As Urban seniors enter their spring trimester, senioritis returns. Senioritis can look like 12th graders being late to class and allowing their email inbox to pile up. For some students, senioritis is waking up a minute before they are supposed to leave for school and forgetting to check their classes’ week sheets. Often, senioritis appears as a general decline in academic investment for 12th graders as they relax and enjoy their final months of high school.
English teacher Cathleen Sheehan co-created the Children’s Literature class, known for having seniors with senioritis. “[In Children’s Literature] if you failed to finish the [final] book, it didn’t get published,” she said. “Some students really went off the rails on that one, which was unfortunate. We didn’t really have a great kind of celebratory last moment.”
Senioritis can impact juniors who are in classes or working on group projects with seniors. “I feel like you’d have to be very deliberate about putting juniors with seniors on projects. … In other classes, I’ve definitely heard juniors complain in the spring,” Sheehan said.
While some 12th graders turn idle during senior spring, others become more motivated in their classes. “Not having any academic pressure makes you weirdly much more invested in the class,” Julien Fisher ’25 said. “The main thing for me is that there’s not as much incentive to chase an A, and my incentive to learn for the sake of learning has simply augmented.”
Seniors with less motivation to do well in their classes can sometimes experience negative consequences. The National Association for College Admission Counseling website wrote, “Senioritis is easy to catch and hard to get rid of. It can also put your future plans at risk.”
But with the college process behind them, some seniors notice a sense of calm. Chris Hsu ’25 said, “It’s so nice to not have so much college pressure. I feel more relaxed now.”
Receiving college decisions can also allow students to make time for more leisurely activities. Anushka Chandran ’25 said, “I’ve been able to focus on my other hobbies, like knitting and hanging out with my friends. I feel like I’m saying yes to more things.”
In an article in the Los Angeles Times, journalist Molly Jenkins wrote, “It can feel like the last four years have led up to this moment, to a rejection or acceptance letter.”
While awaiting their spring term, many non-senior students are preparing for their own senioritis and the relaxedness associated with it. Robert Milne ’26 said,“I’m ready to set up my grill in the backyard during my senior spring.”
Although being in senior spring can alleviate academic stress, some students continue to maintain their level of rigor in classes. “In the past, I taught an advanced Shakespeare class that was only seniors,” Sheehan said. “It was really different, because it was seniors who were enthusiastic about being in that class. … There was a collective sense of, ‘We’re all doing this together.’”
“My experience at Urban is, although there is the top layer of being driven by the college process, most seniors are actually here because they love learning,” said Charlotte Worsely, assistant head of school for student life and current grade dean for the class of 2025. “That’s what makes it uniquely Urban.”