Xatal » High School: Senior Year

Should I buy my high school yearbook?

Paul — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:00:56 +0000

I noticed in high school that, for many students, yearbooks are either something to get every single year, or not at all. Some students buy a yearbook no matter what, but others completely refuse every year. Students always are told, “you’ll want a yearbook to look back on!”, but being young it’s hard to actually decide if that’s true or worthwhile.

Why buy a yearbook?

Having a yearbook is a cool way to be able to look back on the year. Looking back at pictures of yourself and your friends at different points in your lives can be pretty fun, and a great way to reminisce.

Plus, having friends sign your yearbooks is always fun. It’s cool to see what people have to say about you.

Why not buy a yearbook?

The main reason that I can see is the cost. For many high schools, yearbooks can cost over $50, and some cost $100. Granted, you’re (usually) buying a quality album, but this is still a hefty price tag for many high school students.

Usually, there are ways to help cut the cost. Many schools will fluctuate the price of yearbooks — you may be able to buy it for less if you reserve it far in advance, or perhaps at the beginning of the next year, when there are leftover yearbooks the school is trying to get rid of.

For other students, yearbooks just generally aren’t appealing at the time, for whatever reason. I asked friends who didn’t buy yearbooks why they decided not to, and they said, “I hate high school and don’t want to remember it”, “It doesn’t seem worth it to me”, or even “I just don’t care”.

How about buying the yearbook my senior year?

Buying a yearbook for all four years of high school may be a bit unnecessary, but I would strongly recommend buying your yearbook in your senior year.

After your senior year, you’ll never most of your classmates again. Their autographs and pictures in your yearbook are as good of a way as any to remember the people you used to see every day. Plus, yearbooks usually focus primarily on the seniors, with large sections devoted to sports, clubs, senior sendoffs, and just general pictures of the leaving class. It’s the one year that the yearbook is most about you.

Whether or not you buy one is up to you (and if you can afford it), but I strongly recommend buying at least one yearbook while you’re in high school — and of course I recommend it being during your senior year. I would say the other three yearbooks are much more optional.

How much am I going to use my yearbook?

A yearbook isn’t something you’re going to casually look through several times a week, but rather something you stumble upon once every several years and take a glance through. You might open it to reminisce about high school, to try to remember that one kid’s name, or even to show your children what you were like when you were a pesky teenager.

I’ve been out of high school several years and I’ve glanced at my old yearbooks a few times — sometimes to see if I recognize a name, to see how old friends used to look, or to read some old autographs. I’ve seen roommates who brought their yearbooks to college, where the yearbooks were a great way to break the ice and to get to know each other better from the beginning. For me, my old yearbooks are a good way to occasionally revisit the better times of high school.

How do you feel about yearbooks?

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Things to do in your last month of senior year in high school

Paul — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:00:56 +0000

Senior year of high school already feels extremely short, and no part of it feels shorter than your last month. Even though the days themselves seem to go by slow, the month itself will zoom by before you know it. Since it’s your last real month in this era of your life, you should definitely enjoy it as much as you can.

Strengthen the friendships you want to hang on to.

Once you graduate, you’re not going to see most of your class again. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to you, but if you’re bummed about losing a lot of these people, then make an effort now. You’ll still have your good friends during the summer (and probably beyond), but make some plans to hang out with friends in your classes before it’s too late — if you strengthen the friendship now, you’ll be able to keep in touch after high school.

Visit your favorite teachers.

Take some time to say hello to your old favorite teachers. If you had a great history teacher your sophomore year, drop in and visit a bit. You might also want to visit some of your past elementary or middle school teachers as well — it’s incredibly flattering for a teacher to know that a past student still cares enough to come in, and you’ll notice how much more adult they treat you now.

Take some chances.

Try not to let laziness overcome you — go to a few high school events, such as dances or sports games. Go to as many of the senior events as you can. This is your last month of high school — you might as well get the most out of it.

If there’s a girl or boy you’ve been afraid to ask out, go for it! Chances are you’ll never see him or her again if you don’t, so now’s your chance to try something risky.

Keep an eye on your grades.

Lastly, make sure your grades are steady. Senioritis kicks in hard near the end of high school — ward it off the best you can while still enjoying yourself.

Senior year is a great time, make the most out of your last month.

Technorati Tags: high school, senior year

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How to have the confidence to ask a girl to prom

Paul — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:00:58 +0000

Asking a girl to prom can be pretty nerve-racking, even if you think she’s likely to say yes. There are all kinds of doubts swimming around in your head: what if she says no? What if I get nervous and mess up? What if I come across as weird?

Don't be afraid to ask a girl to prom

Having confidence is always the best way to handle any romantic affair — including asking a girl to prom. Being confident not only increases the likelihood of receiving a yes, it also will make it easier if she says no. However, confidence doesn’t come to everybody easily, and sometimes a push in the right direction can make a huge difference.

How are you going to ask?

If you’re trying to come up with a creative and cute idea to ask her to prom, that’s always a good choice, though I would only recommend it if you’re confident she’ll say yes (or don’t care if you get turned down). If you’re looking for cute ideas, I suggest you read my post that has some suggestions. I’m going to be assuming that you’re just going to walk up and ask her, however.

How to ask her

If you know the girl well, you can make small talk with her beforehand. If you’ve barely (or never) spoken to her, just launch into it. You don’t need a fancy lead-in — just be forward and ask, “Will you go to prom with me?” and go from there. I wouldn’t even recommend asking if she has a date already — if you ask her, “do you have a date yet?”, it’s pretty clear what you’re going to ask next. You might as well get it over with.

Don’t make asking any more complex then you have to. The more you think about it, the more nervous you will be. That said, there are some good tips to bear in mind:

Don’t put her on a pedestal.

No matter how attractive, smart, fun, or cute the girl is, don’t put her on a pedestal. She’s just a human being — like you, your family, and your friends. Do your best to avoid giving her too much status in your mind — this will make you far more nervous than you would be.

Imagine how a confident person would ask her

You don’t always have to be confident — sometimes faking it works just as well. Think to yourself how a confident person would ask her and keep that in the back of your mind while you’re talking to her.

Do not rehearse it in your mind.

This is a huge deal. If you’re trying to script out what you’re going to say, don’t. When you talk, it will sound very scripted and rehearsed. There’s also no way you can predict what she’s going to say, so you may become flustered if she says something you don’t expect. If you start to feel your mind wandering down the road of rehearsing the situation, stop it. You’ll do much better if you handle the situation in the moment.

Give yourself a challenge

This sounds a bit contradictory — why would you want to make it harder?

When giving presentations in class, I learned that I can feel less nervous if I try to do something above and beyond — maybe focusing on looking around a lot, or on my tone of voice. By making it harder for myself, I gained confidence because I knew it takes confidence to do what I was doing.

How can you apply this to asking a girl to prom? Maybe ask her while she’s with her friends instead of trying to approach her when she’s alone. Approaching her in front of her friends takes far more guts, but it takes confidence to do it. That knowledge may help you feel more assured about asking her. It will also earn you brownie points because you’re asking in front of her friends.

If you’re not a confident person, then asking a girl is very nerve-racking, but it’s far from impossible. Do you have any tips that worked for you?

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Why local scholarships are better than online scholarships

Paul — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:00:48 +0000

Now that your college applications are (hopefully) submitted, it’s a good idea to start applying to scholarships. Many kids put them off until March or so, so by applying now you gain a few more opportunities to win than you would otherwise have if you procrastinate.

Occasionally in high school, we would have opportunities to work on scholarship applications during classtime in a computer lab. Wherever I looked in the classroom, people were working on online scholarship applications, most found on the website FastWeb.

Although online scholarships are worth applying to, in actuality, they are not as effective uses of your time as a local scholarship.

The appeal of an online scholarship

Online scholarships are mostly very simple — enter in your basic information, maybe type up an essay, and hit “Submit”. They’re very simple and quick, and you can easily fill out three or four basic ones a day. Often you’ll need an essay, but most of the essays will be no longer than 500 words. You don’t usually need any letters of recommendation or copies of your high school transcripts. All you need is to provide your SAT/ACT scores, your GPA, and a few other basic details about yourself.

The simplicity of these scholarships makes them appealing — because you can apply so fast, you feel very accomplished for putting in little effort. When your mother asks if you started on any scholarships, you can smugly smile and say, “I applied to four today!”

The slim odds of an online scholarship

Local scholarship applications are usually trickier

However, even though these scholarships are quick and rather painless, you’re mostly wasting your time. You see, online scholarships are almost always open nationwide (or statewide). This means that countless high school students are applying to them. Of the thousands of high schools in the country, you can safely assume that at least two or three people from each school will apply to that scholarship (if not more). Therefore, you’re competing against thousands of other students for that one single bit of money. The odds of you winning are incredibly slim — all it takes is one of those thousands of students to stand out more than you on paper to eliminate your chances of winning.

And chances are, if the scholarship application was very simple and didn’t ask for much extra (ie, letters of recommendation or essays), all it takes is one person with higher test scores or a higher GPA to eliminate you. And, since these scholarships are so simple, chances are that even more students apply to them.

Local scholarships provide much better odds.

Local scholarships are daunting at first because most of them require a lot more work on your part — letters of recommendation, copies of transcripts, more essays, and so forth. Sometimes you even have to go to more effort to turn them in!

However, this is where the appeal from local scholarships lies: people are lazy. Many don’t go through the hassle of a local scholarship, so very few apply to them. Often, local scholarships will have 30 or fewer people applying to them, which increases your odds of winning drastically.

In fact, many local scholarships can be won simply by filling the application out. I won a local scholarship last year because I was the only one who properly answered the essay prompt — nobody else who turned in an application properly addressed the question. One girl in my class even won a scholarship because she was the only one to turn in an application. It didn’t matter how well-written her essay was — she won by default!

If you find local scholarships that are specific to you (ethnicity, academic strengths, and so forth), your odds of winning are surprisingly high. I won three out of the five local scholarships I applied to, but zero out of about twenty online scholarships.

Don’t give up on online scholarships.

Even though your chances of winning an online scholarship are slim, they still are not a waste of time. The simple scholarships that don’t require much time are still worth applying to. You may just win.

But your best luck with online scholarships will come from finding niche scholarships: ones that are specific to you or require something extra, such as reading a certain book or writing on an obscure topic. For the same reason as the local scholarships, your odds of winning these are much higher.

Even though online scholarships are appealing, in the end you’ll have a much better chance at earning free money through a local scholarship. Even though local scholarships are typically far more work, the payoff will come when you find out that you won. So make the best use of your time, and give yourself a better chance at paying for college!

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Are teachers better senior year?

Paul — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:00:22 +0000

This is something I’ve actually been wondering lately.

Although every year of high school came with its own great teachers and bad teachers, when it came to my senior year, more of my teachers were laid-back when it came to students, yet still quality teachers.

By senior year, most of my teachers had the philosophy that we were adults, and therefore could do what we wanted provided we don’t disturb the class. This meant we were allowed to do several things that typically aren’t allowed in a high school setting:

Use the bathroom when we needed to. We could just get up, grab the pass, and leave.
Arrive late to class now and then. With an open campus lunch, this was a big deal. As long as it didn’t become a habit and didn’t disturb the class, there was no problem with it.
We could readily negotiate tests, essays, and so forth. As long as we had good reasons, teachers were very flexible.

Teachers also began to talk to us like adults, making some classes more of a conversation than a lecture, which I actually found to be more educational than mindlessly copying notes from the overhead projector. The teachers were also typically some of the best the school had to offer.

Although I’m sure a lot of this comes from seniors being more mature, I’m wondering if some of it may also come from just the teachers I have. That’s why I ask for your opinion!

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If you have any other comments about your teachers and freedoms in high school, I’m very interested in hearing from you!

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How decided should I be when I submit my college applications?

Paul — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:00:31 +0000

Last year when I submitted my college applications, I remember wondering often if I was sure enough of where I wanted to go to school. Now, my girlfriend is beginning to apply to schools, and she’s feeling anxious because she’s really not sure where she wants to go still.

You do not need to know which school you want to attend when you submit your application

Obviously, before turning in college applications, you have a nice variety of colleges to choose from. But once application due dates start hitting, your options will become much narrower. This can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, depending on how you want to look at it.

But whichever way, it’s important to feel at least some level of certainty with the schools you chose to apply to. You want each school you send an application to be a potential choice for you, not just some school you choose for the sake of choosing. Unless you have enough money to apply to schools simply for bragging rights, applying to schools on a whim is going to cost a lot of money (and time).

Here are some ways of helping to feel good about your choices:

Make some lists

For each school you’re applying to, stop and think, “Why am I applying here?” Try to make a list of things you believe are good about the school, maybe its reputation or its location. What’s the main reason you’re applying to the school? See if you can come up with a good list of things better than “I chose it randomly”.

While you’re at it, go ahead and make a small list of negative aspects about the school too.

Do some basic research.

If you’ve never looked into the school at all, now is the time to start. You don’t need to thoroughly research the school at this point, but it’s important to catch any red flags early on. StudentsReview is a great site for doing some basic research on what students have to say about the school.

Compare what you read to your list. See how many of your points still stand and which ones have changed, and decide if you’re still interested in potentially attending the school.

For example, I applied to one school, and after applying I learned it really wasn’t somewhere I was interested in attending. Had I done some research beforehand, I could have saved the time and money of applying there.

Backup school

Even though your backup school is simply a backup, it’s somewhere that you want to be able to see yourself at as well. In theory, the main difference between a backup school and the other main schools you’re applying to should be that your backup school is less selective.

So when selecting your backup school, try not to think of just a school that’s easy to get in to. Remember, in the worst-case scenario, you could end up actually attending that school. Select a school that you would honestly give some thought to if you knew you had no chance at the more selective ones.

Don’t worry if you can’t choose between where you’ve applied to

If you already have a main choice of the schools you’ve applied to, that’s great! But if you don’t, then don’t worry. You still have many months to make that final choice. At this point, you don’t need to have a preference of the schools you’re applying to.

However, you want to have reasons for why you’ve chosen to apply where you have. Even though you may not be able to apply to every school, or there may be other schools that offer what your choices do, that’s fine. But for the schools you’re applying to, make sure your reasons for considering the school are fairly solid and that you could potentially see yourself attending that school.

When I turned in my applications, I had no clue which of the schools I would end up attending, and in fact, at the time I was even leaning against UCSC. But for each of the schools, I knew why I was applying there, and in the end, that was more than enough certainty.

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A timeline for your senior year in high school

Paul — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:00:49 +0000

Senior year in high school can definitely be a bit hectic. Even though you’re trying to enjoy your final year in high school, you also need to keep an eye on all kinds of deadlines to make sure you don’t fall behind and miss out!

Forgetting important dates in your senior year is easy

Senior year is a big year, and it flies by, believe me. If you want to make sure you leave high school with every loose end taken care of, it helps to have a nice guideline of what to do as your year goes by. While individual parts will come with their own specific dates, some senior events will remain constant year to year.

I’ve come up with this timeline, going by what events happened during my senior year in high school. Hopefully, this list will help you out a bit. Please let me know if there’s anything important I’ve forgotten.

September

Get an idea what colleges you’re going to apply to. Research schools online and form an idea about where you want to go. Having a solid idea where you want to apply to early on will save you a lot of hassle down the road.

October

Start your college applications. Hopefully by now, you have an idea what schools you’re interested in applying to. October is fairly early to start on your applications, which will give you plenty of time to write good essays, find the information you need, receive letters of recommendation, and so forth.
Finish up any testing you need to do. Take the ACT/SAT if you need to.

November

Submit your college applications. Most college applications are due around the end of November. Don’t procrastinate until the last moment. Make sure you’ve filled them out to the best of your ability, and hit that Submit button. Once you have those in, you’ll feel a massive weight off of your shoulders!
Retake any tests. ACT/SAT, if you don’t like your current scores. By now, you’ve hopefully taken them at least once.

December

Visit some colleges over winter break. Winter break is a great time to see a college that you’re considering. Here, you can take a few days to travel and see the campus. Talk to your parents beforehand to make sure they’re able to take some time off if needed. If you make your visit count, you might not have to go back until you make your decision.
Last call for testing! Most schools want the results by the end of the month. Make sure that the schools you’ve applied to have received or will receive your scores in time. Check with the SAT/ACT programs to make sure they will be shipped out on time, and check with your prospective colleges to ensure that the deadlines will be met.

January

Begin on your FAFSA. The FAFSA requires a good amount of documents from your parents and you. Give your parents some heads up and show them what you need to fill it out.
Start applying for scholarships. You can (and should) start well before January, but now is the best time to be hardcore about it. Start to hunt for scholarships that you can win. Now is a good time to ask for letters of recommendation, if you haven’t needed them before.

February

Check your prospective colleges’s websites. Some colleges will want you to make an account on there website to inform you of your application status. Having an account will usually let you know sooner if you were accepted or not, so go ahead and create one if it needed.
Finish filling out your FAFSA. Having your FAFSA filled out before March gives you the best chance of receiving any kind of federal aid.
Continue applying for scholarships.

March

Find out where you were accepted. Most colleges inform you of your admission in March. Check your e-mail and mail frequently for any updates, and don’t forget to check their websites too.
Begin to narrow it down. If you applied to a bunch of schools, start narrowing it down. I kept a nice list that I began to cross my choices off of, but you can do whatever works for you. If your backup schools are no longer needed, take them off the list! Continue to research schools and your major to figure out where you might not fit as well as you thought.
Sign up for AP tests. Only take tests that will actually benefit you in college. Look at the websites of the schools that accepted you to see what scores will help you. Choose tests that you think you have a decent chance of passing.
Continue to apply for scholarships.

April

Decide where you want to go to college. The big decision! Most schools want to know by the beginning of May. Hopefully by now you’re leaning towards one school in particular. Now is the time to finalize up your research. Make another trip to your top schools if necessary. The earlier in April you decide where you want to go, the better.
Keep on working at those scholarships!

May

Take any AP tests. Remember to prepare and give them your best. Passing AP tests can save you the hassle of taking a class you hate later on, as well as money.
Prom. Most schools have prom sometime in May. Enjoy your senior prom! It’s one of those big nostalgia things that many people look back on fondly.
Avoid senioritis. Once you’ve declared where you will attend, it’s very easy to start spiraling down the path to laziness. Try to keep up with your work — colleges will revoke your admission if necessary.
Scholarship applications! Seeing the pattern? These things will never leave you alone.

June

Graduate! Enjoy your last few moments as a senior! Graduation will put a close to a major chapter in your life.
Make sure your school has all of your information. Transcripts, scores, etc. AP scores won’t come in for a while, but everything else you should take care of while you can.
Summer! Enjoy your summer too. After summer, many of your friends will begin to go their separate ways. This will be your last summer as a big group, so take advantage of it!

Every school has a different calendar, so some of this might not line up correctly with your school. The same applies to colleges: every college is different. This timeline is to serve as a general reminder of major occurences during senior year, and hopefully it can help you out. Is there anything that I’ve forgotten that belongs on this calendar?

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AP classes during senior year

Paul — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:00:40 +0000

A few of my friends who are going to be seniors next year have asked me if it’s worth taking AP classes during the senior year.

Now, my old high school always had us pick classes the year before, so we already knew what classes we would be taking come fall of the next year. I would imagine most other schools do it the same way, so by now you probably at least know what subjects you’re going to be taking next year.

But most schools also allow you to switch.

A good rule of thumb is to always sign up for tougher classes at first, then change out to an easier class. Harder classes are always offered less and it’s harder to get into them once they are full. Easier elective classes are plentiful, and you can switch between them easily.

So, assuming you’ve already at least signed up for some AP classes, you’re wondering if it would be worth your trouble as a senior to stay in them. The answer to that depends on your goals and what you’ve already worked towards. As I’ve said, senior year is important too, and so you definitely want to make the right choice.

College Goals

What kind of college do you intend to go to? If you plan on going to a local community college, then it won’t really matter what you take since your admissions won’t be at stake. Take what you would like to take, but keep in mind that passing the AP test can prevent you from wasting time (and money) after high school.

If you’re going to a less-competitive four year university, think about it carefully. take into account what you’ve done the past few years of high school. If you’ve been very solid at the top of the class, then dropping a few honors/AP classes won’t slay your chances. As long as your schedule as a whole is at least somewhat rigorous and your past few years stack up, dropping a class or two shouldn’t really matter.

But if you aim to go to an extremely competitive school, then I hate to say it, but you really should stay in most, if not all, of those classes. Colleges do look at your senior year to determine if you’ve kept up with what you’ve done in years past. If you drop down to nothing but electives, that’s bad for you and definitely won’t help your case when an admissions officer looks over your application. If you drop one difficult class and keep five others, that will only make a difference at the most picky of schools.

Equally important to taking the class is passing it. Don’t think merely taking the class will get you off the hook — you need to pass it too.

As a general rule of thumb, unless you’re going to a community college, it’s best to at least keep up with what you’ve done in the past years. It’s okay to take one more elective class, but don’t let all your hard work amount to nothing in your fourth year.

The AP Test

Now just because you’re taking an AP class doesn’t mean you need to take the AP test. Taking the AP test is only worth your effort as a senior if you believe you can pass it. This is different than the junior year where it’s always best to take AP tests. Colleges will have already made a decision about you by the time AP tests come around during your senior year, so unless your school’s admission requirements specifically state to take the test, you can take whichever ones you want.

I plan to write more on this later, but for now, just realize that taking the class does not mean you should take the test.

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What to expect from your senior year of high school

Paul — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:00:23 +0000

So you’ve finally made it to your senior year, and you’re a bit curious about how it will be different. I remember before my senior year I used to wonder how much it would be like the rest of the years.

More respect from teachers.

While every teacher is different, in general most teachers who always have seniors in their classes are more lax than teachers who have younger students. This is because seniors are usually more mature and able to handle more responsibilities.

If you have a more lax teacher, you’ll likely have looser classroom rules. Maybe you can eat in class now. Maybe it’s okay if you’re late every once in a while. You can use the bathroom when you need to. Generally, as long as you aren’t causing a problem, you’ll be given more freedoms. A lot of these teachers are the excellent choices to ask for a letter of recommendation from.

Of course, this does vary from teacher to teacher. Some teachers remain strict no matter what grade level they have. Don’t push the limit too far if you’re unsure.

More respect from other staff

If you’ve talked at least occasionally to other staff members — security, librarians, principals, etc., you can look forward to a similar attitude from them as well. You’re not young anymore, and no longer do these people have as much of a need to babysit you as they did before. If you’re doing something that’s slightly against the rules (like being out of class without a pass, etc), then it shouldn’t be as big of a deal as before.

More respect from other students

Your fellow classmen won’t really treat you any different than they have the last three years, but for the first time, all of the other grades are below you. Your class is the top of the student body, and with that you can look forward to being respected more.

Hazing isn’t cool and never has been, but if you were hazed occasionally by students in a higher grade, you no longer have to worry about that. You can also “look forward” to more younger students asking you out. While flattering, being told that “you’re cute!” can get old very fast.

College/Scholarship information

Get ready to have a lot of college and scholarship information thrown at you earlier than you would like. My old high school had college presentations as early as September, which really caught me off guard. I was looking forward to putting that stuff off until later, but it hit me far sooner than I thought. With a bit of luck, you’ve started filling out scholarship applications and researching colleges so that this won’t be as much of a shock to you as it was to me.

Senior activities!

In addition to college and scholarship information, you’re also going to have many ‘senior ____’ things thrown at you, especially at the end of the year. Senior trip, senior pictures, senior graduation practice, senior fundraiser, etc. Every school has different things. I recommend making the most of each opportunity. You only get to do this once.

Anxiety

Oh yes. It’s weird: most people look forward to school being over, but as it gets close it becomes hard to say goodbye. Don’t worry, this is normal, but it is still tough. This is your last year of mandatory education, and after this you’re on your own in a lot of ways. As it begins to sink in, be ready to feel a bit sad and anxious. You can lessen these feelings by trying to buddy up with more people, as I’ve said before.

As a whole, senior year is very fun and by far the best of your four years. The freedoms and opportunities you have here can be a good way to start preparing for the real world, and the friendships you can forge now can last a lifetime, so make the most of it!

Technorati Tags: high school, senior year

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Do colleges look down on half days in your senior year?

Paul — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:00:18 +0000

Short answer

Yes.

Long answer:

As I mentioned earlier, colleges primarily look at your junior year academics when making a decision about you. But that doesn’t make your senior year unimportant at all.

Let’s put it this way. Say you’re an employer trying to decide who to hire. You look at one person’s application and see that he was a great worker at his current job, but you find out that once he had the prospect of being hired by you, he stopped working as hard and kind of turned a blind eye to things. The other person kept on working strong, even with a decent chance of being hired by you. Who would you hire?

Colleges are likely to do the same thing. Depending on how competitive the school you’re trying to get into is, having a shorter day your senior year can hurt you, especially depending on what you do with it.

If you shorten your school day to getting out at twelve noon and you decide to take really simple and easy classes, then that’s definitely not going to look good for you, even if you get all A’s. If you take four really hard classes and then go home, that’s still not as good as if you took four classes and then filled the spots with electives.

The only way I could see having a reduced day not being a penalty is if you do something productive with the time, like taking college classes, working a lot of hours at a job, community service, etc. But if you’re just going home to sleep and sit around, that’s not going to look great for you.

Again though, that depends on how competitive the school is. At smaller, less-competitive schools, it won’t be a big deal provided you’ve proven yourself up to that point. But if you’re trying to get into MIT or something, it will surely hurt you a lot more there.

That said, there are more important factors than how many classes you take. Junior year is huge, as well as extra-curricular activities. But taking fewer classes can reflect on you as being somewhat lazy. Be careful and make sure you’re not going to be hurting yourself by what you do.