Senior Year: From Scholars to Slackers

Senioritis. Senior slump. The Year of the Zombies.

Forget preparing for the rigors of college. The final year of high school is for sleeping in, flipping burgers, hanging out with pals, surfing, partying, fighting with your girlfriend, making up with your girlfriend.

Who can blame students? wonders Michael W. Kirst, a noted Stanford researcher. Not many colleges, high school teachers or state education agencies hold seniors accountable for the way they spend one-quarter of their high school careers.

In short, senior year can be a big waste of time, calling to mind that old gibe: What’s the difference between a zombie and a second-semester senior? Nothing.

“I’m able to kick back a little bit on my grades, said Ryan Devin, 18, a senior at Newport Harbor High School who heard back in October that he had been accepted to the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Once you’re admitted, you don’t have to push for that 4.0 all the time.”

Devin’s decision to throttle back is a rational response to an education system that has written off the senior year, says Kirst, an education professor and author of a report on the senior slump released Friday.

“What we have is a year that nobody has a clear purpose for except to maintain students in a custodial situation in an aging vat, until they’re ready to go on to what they’re doing next,” Kirst said.

A few practical recommendations would go a long way toward alleviating the problem, Kirst said. High schools should link the senior curriculum to the education requirements of the first year of college. Colleges and universities should set explicit standards for senior-year performance and withdraw admissions offers if those standards are not met. States should establish a master plan for education from kindergarten through the undergraduate college years and put responsibility for the plan in the hands of a single agency.

As it stands now, Kirst said, the college admissions calendar and the lack of a compelling curriculum have allowed too many students to check out mentally as high school winds down.

Across the country, most college decisions are based on performance during students’ first three years, so many seniors see no reason to worry about first-semester grades.

By second semester, they’re coasting.

“My sense is kids probably think that they’re entitled their last semester of their senior year to goof off a little bit because after all these years, they’re so close to the end,” said Carol Lerman, a guidance specialist for the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. “The problem is, especially for students going to competitive schools like the UCs and the Ivy Leagues and all the great colleges, they do not allow for senioritis.”

Lerman said many college-bound seniors remain busy the last semester of their senior year taking AP exams, studying for finals and taking international baccalaureate exams. Many are also writing essays and filling out applications for scholarships.

“There’s still a lot to be done over and above just going to class every day,” she said. “So it’s a real emotional turmoil. They want very much to let up, but there’s still so much to do and so much at stake that they really can’t.”

Brian Garland, principal of Edison High School in Huntington Beach, jokingly refers to senioritis as “a common disease that’s been known to mankind since Aristotle.”

“Especially with the weather we have here and the beach right next door,” he said, “there is a tendency to become distracted and so we have to keep reminding them to keep focused on their classes and passing.”

Colleges do attempt to warn students that what is given can be taken away. Notes an admission letter from the University of Pennsylvania: “We do expect that your academic performance will continue throughout your senior year at the same high level.” And from UC Davis: “If any information on your application is found to be incomplete or inaccurate or your academic performance drops significantly, the offer of admission may be revoked.”

Kirst’s findings are hardly new. In January, the National Commission on the High School Senior Year, appointed by the U.S. Department of Education, found that senior year becomes a lost opportunity for many students. The 30-member panel is expected to issue recommendations next month.

Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the California State University system and a panel member, said the recommendations could call for requiring students to take AP, math or science classes in their senior year. Schools would also emphasize the importance of science labs and foreign languages.

Colleges, he noted, have tired of the costly chore of bringing ill-prepared freshmen up to speed with remedial math and English classes. Almost everyone entering the community college system in Los Angeles requires remediation, one official said. At Cal State campuses, the figure is 55%.

Some students complain that the pressures of college-application season leave them so drained that senior slump is inevitable.

Devin at Newport Harbor said everyone he knows has senioritis. “I can’t name a single senior who isn’t ready to get out of here and graduate from high school.”

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Times staff writers Nedra Rhone, Jill Leovy and Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.