Senior year. The peak of high school and some would even say the peak of our lives. Seniors get to go to prom, have more academic freedom, and experience the excitement of thinking about college. It almost seems too good to be true. And it is, in fact, too good to be true. Between applications, classes that only seem to get harder, and figuring out the rest of our lives, senior year is even more stressful and time consuming than any other year. While it is more difficult, sometimes it feels easier because seniors are consumed by a kind of apathy that changes them, for better or for worse.

The apathy the senior class begins to suffer from when winter break comes around is famously known as “senioritis,” a fictional disease that causes its victims to decrease in work ethic and motivation. This disease hits most seniors differently but it comes quickly and with horrible consequences.

As students’ attendance begins to suffer, along with their grades and their motivation to do anything at all school related, many will be the first to blame senioritis. This is simply because it is senior year, and all of us are stuck in an awkward transition between high school and college, a switch to a pre-adulthood stage that, well, certain groups of people are just not ready for.

Stuck between savoring their last bit of high school and worrying about the unforeseeable future, senioritis fills most seniors with an intense feeling of nervousness and excitement, which places them in this complacent state where they feel like nothing really matters, where they are okay with what they have done for the past three years and questioning why they even need to be here anymore, especially after college acceptance letters pour in.

This state students are put in called senioritis is completely justified in my opinion. Teachers and parents have different mindsets about the issue, but are they the ones in the seniors’ position?

It’s senior year; students have taken the SAT several times, some have been accepted to a college, a few may even have a dorm room already, so of course seniors are going to feel like attending their statistics or AP government class isn’t going to matter, yet they still do matter.

While senioritis is a justified feeling, that doesn’t make it a viable excuse to fail classes and let one’s attendance slowly decline. Seniors still have to graduate, or else they can kiss their college acceptance goodbye.

Colleges know about senioritis. Most, if not all, of those people in charge of handling college applications, have felt it before, and, surprise, it can affect one’s acceptance.

Many people believe that their first acceptance letter from a college is the end all be all, but colleges can actually revoke one’s acceptance. While it doesn’t happen often, it’s  not impossible. And if they did revoke one’s acceptance, it would most commonly be due to their failing grades and declining attendance caused by the feelings of apathy senioritis brings.

Being realistic, senioritis is going to happen. Seniors have been at high school for three years and worked like crazy to accomplish one single goal; getting into college. And once that has already been checked off the list, what else is there, six more months of senior year?

So, be kind and careful around seniors, this year and every year, because you are either going to experience senioritis in full force, or you may have already have experienced it, and believe me when I say that it isn’t a pleasant feeling.