For all three years I have been in highschool, every single senior from each of my underclassmen years has told me that senior year is the one–that it is peak. Well, there is a hill I am willing to die on and that hill is the fact that “senior year is peak” is a cult. It is most definitely a communally agreed set up to get your expectations up. In my personal experience, there was nothing so special about senior year. If anything, it was probably my most challenging year yet. There are certain arcs of senior year– a framework– and I will be explaining each one.
Disclaimer: Take this article with a grain of salt because honestly, this is all a personal issue. To whomever is reading this, if you are well disciplined, you have nothing to worry about.
1. College Arc Pt1: The Application
This is the biggest and longest arc that all seniors go through. It takes up literally 4/5th of the year, and for the most part, nothing about it is pleasant. Every free period, every talking period granted to you, the conversation between you and your peers is almost always about college. There are NO breaks given. I might as well rename this Arc as the Villain Arc, because it transforms everyone into a villain. You have your CommonApp personal statement you swore you would finish in the summer left untouched, constant assemblies about college planning only for you to realize you’re way off track and not even on step one, you have colleges asking you “why us?” in their supplementals and your only answer is “because the campus is pretty,” and every time you look left, right, up, or down, you ALWAYS have SOMEONE asking you where you’re applying or if you’re going to ED.
2. School Arc: It’s Never Over.
To all the Juniors who think that the worst is over because you lived by the saying “Junior Year is the hardest year,” you have no idea what is going to hit you. Most people stack up their APs in their Senior year because at CHS, that is the year where your schedule is mostly clear for APs. The mindset is simple– “no matter the rigor, it will boost my GPA.” I am no exception to this mindset, but I do have to say that I fell right into the “trap” (Not really because I knew exactly what I was getting myself into). I was truly humbled with my first marking period grades. I never realized how hard it would be to juggle studying for all these AP classes while applying for colleges. This arc is still very well engraved in my mind, and all I remember it as is hell. It was draining every single day. If I told myself that I would study for AP Calc, then I’d reward myself by not having to work on my CommonApp, and vice versa. It’s not just the workload that drains you, it’s also the pressure you feel that overwhelms you because literally everything matters all at once, and you know deep down it’s not something you can procrastinate.
3. College Arc Pt2: The Decisions
If I could give one piece of advice to all the incoming seniors, I’d say one thing: lose all hope. I say this with the best intentions. On social media nowadays, there’s a very common notion that it’s a good thing to be delusional, and everyone should actually strive to be delusional because then it will become reality. I mean, I like this! I am the embodiment of “delusionment”, but, because I am, I think that’s what broke me during the decision era. I say be delusional for everything else in life. Manifest that glow-up, or that test curve. But when it comes to college applications? Lower your expectations. In fact, don’t just lower them—bury them. Expect nothing. Want nothing. Because the truth is, that’s probably what colleges will give you. In my personal experience, decisions were not a pretty part of my college application experience. I had my hopes up and expected so much, only to realize at the very end just how incredibly hard and random it is to get into college in general. You can be the most picture perfect student in the world and it might not be what your dream school wants. Applying to college is equivalent to buying a lottery ticket, especially nowadays where its spots are so cut-throat. However, of course there are happier stories but my advice stays the same. If you go into this really expecting nothing, no matter the outcome, you either get what you thought you would—or something even better.
4. Used to Pray for Times Like These Arc: It Gets Better (and bitter)
The only reason why I say that senior year isn’t peak is because I see it as something transactional. All the fun and freedom you’re granted at the end is all something you not only deserve to have but should have. I think this is why labeling this as “peak” is wrong, because in the beginning you crash so hard and this arc is just climbing back up to your normal state again–I don’t think of it as living your best life, you’re recovering. But once you do get past that point– once the decisions are all in and the countdown to graduation begins, I will say that it really is a good time to experience. Your only worry is what to wear for prom, how many absences you have to spare, and booking your rooms for prom weekend. In the middle of it you do have spurts of those cliche bittersweet feelings, like when you’re hanging out with your friends and you go silent and just stare at them because you know it may be the last time in a while you guys hang out like this, or you walk in the crowded halls of CHS knowing it won’t be like this at college. No matter how much I say that I hate school and wish I could leave forever, I really would show up to school as a highschooler at 7:40 A.M and complain about how much I hate it for the rest of my life.
