Juniors’ Stress: It’s Crunch Time
As Marking Period 3 trudges to a close, juniors face a stressful crisis. This time of the year may be one of the most important in their lives. Grades and SATs earned at this moment can determine their futures, or at least the next five years. Being placed with this burden is sure to create negative results in both the physical and mental health of high-achieving juniors.
Anyone is able to reach their goals when they put their mind to it, but maintaining a successful junior year is not that easy. Due to the combination of AP classes, SATs, and other extracurricular activities, tasks can build up extremely quickly, leading to exhaustion and lack of motivation among students. CHS junior says “I don’t have any free days after school–I always have to study for SATs on the weekend. And then I have extracurriculars even on Sundays too, and throughout the week I have to study for AP tests, because I have tests every week usually.” Juniors are typically asked to be concerned about everything they need for a good college resume all at the same time, which are unrealistic and high expectations. Not everyone can do everything at once with maximum effort without experiencing burnout.
When asked if their situation applies to all other juniors, they replied “I think almost every junior. Because I feel like people taking multiple APs are usually trying to get into good schools, and to get into good schools you need a good SAT and extracurriculars.” Due to requirements in selective colleges, juniors work toward an almost perfect transcript: all As in honors and APs, a 1500 SAT, a wide range of extracurriculars, and leadership positions.
However, on top of this reasoning, a new phenomenon seems to be supporting the juniors’ hard time. The Class of 2024 is a grade that has a unique situation due to the COVID outbreak in 2020 and CHS’s flooding in 2021. After almost three years of online learning, the class was thrown into junior year with no preparation. “[The teaching] wasn’t really up to its highest potential, and school ended early. I remember a lot of my tests were open notes, even when we were in Chodae, so I didn’t have to memorize anything.” The current juniors did not benefit from rigorous classroom learning in their sophomore and freshman years as previous classes did. Without normal school operations, the students’ learning suffered.
Despite this, juniors continue to adapt to their ever-changing environment and work toward their goals after years of uncertainty and new surprises. The college decision timeline says that in less than a year, juniors will be getting results for their regular-application submissions. With the right mindset and drive, any student in the Class of 2024 can succeed.
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