will pay
•  Receive acceptance letters
• If accepted, they will tell that in order to become a student at their school you need to send in a bunch of money for housing, that will hold your place
• If denied, don't worry there are other schools
• Relax, before you know it your senior year will be over and you will miss it more than ever. Sometimes just take a deep breath and look back and think about all the good times and stop stressing yourself out. You want to look back on your senior year not as a regret for always being stressed out and panicking, you want to look back on it being a great end to your high school career!

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Stressed Out Seniors!

I know for a fact that there is a lot of pressure on a high school senior’s shoulders to get good grades, graduate and get into college. Some students not only feel pressured by their teachers, coaches or counselors, but by their parents. Some parents bribe their children with money to get good grades; that of which I am a victim of. Some parents even ground their children for having bad grades or failing a test, that’s a little extreme. But as a senior, the pressures are even more immense considering the fact that if you fail or don’t graduate then you’re not going to college (well eventually you might, but not anytime soon). This brings me to the issue of cheating. I believe that if you cheat then you don’t learn anything. If you are going to cheat and copy answers from someone else who took their time to do that and actually knows the topic at hand, then you’re not learning anything yourself. If you're going to cheat on a test, the chances of you getting caught and getting a zero are increased and that just decreases your knowledge on the subject because you may need to know that for maybe the regents or the SATs. Everything builds on each other, that book that you didn’t read from could have helped you on that homework that you copied off of and that homework will help you on that test that you don’t know anything on and that test will help you on the regents that you need to pass to graduate and that you absolutely can’t cheat off of.

Some student’s go to the extremes on cheating, I can remember last year when more than a dozen student’s paid another student to do all of their same homework sheets and when they all handed them in, it wasn’t even the right chapter they were on, so now that teacher doesn’t trust any of them and they all got zero’s and got written up.
Another newsworthy instance was when a man, Samuel Eshaghoff (19), was caught taking the SATs for 15 people over a three year period who paid him between $500-$3,600 to obtain SAT scores between 2,170-2,220 and ACT scores as high as 33. -NY Times Article  

Most students feel the need to cheat when they’re pressured by teachers and their parents, when they don’t have enough time to do their work or if they’re just lazy. If you ever feel the need to cheat then you need to make a plan for yourself. Organize your assignments in a planner and manage your time wisely. Take time out of your day on weekends and especially after school to do your homework assignments, projects and studying. Most students also spend their time either working or playing a sport, but you can’t play a sport if you're failing a class and not doing your homework and also your money from working won’t pay for you to graduate, your brain and your hard work will.

So just remember, if you cheat than you are only cheating yourself.

"Stressed Out" 

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The left side of the graph shows a college freshman's self assessment
of their emotional health.On the right side of the graph, the same
college freshman answered the question of

how overwhelmed they felt during their senior year in high school.

This survey concluded, as a direct read, that women were twice as stressed as men.

Photo Credit

Start Early!

Before I begin talking about senioritis and its effects on me and other high school students, I will start with informing those who aren’t seniors yet to start early. It is very essential to start looking at colleges and taking the SATs earlier rather than waiting until your senior year to cram it all in, because that is exactly what I did. I thought it would be a smart idea to take my SATs in my senior year so I would be prepared because I knew everything, but I was sadly mistaken. My goal is to make the younger kids learn from my mistakes and advise them to start preparing in 10^th and 11^th grade. Usually in 10^th grade the PSATs are taken and then in 11^th grade your English teacher prepares you even further for the SAT. The thing is, everyone should definitely take them their junior year because then you get a feel of what you’re getting yourself into, you become familiar with the test,  you can work on your weaknesses, and then you can keep taking it over and over again to improve your score. I have been reading into a book called “Getting Into College,” which is an informational book which includes winning admission strategies from many students and advisers, advice from top college admission offices, tips on the SAT and ACT, how to write a good essay and financial aid advice. I feel this book is very helpful considering I am a senior trying to get into college, and this can also be helpful to juniors who are preparing to take their SATs and planning on applying to colleges as well.

“It’s easier to get through the process, and get what you want out of it, if you get an early start. I wouldn’t want to enter my senior year without any idea of where I wanted to go to college or what I had to do to get there. But starting earlier in your high school years, you have a chance to do things slowly and do them right. I never felt any panic because my parents and I had developed a schedule for when we wanted to get each step in process done, and we pretty much stuck to it. You can’t do that if you wait until the last minute.”

-Bill Lawryk

Frederick, Maryland
George Washington University

Mr. Lawryk from George Washington University states that it’s much easier to start early, which I agree with completely, but unfortunately I was too late to realize this. Obviously he had it pretty easy considering he started early, so take it from him and I and start early, because I am quite certain you won’t regret it. :)

"Start Preparing Early"





Senioritis Has Struck, Welcome to my Blog!

Looking back on the past three years of high school, I never would have imagined that this much stress could occur in a year that is supposed to be meant for such joy and excitement. When you are in 9th or 10th grade you're not even thinking about your senior year or college yet, well at least I wasn't anyways. Before you know it, it just jumps right into getting serious and planning your future out in 11th and 12th grade. I am quite sure it’s a huge transition from being in the same place, with the same people doing the same things to separating yourself  and doing your own thing and I know I can't be the only one completely terrified to go to college and be away from my friends and family. During your senior year there are just so many tasks piling up that need to be accomplished, so many events that need to be remembered, so many people that need your attention and so much paperwork that needs to be filled out. It definitely gets overwhelming, stressful and tiring. There comes a time during your senior year when mostly all of the seniors just slack off, don’t do their work, get lazy, procrastinate, become increasingly absent and just stop trying. This is known as senioritis. As a senior I am here to help those fellow seniors and select underclassmen that are also in the same boat as I am, and push through this disease, keep the motivation high and to help survive through this senioritis.

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