Senioritis Hazardous to Future

You know the signs: Just a few weeks ago, they were attentive students. But now they stop showing up to class. If they do come, they’ve forgotten their notebooks. They walk in after the lecture starts. And their attention is anywhere but on the teacher.

Senioritis is about to set in. With their SATs but a memory, their college applications completed and mailed and a sense of freedom looming, high school seniors have trouble maintaining their focus this time of year.

“It kicks in around September for some of them,” said Dawn Mirone, a teacher at Laguna Beach High School. But by the end of this month, most seniors will be feeling it.

“They start saying things like: ‘Isn’t this class over yet?’ when it’s just started,” she said. “I try not to take it personally.”

Teachers and school administrators across Orange County said senioritis hits once students have taken their final exams for the first semester, most of them getting under way about now. It’s a challenge to keep them interested through May and June.

“We always see evidence of that,” said Don Joynt, the head guidance counselor at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton.

It’s not a good time to slack off, educators warn.

Universities accept students contingent on their final high school grades. Some counselors said they have seen schools rescind admittance if a senior’s grades drop dramatically.

“The more competitive the school, the more likely it is that they will hold the student’s feet to the fire,” said Kathy Hath, a guidance counselor at Corona del Mar High School.

Students admitted to University of California campuses are required to inform the university if they are going to receive lower than a C in any class, guidance counselors said.

If they don’t, the university will eventually get the word when transcripts are forwarded in the summer. If admission is withdrawn, disappointed students may find it’s too late to attend another school.

Admissions officers at Stanford University are reviewing an estimated 15,700 applications to fill next year’s 1,600-student freshman class. But every year, the university rescinds admission to one or two students whose academic achievements plummet during their senior year.

Stanford expects high school seniors to keep up the same level of work during their last semester as they showed when they applied, said Robert M. Kinnally, the university’s director of admissions and financial aid.

“After all,” he said, “the most recent work a student has done is the clearest evidence of how a student will perform in college.”

Because admission to Stanford is so competitive, Kinnally said, he wants “as much information as possible about how a student performs. We look at the senior year and we view it very seriously.”

Counselor Hath said students frequently come to her in February or March and ask whether they should drop, say, calculus or another tough course because they’ve already been accepted at a college. It is an idea she never recommends. Her response: Ask the college yourself.

“It forces the child to call and hear it first-hand from the admissions office,” she said.

The last semester of high school can be grueling for students who are taking advanced-placement courses and enduring the required standardized tests. At Sunny Hills High, students must register as early as February for the advanced-placement tests and pay the test fee.

Joynt said Sunny Hills High is “trying to preempt that senioritis.” Paying the test fee, he said, gives the seniors a “vested interest” in doing well their last semester.

Last year in Mirone’s advanced-placement class at Laguna Beach High, about half of the 60 students stayed on target during the entire year. It was a struggle for the others to concentrate on the Constitution and the three branches of government.

This year, Mirone said, she met with students signed up to take the advanced-placement course in their last semester to impress upon them the amount of work involved. If they don’t think they’re focused enough to do it, she suggests they take the school’s regular government course instead.

Are they taking her advice?

“I’ve been paring down my numbers,” she said.