As any High School senior will tell you, the year is filled with so many emotions from the second you become a senior on the last day of junior year to the minute you walk out the doors after graduation. Each senior goes through what I like to call “Senior year Stages” each “stage” comes with a different emotion at a specific time in the year.
Stage 1- Excitement: Every high school student counts down the years until they are seniors and can have all the “senior privileges” and attend all the events that they have longed for all throughout high school. The summer going into senior year is one of the best, and the worst. You and your friends get ready to “rule the school” and start to prepare for whatever version of senior rally your town does. You also begin applying to colleges, which is stressful to say the least. Nothing can compare to the feeling of finally becoming a senior after all the years of watching older siblings and friends go through their senior years and claiming how amazing is was.
Stage 2- Stress: Once October rolls around the college process starts to get a little more intense. All you hear people talking about is where they’re applying, what supplements they need to write, and how they need to get their grades up. As deadlines get closer, the stress level of every senior is bound to skyrocket. The most common you’ll be asked is “where are you going to school?” or “what do you want to major in?” This tends to make everyone much more stressed.
Stage 3- Anxiousness: This is when most seniors are playing the waiting game. After apps are in and quarter grades are sent, there’s not much more to do then to wait to hear back from the schools you’ve applied to. Sure, you can email your admissions representative as much as you want to increase your chances of getting in, but you’re still going to have to wait. While three fourths of the grade is waiting to hear back, there is still that select few that are late in the game and still scrambling to get their apps in before the deadline.
Stage 4- Relief: Starting around Mid- late February, most seniors have heard back from a majority if not all of the schools they’ve applied to and are starting to see what the future holds for them. You start to see how much the hard work you’ve put in throughout high school paid off and are much less anxious and a lot less stressed.
Stage 5- Senioritis: This phase is not always at the same time for everyone, it usually happens when you finally decide what school you are enrolling in for the fall. This is when every senior says to themselves “I’m done.” From that point on, a lot more naps are taken, less homework is done, and staying out late with friends happens more often then just on the weekend. (Which you would have never even thought of before this point.) Once you’re taken over by senioritis, there is no turning back.
Stage 6- Sadness: Most Seniors are itching to start the new chapter of their lives but don’t stop to realize what they are leaving behind. As the last day of school comes closer, you realize just how fast the past year, better yet, the past four years went by. You realize how many “lasts” you’ve had and how many are coming. If you’re anything like me, you would do anything to stay in high school just a little bit longer with the people you’ve been surrounded by for the past 12+ years, because in less then a few months there’s no telling when the next time you will see each other is.
Stage 7- Nostalgia: As you attend prom and graduation, you start to realize just how quickly time is passing. Although there were multiple occasions you begged your mom to call you in sick, and felt as though high school was your own personal hell, you’ll really miss it. Don’t forget about all the times when you were having a bad day, and once you turned the corner in the hall to see your best friends that bad day you were having, didn’t seem so bad anymore. The happiest year of any high school students life is senior year so don’t forget to take it all in, and make the most of every moment.
