College application season is known to be one of the most eventful times of a high school senior. It is an exciting time filled with hope and anticipation for the future. However, with the gravity of having to collect documentation of all you have accomplished over the past 4 years can lead to a great strain on students’ mental health, which can lead into one of the most common ailments for seniors: senioritis.
Senior year is often stressful for high schoolers, regardless of college pressures, with many students having to balance jobs, advanced classes, extracurriculars and preparations for standardized testing. The piles of expectations students have built by parents and peers often leads to burnout that every student and teacher knows as “senioritis”. Students may feel too stretched and exhausted to try as hard as they have been and the pressure may build with deadlines growing ever closer and decisions needing to be made. Furthermore, feeling left behind by peers may add to the dread that students feel when finalizing their resumes to have their lives graded by colleges.
Luckily, it has been seen that there are some areas where “senioritis” will be a short phase that lasts only a week to a month, which has been witnessed to increase productivity and performance, giving seniors the one last push they need to finish high school.
While there may be positives to senioritis, it must not be overlooked theserious strain that it may have on students’ mental health and the risks of lasting effects if not handled carefully. Support groups should be utilized and appreciated more than ever and this time should be treated carefully but firmly, as it very well may be some students’ first times feeling this overwhelmed. Support groups in education areas and in personal lives are important to be maintained and treated with respect.
It is the responsibility of those who have come before others to try and help students that may end up struggling due to this reoccurring cycle. Creating safe spaces for students to express their struggles is critical to give appropriate support during this time. Senioritis doesn’t have to be fatal, all students can recover.
