2010-03-04

In Praise of Senioritis

Almost all fellow high-school seniors are "afflicted" with "senioritis" in the second semester of senior year.
Jay Matthews, the education columnist for the Washington Post, has written this piece in support of senioritis. I basically agree with his assertions and want to go further using my own experiences as a high-school student.
The standard warning against slacking off in 2nd semester is that colleges revoke admissions. Yet year after year, college admissions officials assure students and parents that such revocations have only occurred a few times in the last few decades, if at all.
I understand that a lot of students are very high-achieving and have demanding parents; I am one of those students.
That said, at some point, one cannot help but think that once the warning of revocation of admissions is removed from the picture, there is no logical reason to warn against slacking off - that is, the warning exists for its own sake.
Thankfully, despite taking "hard" classes, my senior year has been my most relaxed year in high school since 9th grade (which was pretty darn relaxed, so that's saying something). I've participated in (and generally succeeded in - yay!) all the competitions I have wanted to do this year, while my classes have been quite light on homework (with few occasional exceptions).
Given this, I still feel the drive to work hard. Maybe that's just my personality, or maybe it's just not something that can easily be changed after 12.5 years of this sort of training (well, maybe not that many, what with the early years of elementary school). I still do all of my homework and come to class every day (though given my situation, how could I skip without my parents knowing?).
What are your thoughts on senior year and senioritis?