Senior year is meant to be a time when students can be a little more easy going. Students are completely acclimated to their school, they have a close relationship with most teachers, they are in a comfortable friend group and they have finally found their rhythm and can settle in as leaders of their domain. Unfortunately, even the leaders are sometimes fall under the rule of something greater:  “senior stress.”

Senior stress is one of the probable causes of the other high school plague known as “senioritis”. This is because by the time the second semester rolls around, seniors are burnt out from all of the work they have been doing. Seniors have been sprinting for five months causing them to drag their feet through the last four months.

Most seniors have had at least four books to read and essays to write before the first day of school. Going into the school year, seniors are bombarded with the realization that they will be going off to college in a short twelve months. This seems to be causing the most stress among the class. By senior year, students are well used to the extensive amounts of work Padua students are accustomed to. The addition of college essays, getting the highest SAT scores possible, letters of recommendation being sent, visiting colleges, the common application, supplemental college applications, and of course never letting those pristine grades plummet lest colleges should think they are slacking.

All of this can be damaging to more than student’s report cards. Stress can cause physical and psychological health symptoms including anxiety, poor judgment, irritability, depression, abnormal eating and sleeping habits, aches and pains, and a rapid heartbeat. Padua Academy school nurse, Mrs. Bridge says, “After college meetings girls come to me because they’re having physical symptoms of stress. I always tell girls that I recommend eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and talking to their guidance counselor.” In fact while talking to Mrs. Bridge, a senior came in with a stress related headache, a common occurrence in the nurse’s office. Mrs. Bridge said, “the one thing I need in my office is a stress ball.”

So how are student’s reacting to the stress of their last year of high school? Emily Evans says that she has not been procrastinating this year but she still feels stressed with work. Also, she thinks that “we are internalizing our stress to maintain the charade of being adults, which we are not.” Seniors are trying to be mature about the amount of work they have this year to prepare to go to college. The stress of senior year is so notorious that juniors are already arming themselves for it. Junior, MiKayla Radisch says “I feel like there will be more college stress than Padua stress next year”.

It seems that the only thing keeping seniors going “softly but strongly” is the knowledge that this is their last year at Padua. They have to make the best of their time while it is still here. There is no other place like Padua. The students have all gotten comfortable here and it is hard to imagine leaving, especially when there is so much work to be done before graduation, but it will get a lot more stressful out in the real world. To quote the late Mr. Potter, “Smile, it gets worse.”