Your admission has been revoked.

Imagine seeing these words in your email, wasting years of hard work in your classes so you could slack off for one semester. This is the unfortunate consequence for many second semester seniors as they fall prey to senioritis. Every year seniors think they can slack, goof off, or stop going to class altogether because they have been accepted into college or because final semester grades don’t matter. This simply is not the case.

If students’ grades drop low enough during their second semester, they can be denied admission from a school they were hoping to go to, even if they were already admitted. According to the Washington Post, Homewood Flossmoor College counselor Mary-Lee Hoganson sees at least one to two admissions revoked per year, and countless stern letters telling students to shape their grades up.

Senioritis shouldn’t be something that students look forward to. We should take pride in our grades and our efforts, not throw them away as soon as we have been admitted into a school. Unless a student is taking a gap year, this is the last semester before students go to college, where the workload is harder and college professors are not likely to spoon-feed the material to their students.

On the other hand, it is true that there is a little bit of leg room for second semester grades to drop a little without repercussion, and it is possible that many seniors have a very light schedule at ETHS.      However, it is not recommended to walk the fine line between taking it easy and slacking off, and there is a difference between having a light schedule and not trying altogether. Regardless of the courses you take, you should put forth all the effort necessary to do well in that class for the sake of your college admission, as well as for developing habits.

We should strive to maintain our academic habits and recognize the importance of it, not just now, but in the long run. High school is here to prepare us for what comes next, and that won’t be easy if we put forth no effort.