The term senioritis refers to the debilitating disease that attacks students their senior year of high school. Symptoms often include procrastination, plummeting GPAs, and overall apathy. Teachers and parents often cite laziness as the main cause, but these stereotypical assumptions simply aren’t true.

I’m here to tell you that senioritis is a myth, and those who believe that seniors are just kicking back, taking it easy, and coasting through their final year of high school are dead wrong. 

As a senior myself, I can assure you that if we do appear to show symptoms of senioritis, it’s not because we’re lazy but because we’re beaten down and exhausted with college applications, preparing for the SAT and/or ACT, and general schoolwork.  

“The quantity of college applications is overwhelming and frustrating,” senior Justin Tardy said. 

Junior year was tough, but take that same workload and now pile the pressure of getting into college on top of it. It’s a very long, stressful, and difficult process that eats up our time and energy.

Even if you’re lucky enough to know exactly where you want to go, you still have to complete the actual application. A large majority of colleges require at least one essay but some demand up to four. Drafting, editing, revising, editing some more, and revising again and again and again is time consuming and mentally draining, especially with the added pressure of a college acceptance riding on those essays.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, there’s still the usual homework and studying for classes to do every day.

According to senior Charlie Westenberger, he usually spends three hours a night on homework alone, and that doesn’t even include any work for colleges, such as working on applications or preparing for the SAT.

While three hours may not sound very daunting, we’re not getting the opportunity to start on our homework right after the final bell rings because we’re often not home until it’s already dark outside. The vast majority of seniors are involved in some sort of extracurricular activity, like sports, fine arts, or another organization such as NHS, and many also have part-time jobs during the school year. 

While I agree that senioritis is a crippling illness, it’s not due to laziness and a lack of effort. We’re not suffering from a sudden character flaw but rather an increasing workload.So don’t simply write us off as apathetic teens — we’re maxed out and spread too thin our senior year.