Senior year of high school. They say that if you hate high school, you'll enjoy college, but if you love high school, college will be a challenge. I'd like to put that to rest right now. The college experience is different for every single person and it is completely, entirely, extremely different than high school. It's not even fair to compare the two types of schooling!
On that note, senior year for high schoolers is filled with college applications, recommendation letters, trying to maintain good grades, homecoming, prom, graduation, and trying to make as many memories in your last year as you can. When you're in college, you're going to look back on your years in high school and remember the people you spent your time with, the activities you did, the teachers that changed your life, and how it was a completely different experience than college and you kind of miss it.
Here are 7 tips for rising high school seniors that will hopefully make your year a bit easier:
1. Lock down the teachers you want recommendation letters from at the end of junior year or the first few days of senior year.
Teachers, regardless of how big or small your high school is, are very busy. They have meetings, lesson plans to make, other students, and a family and social life of their own. It's best to track the teachers you are closest to, or the classes you excel at and get those teachers to confirm they will write you a kick-ass recommendation letter early on. That way, you won't have to fight hoards of other students trying to get the same drama teacher to write about your unique personality and how you'll change the world one day!
2. Make sure you start your college applications early and get them out of the way!
The sooner you start writing those personal statements and start sending in all your documents and test scores, the sooner you can take a well-deserved breather. The college application process is extremely stressful as is your senior year, so the faster the applications are dealt with, the faster you can really put your all into the last few courses you'll ever take at the high school level.
3. Hang out with everybody!
You'll meet loads of different people in college. People from a plethora of backgrounds with so many different interests that you'll forget being picky about who to befriend and instead want to make friends with everybody! Why not start that your senior year?
Sit with kids you barely interact with but who are in your chemistry and English classes. Expand your friend group and be nice to everybody, start looking at people as potential networks for the future! You never know which of your high school classmates will become millionaires, will become world renowned surgeons, or will have the biggest and best underground bunker during the zombie apocalypse!
4. Spend time with your family.
Being homesick in college is real and not just during your freshman year. You are not the only ones who are preparing to go to college, your family is preparing to let you get out of the house and preparing for you to be on your own in the real world. It is hard for everyone and we often take the feelings of our family members for granted because most of us have lived at home since we were born, so it feels as though our family wants to get rid of us when in reality, they don't want to let us go.
Don't spend all your weekends out with your friends or give your parents too hard a time about curfews and rules. When you're in college, you won't have them 'nagging' you or taking care of you when you're sick, unless you live at home. Enjoy it, take full advantage of it, and tell everyone close to you how much they mean to you.
5. Don't take your second semester after the holidays for granted.
Something about winter break your senior year of high school makes people relax and think of the second semester, your last semester ever, as a joke. It isn't. Sure, most colleges have closed their applications so you're not too worried about that, but don't think they can't revoke your acceptance. Colleges still see your grades from second semester senior year and it can definitely cause them to rethink your acceptance if you fail or do extremely poorly.
Yes, it isn't as hectic and instead of focusing on applications and colleges you're more focused on prom and graduation, but grades are still important. You want to end high school on a good note, not barely passing.
6. Don't feel like you need to know who you are and what you want to be or do right away.
I guarantee you, you're going to meet people in college who still are unsure about their chosen major and who are about to graduate college. There is so much time to think about what you want to be when you grow up, to cement your likes and dislikes, and to really find out who you want to be.
You don't need to rush to figure yourself out while you're still in high school, because every experience you have and every person you meet changes your mentality and changes parts about you whether you realize it or not. Today you may be set on being the next big neurosurgeon, but a few months from now you may see yourself as joining Teach For America and changing the lives of children and making them love learning.
7. Get active within your future college's Facebook groups.
Join your graduating class' facebook groups! Once you accept a college, or get your acceptances from a few, you can scope out the various facebook groups and use that to help narrow down your choices. This is where people find their roommates, find friends, and even just learn more about the people you're going to be seeing around campus and learning the do's and don'ts from upperclassmen.
These are the facebook groups that you'll be interacting with throughout college and they'll definitely help you find rides home, cheaper textbooks, and let you know about the professors to avoid and the landlords that want to rip you off!
Most importantly, just enjoy the last few months in high school. You have your whole lives ahead of you to act like adults, but only a few years where it's okay to mess up and to play around. High school is four years of your life you'll never get back but look back on forever. The memories you make and the friends that have influenced you are going to be ingrained in your brain forever.
Take a break and enjoy the time you have while you can, because once you cross that stage and grab your diploma, life is going to be one big roller coaster.
