It’s that time of year- there’s a bug going around Harriton, and I’m not talking about the flu.  On all three floors, in every wing, in every grade, senioritis is striking, and it is taking its toll on our student body.

College acceptance letters are zipping and zooming around the country faster than we can keep track of.  One by one, seniors are finding themselves, admitted, accepted, and committed, to universities and see no reason to do anything but celebrate their moving on to another phase in their lives.  If you think you haven’t seen the symptoms of senioritis you most certainly have.  They include, procrastination, an increasingly more relaxed outlook on life, and a general apathy for all things academic.

This time of the year is where reported cases of senioritis hit an extreme spike, and typically never return to normal first quarter levels.  In two short weeks, countless universities across the country will be notifying prospective students in their Early Decision and Early Action pools, leading to more and more students becoming locked into their college plans.  The first day of the second quarter provided a great shift for seniors everywhere.  As I sat in my classes, the mood was significantly lighter, it felt as though a great burden had been lifted as our first quarter reports had been sent off and our midyear reports would be revealed after many students’ acceptances had been determined in mid-December.  As we inch closer to the holy grail of senior slacking, second semester, this disease continues to approach epidemical levels.

Now I’m not saying that the only students that struggle with senioritis are ones who know where they’ll be attending college next year; I haven’t heard back from a single university yet and I’m still struggling with the infection.  On more than one occasion I have fallen victim to the enticement of the disease.  But the remarkable thing about senioritis is not how it affects seniors, but how it affects everyone.

It’s a very interesting phenomenon but it seems as though countless juniors and underclassmen are falling victim to senioritis by association.  Many of you can attest to this, but it seems that the closer you are to a senior who is victim of senioritis, the more an underclassmen becomes infected as well.  Whether you are a sibling of a senior or just a close friend, the more seniors around you slack, the more you slack as well.  For most seniors, a few lackadaisical efforts does not do too much harm at this point in the year, but for any other student, to fall into the trap of senioritis could prove to be very detrimental.

Consider the fact that the class that considers themselves to be generally closest to the current seniors is the junior class, and they happen to be at the most critical point in their high school experiences.  My message to the junior class and anyone struggling with senioritis this holiday season is to proceed with caution, as it appears to be highly contagious and potentially lethal.