Tips for Avoiding Senioritis

The symptoms show up every year. High school seniors try to balance extracurricular activities, a social life, college admission, and perhaps a part-time job. Somewhere along the way, home work begins to seem less important. Then they get accepted to college, and after that, high school seems even less important. School work begins to slide—and so do their grades. The diagnosis? Senioritis.

Senioritis is easy to catch and hard to get rid of. It can also be dangerous to your plans for the future. Every year, colleges rescind their offers of admission, put students on academic probation, or change financial aid packages because of it.

Regardless of the consequences, it is still tempting to let school work slide. After all, seniors are busy people. To help you fight that temptation, read on for some ways to avoid senioritis.

Plan ahead. You probably already know what activities you'll stay involved in this year. And you know that college applications are coming up fast. Plus you want to make the most of your time with friends and family. Fitting all of it in without pulling your hair out (or pulling your grades down) is the goal. The best tool is a calendar or day planner. Write down all of your deadlines—for applications, papers, tests, and so on. Then note your other activities—your sports schedule, drama or band rehearsals, SAT or ACT day, college visits.

Then look at what you have. To complete that English paper, when do you have to start working on it? If the big game is the night before the due date, plan to finish the paper a few days ahead of time. You won't have time to get it done the night before because you'll be leading the team to victory!

Don't obsess. It's easy to get caught up in the college admission process and forget about the here and now.

Don't get involved in some activity just to impress colleges. You don't have time for that. Instead, do the things you love—and drop activities that you're just not that committed to. (That doesn't include academics, though!)

Editorial provided by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2008 by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.