The day after I mailed my deposit to the college my youngest son will attend next fall, my husband and I received an email from his math teacher reporting that his grade had precipitously dropped. Were we supposed to be surprised by this?  I’m not a doctor, but I recognize a bad case of senioritis when I see it, having been flattened by it once myself, and later having witnessed severe cases in both my other sons. The symptoms are chronic procrastination, lack of motivation, a drop in academic performance, and a feeling that one has gotten everything out of high school that one is likely to get. Fortunately, the prognosis for senioritis is excellent…it routinely runs its course by graduation and leaves no visible scars in its wake. However, the course of treatment for this common ailment has been the subject of much debate.

My mother treated senioritis by not making me be a senior very much. In the early seventies many high schools experimented with an open campus environment, and I was happy to be a test subject by taking only two one-hour classes in school and working on a lame independent study from my bedroom…on my bed…listening to The Doors on the radio, and yakking on my princess phone with my friends who were sprawled on their beds “working” on their lame independent studies. Teachers didn’t call our parents. Colleges didn’t revoke their offers of admission. We weren’t an embarrassment to our communities or the Department of Education. All of us managed to graduate from highly respected universities and become responsible and productive citizens of the world.

Now we have a National Commission on the High School Senior Year, created by the Department of Education. Through the use of focus groups, this commission examines ways in which kids can make the most out of their last year in the trenches of high school. Lucky for them I wasn’t invited to join one of those focus groups. I would have said, “Arughthgitheklgjmbitnhe!”

When did it become a crime to slow down or even relax a little?  When did taking time to regroup and reenergize for the next phase of life become an act of rebellion? Our kids are more exhausted than ever from all the pressure we put on them to excel in every possible area of human endeavor so they can get into prestigious colleges and major in making us proud.

The College Board website includes three pages of instructions on how to structure your senior year. Just the headings make me nauseous…Make Your Senior Year Count, Maintain a Challenging Course Load, Stay Active and Involved, Try out College Early (I’m thinking you’re supposed to take some classes at the local college while you are maintaining your 4.0 GPA, presiding over the student council, and perfecting your breaststroke.)

On The College Board website, Mary Lee Hoganson, college counselor for Homewood-Flossmor Community College is quoted. She says, “It is not at all rare for a college to withdraw an offer of admission when grades drop significantly over the course of the senior year.”

I wasn’t so sure of that so I did some research. Harvard revoked an offer of admission once in 2007. Only 35 percent of the colleges surveyed by The National Association for College Admissions Counseling did it at all… ever.

Note to my son’s college…if you want to prove me wrong by reneging on your offer of admission, good luck. He and I don’t share the same last name!

More and more university deans are reporting that incoming freshman arrive on campus already burnt out from four years of intensive forced labor in high school plus all those extra-curricular activities and community service projects. 

The cure for the flu is rest. The cure for senioritis isn’t more challenging work, service learning, or experiential education as the National Youth Leadership Council suggests. It too, is rest and possibly even, (God forbid) fun.  I am sorry that my son’s math teacher is disappointed in him. At first I had every intention of demanding that he work harder, but I seem to have caught a touch of Itsnobigdealitis, so I told him to grab his friends and go out for a pizza.

 Photo by CMJ