Every late summer and early winter, I warn about senioritis. I’m sure you know what it is, but if you don’t, here’s a definition with a few details:

Senioritis is a colloquial term mainly used in the United States and Canada to describe the decreased motivation toward studies displayed by students who are nearing the end of their high school, college, and graduate school careers. It combines the word senior with the suffix -itis, which technically denotes inflammation but in colloquial speech is assumed to mean a general illness …

… In some more serious cases where students allow their grades to drop quite significantly, universities and high schools may rescind offers of admission. Those who experience senioritis are often shocked when colleges and universities send them a letter the summer before their fall semester starts telling them that they can no longer attend the college due to failure in the academic rigor that they promised in the interview or application process …

… senioritis in high school may still cause the incoming college freshmen not to be as adequately prepared for the rigor of college level studies, and may decrease their ability to gain entrance scholarships. Because Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and other advanced classes generally do not have their final exams until early May, they provide a challenge to seniors who are battling with senioritis issues, since most college and university admissions are decided in March and April and students in advanced classes have to overcome the pull of senioritis during the time gap between those two events. In addition, some advanced classes have tests, projects, and other major things relevant to the curriculum spread throughout the second semester; thereby ensuring that students remain busy with a constant stream of deadlines.

The College Confidential discussion forum has numerous threads along the lines of “Will my acceptance be revoked?” I’m always surprised every late spring and summer when I see these threads because it’s fairly common knowledge that colleges don’t like to see students they have accepted and enrolled suddenly getting Cs and maybe Ds when before they were solid B+ and A students. I’m pretty sure that all of you — well, maybe nearly all of you — reading this know better than to slack off, grade-wise. However, what about putting off (shall we also say “slacking off”?) your college admissions planning?

I’ve run a few marathons in my day, including Boston. When I’ve been training for those 26.2-mile endurance events, I’ve often thought of an analogy between a marathon and a K-12 educational career. There are some similarities. First of all, it can seem endless. It’s better not to think about how far there is to go but, rather, about how far you’ve come. Also, there’s the famous “Wall” with 10K to go. That’s where your muscles have burned almost all of their glycogen and the lactic acid is sending waves of fatigue across your body, not to mention your mind. Don’t give up before you finish!

It is a fact that colleges have been known to revoke the admission of students who cool it, academically, after they have been accepted. Of course there are other non-academic reasons for the revocation of an admission, such as criminal behavior, but the point of my post today is to warn of slacking off in the classroom. That can be especially dangerous if your senioritis attack commences even before your college applications go in.

I remember clearly that when I was in high school (heck, even as far back as junior high school), the waning days of August were a bittersweet time for me. I had a love-hate relationship with school. I loved being together with all my classmates who became scattered over the summer, but I hated the thought of homework, tests, and my loss of freedom to lie in our hammock under the apple tree in our back yard and lazily read Archie comic books while following Mickey Mantle’s quest for the Triple Crown.

Those days are long gone. If you are a high school student, even a junior high school student, maybe you share the same feelings that I had. Preparing to go back to school after a long (well, maybe not-long-enough) summer can be a chore. What should you do? How should you think? What will you need? How can your transition from summer bliss to homework and tests be made easier … and be an antidote to our topic of the day: senioritis?

Here are a few of my thoughts:

– Concentrate on the entrance requirements of the colleges that have caught your eye. You can go to the Web sites for any of these schools and see what they’re are looking for in their applicants, as far as language, math, test scores, etc. prerequisites. Then, even though you can’t say, “I want to be a marine biologist!” for sure, you can say, “I’d like to consider the following colleges and here’s what I need to be a competitive applicant.” Then, your counselor should be able to help you adjust your schedule to meet those requirements. That’s what counselors  do (or should do). This kind of mental activity can go a long way in keeping you focused and help you avoid the gravity of the senioritis black hole.

– In my opinion, social media are both one of the better and worse inventions of mankind. It is true that colleges can and do look at some applicants’ Facebook et al pages to see what kinds of behaviors their applicants display. Common sense dictates that you shouldn’t post pictures of yourself chugging beers or setting cars on fire. Additionally, don’t dilute you school days (“daze”?) by covertly craning your neck checking who just texted you. I think there’s an app for that. Focus on your schoolwork! “Social media” can sometimes be spelled “Senioritis”!

– I mentioned above about the sad tales we see on College Confidential every year about seniors who turned off their academic spigots and had their ED/EA and even RD acceptances revoked because of a precipitous nosedive in their school work. Once you’re in at your first-choice school, you may think that there’s nothing left for you to achieve, so you back off. BIG mistake! You have to keep up your effort, the effort that got you into that first-choice college, until you cross the finish line (graduation). Don’t be fooled. Colleges keep an eye on their admitted applicants. Don’t be one of those about whom we’ll sadly read on CC. Respect senioritis as the threat it is!

**********

Check out all my admissions-related articles on College Confidential.