High Schools Cracking Down on ‘Senioritis’

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

“Senioritis” is setting in. With the SATs but a memory, college applications recently completed and mailed, and the sense of freedom looming, high school seniors have trouble maintaining their focus this time of year.

“I call it the most common disease among high school seniors,” said Nancy Hurst, a counselor for juniors and seniors at Burbank High School.

Teachers and other school administrators said senioritis hits right about now, once students have taken their final exams for first semester. It is a challenge to keep them interested through May and June.

“They want to take the easiest classes they can take and meet the minimum requirements to take part in the graduation ceremony,” Hurst said. “Participating in the ceremony seems to be the most important thing.”

Recognizing that, the Burbank Unified School District has gotten tough on senioritis this year by implementing stricter requirements for taking part in graduation, Hurst said.

Among them: Seniors cannot have more than 15 absences in any one class or more than two unsatisfactory citizenship grades, which measure responsibility and conduct, including tardiness.

Hurst said the stricter guidelines have made a difference. In the past, as many as 20 seniors have failed their required economics class. This year, “in the 15th week, which is a very good indication, there were only five,” she said.

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

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

“There’s this whole myth that the universities don’t care about what you do in your senior year, but it’s not true,” said Dennis van Bremen, a counselor at Crescenta Valley High School in Glendale. “Senior year is so important.”

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

If they do not, the university will eventually find out when final transcripts are forwarded in the summer. If admission is withdrawn, it may be too late for a student to attend another school. And other applicants are ready and eager to take coveted spots at UC Berkeley or UCLA.

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

“We expect them to do the kind of work [during the last semester of high school] that they showed us when they applied,” said Robert M. Kinnally, Stanford’s director of admissions and financial aid. “After all, 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.”

Kathy Hath, a guidance counselor at Corona del Mar High School, said students frequently come to her in February or March, questioning whether they should drop, for example, calculus or another tough course because they have already been admitted to college. It is an idea she would never recommend. Her response: Ask the college yourself.

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

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

“We’re trying to preempt that senioritis,” said Don Joynt, the head guidance counselor at Sunny Hills. “Hopefully, they’ll feel that if you pay money, all of a sudden you have a vested interest.”

Last year in Dawn Mirone’s advanced-placement government class at Laguna Beach High School, about half of her 60 students stayed on target during the entire year.

This year, Mirone said she has met with each student signed up to take the course next semester to impress upon them the amount of work that’s involved. If they do not think they are focused enough to do it, she suggests they take the school’s regular government course.

Are they taking her advice?

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