Hello. My name is Ellie Biggins. I am 17 years-old, and I am currently a senior in high school. I have been self-diagnosed with a very common disease called senioritis. I have a rare case of it, where not only do I NOT want to do anything, but the stuff that I NEED to do gets significantly harder for me to do every minute that passes. I never thought I would have this disease. In fact, I find it odd that I do, especially such a severe case of it.

I have been waiting for senior year ever since Kindergarten, thinking that it was going to be the most fun and exciting time of my life! At least that’s what everyone seemed to make it out to be. However, I found that to be false from a very early point in my senior year.

It all started out pretty easy. Before school started it was all football games and free summer nights. That came to an end quickly.  Once when school started it was varsity volleyball, new standards, new expectations, tests and homework, all more than ever before.  And so my senioritis began.

Now, I must be honest. My senior year has been far from typical so far. Kidney infections, having an ovary removed, and my boyfriend having a stroke, all happened within a two month time frame. So, with just those things I may be biased, but I am definitely not the only one feeling the stress of senior year. No, those things are beside the point. It is more the things such as, college applications, transcripts, retaking ACTs, harder and advanced AP classes, and so much more. Those are the the things that get to me, and get to many others as well. Now this list of things has contributed the following statistic that I found after asking a group of ten Coon Rapids High School senior students. All of them rated their stress level over an 8/10, meaning a few said 9, and multiple said 10. Personally,I would rate mine a 9 also. This means it could most likely get worse, but it is also currently very terrible.

Next, I went to that same group of ten students and asked them what was bringing them the most stress in senior year; seven of the students said applying to college, and the other three said AP/ Advanced classes.

Now, if you are a teacher reading this, or a college professor, please hear me out: THERE IS NO NEED TO BOMBARD US. It feels as though you don’t know we are human! You are making something that could be much more simple into something so incredibly difficult. We don’t need homework after seven hours of being in school. We are only one tiny human being, that also has four other classes to take into consideration. Please realize the fact that you are not our only class and do not bombard us with homework. It just simply doesn’t flow like that.

And colleges: You don’t need standardized, timed testing to judge how good of a student I am. I promise I am a good student, and that test tells you nothing about me. Why can’t applications just be straight forward? Why do we have to go find and submit all of this unnecessary information, information that you more than likely don’t take into consideration?

Anyway. I will quit going on about how terrible it is. Even though it is. I think you get the point. Senior year is scary, but at the end of the day we must all simply go through, and I guess that’s just the brakes.