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Don't forget about your schoolwork

Since May 1st has come and gone, you (hopefully) have already chosen which college you’re going to attend next year. Now that you know where you’re going to be, the motivation to put as much effort into your schoolwork as you usually do will be harder to come by. Senioritis will really kick in as you near graduation — everybody will be talking about where they’re going to school and the end-of-the-year activities for seniors. For many students, once the AP tests are over with, there’s not much left to really focus on. Battling senioritis will never be harder than the last month before school gets out.

Is it okay to let your grades drop and to enjoy yourself? Many claim that senior year is a year to relax and take it easy, and if you’ve been working hard for the last three and a half years, you’re definitely going to want to take a break.

Review your admission & graduation requirements.

Many colleges have conditions for your admission — for example, many schools want you to fulfill everything you put on your application and keep your grades above a certain level. Check with your school to make sure you aren’t violating any of these — they will revoke your admission if you don’t meet your end of the deal.

Also check over your school’s graduation requirements. Although you probably have all of your classes taken care of, some schools will have requirements about things like attendance, so make sure you don’t lose out on graduating because you ditched too much class.

You can shift your priorities a little bit.

As long as you’re fulfilling your admission requirements, the rest of high school isn’t going to matter that much. If you’re taking AP tests, you should still put the same effort into them because they can exempt you from college classes, but after that there’s not as much to worry about.

If your admission requirements don’t want any grades below a C and you have a solid A in a class, you really don’t need to put as much effort into that class. If, for example, your friends want to hang out or go to a party, but you have homework, you can afford to miss a homework assignment — go out and have a good time instead. You can allow yourself to have more fun and to enjoy your last month of high school rather than stressing out about every single assignment.

Don’t push the limit.

If no grade may fall below a C, that doesn’t mean you should let every grade drop to a C. Slightly lower grades won’t really make a difference, but don’t take the chance of letting them all plummet to the danger level, especially if the school you’re attending is very prestiguous. Not only will it reflect very poorly on you, it also means that you have more grades to be careful about.

Also, it’s one thing to choose to hang out with friends over doing your homework now and then, but completely blowing off your assignments out of laziness is something you should hold back from as much as you can. Sure, you can afford to miss a few, but I wouldn’t blow off everything. Not only will your grades suffer, it is a bad habit.

Senioritis is tough at the end of high school, and while you should definitely enjoy your last month or so of school, don’t let senioritis completely overtake you.