“Senioritis”: High School’s Most Dangerous Disease

Going through high school, many students have been told to beware of catching “senioritis.”

Google defines this condition as a “supposed affliction of students in their final year of high school or college, characterized by a decline in motivation or performance.”

So how common is senioritis?

Several seniors at school said they believe they’re afflicted with it.

This leaves many people questioning, what is the real cause of this so-called disease?

For many seniors and teachers at the school, the answers seem to vary between college, time management and procrastination.

According to graduation coach Chip Flemmer, senioritis is certainly real.

“It tends to present itself in most seniors; however, the level of severity varies from those who are able to cope very well with only minor symptoms all the way to those who are so bad that their symptoms have symptoms and they are extremely contagious,” said Flemmer.

“Please be careful hanging around those students,” he said.

Flemmer said the signs and symptoms may vary depending on how bad their case of senioritis is.

“More minor case symptoms may involve the loss of desire to attend school, level of homework procrastination being at an all-time high or being seen more in the hallway than in your classroom,” Flemmer added in an email.

Flemmer continued: A more severe case may include symptoms of, “heavy sweats when you walk into the building, breaking out into hives at just the sound of your teacher’s voice, sprinting to your car in the parking lot and trying to elude Officer Dove and Coach T. Wayne Smith, or spending more time on the trail or Publix than in the classroom.”

If a student is afflicted with senioritis, Flemmer said, “the smell of Chick Fil-A or sitting in their drive thru has been known to trigger it as well.”

The occurrence of senioritis has been said to be more prevalent in the spring of senior year, but has also been known to creep into the system in early fall as well.

“I really did not think senioritis was a thing until about second semester of this year,” said senior Mary Kate Bohr.
“After winter break, and once I figured out what college I would be attending, I really caught senioritis. It suddenly became extremely hard to get out of bed and go to school”.

Several students have said that once they find out they are accepted into a university, their work ethic will just plummet, and the motivation to keep good grades goes out the window.

Flemmer says that the causes tend to vary as well, but some of the main ones he has seen have been early acceptance or rejection into the university of your choice, too many or too few hours at your job or if your peers all have online classes.

Many students claim that senior year is filled with lots of exciting events such as school dances, senior lunches, senior dinners, extra sporting events and planning for their future. With all of these and more, many said that the desire to do well in school just slowly drifts to the back of their mind while they focus on all the events coming up instead.

“You just keep hearing about all of these fun events, inside and outside of school, and it’s just super difficult to channel your energy back to school work after getting excited about so many other things,” said senior Grace Vassalotti.

Bohr also said that her case of senioritis wasn’t as severe as she has seen from others.

“I know some people that actually fear that they might not graduate because of their lack of motivation after catching senioritis,” she said.

“Senioritis has definitely been a major cause of my procrastination this year,” said Bohr. “Besides all of the perks that come with senior year, it’s just the fact that you keep hearing it’s your final year of high school, and that makes a lot of people just want to stop trying in school”.

Flemmer also said that the typical diagnosis is numerous NHI’s (not handed ins) and zeros in the gradebook, as well as poor attendance.

Several senior sources have agreed that senioritis is in fact very real, and that everyone should be aware of catching this dangerous disease.