The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 27, 2003)

Fighting 'Senioritis'

- Colleges and high schools are trying harder to treat an age-old ailment

By Eric Hoover

If preparing for college is a marathon, a fat envelope marks the finish line in the minds of many high-school seniors. When the acceptance letter arrives, the pulse stops racing, breathing eases, and perhaps the brain slows down, too.

"It's human nature," says Annie Floyd, who graduated from high school this month. After receiving an early acceptance in December from Randolph-Macon College, Ms. Floyd says she felt less motivated to study. Her grades dipped slightly in the spring. Classes were a drag.

"It happened to all my friends -- they just didn't care" about their academics once they heard from colleges, Ms. Floyd says. "In the last month or two, you'd go to class and say, 'Jeez, why did I go to school today?'"

"Senioritis" has long vexed high-school teachers. Now the tendency of students to ease up on their studies is of growing concern to some college admissions deans as well. They insist that students who coast through their last year of high school are more likely to struggle academically as freshmen.

Educators on both sides of the admissions process agree that the malady is becoming more prevalent as the competition for spaces intensifies. The rise of early decision, some guidance counselors say, speeds the onset of the senior slump, symptoms of which include increased absences, skipped assignments, and general torpor. In a recent report, a national panel of education officials deemed the senior year "a lost opportunity."

"There's greater concern on all levels about the need to be vigilant of students' performances," says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania. "We have spent more time in the last three or four years on this than in the preceding 15 years."

In an effort to keep students intellectually stimulated until graduation, more high schools are redesigning their curriculums to give seniors opportunities for internships or individual projects. At the same time, many colleges are taking a closer look at the students they have admitted, checking to ensure that successful applicants maintain their grades -- and sending what are called "scolding letters" to those who don't. And falling grades in the senior year can ruin an applicant's chances of admission in the first place.

Bruce J. Poch, vice president and dean of admissions at Pomona College, sees an increase in the number of talented, high-performing applicants who "self-immolate" in their senior year, earning weaker grades, whether through burnout or course overload. "At colleges where applicant pools have grown and selectivity has increased," he says, "even closer, less-forgiving scrutiny of senior-year grades seems to be the order of the day."

Wake-Up Calls

Becky Davis put most of her energy into extracurricular activities after receiving an early acceptance from the University of Virginia in the fall of 2000. After all, she was president of her school's National Honor Society chapter, vice president of the senior class, and an after-school volunteer. She still cared about her classes, but acknowledges that schoolwork went "on the back burner."

"Subconsciously, when people know where they're going to be next year," she says, "it kinds of seems like high school is sort of a done deal already."

So she was shocked to receive a letter from UVa that winter asking for an explanation of why her first-semester grades had dropped. In her response, Ms. Davis said she had been juggling too many responsibilities. After the spring semester, in which her grades did not improve, she received a second letter from the university, warning that her admissions offer could be in jeopardy. Her reply was similar to the first.

That letter didn't scare her as much as it did her parents, she says, although she took it as a warning that she would have to buckle down in college.

"Perhaps I could have worked even harder in my senior year, but it wasn't like I was just going home and sleeping," says Ms. Davis, now a junior at Virginia with a 3.2 grade-point average. "Even into the first semester of college, I felt burned out by high school. It took me a while to appreciate learning and get away from the pressure of getting all A's."

Marianne Kosiewicz, associate dean of admission at Virginia, says letters like the ones Ms. Davis received are intended not as threats, but as reminders that students have to maintain their focus on academics. When students are asked to explain why their grades dropped, "sometimes they had extenuating circumstances, sometimes they had goofed off," she says.

While colleges have long warned students in their acceptance letters that slacking off could jeopardize their acceptances, high-school students generally perceive that, short of a total collapse, such a scenario is unlikely. They are right: Typically, only extreme cases of senior slump result in rescinded admissions offers. Of about 3,000 students admitted to Virginia each year, about 80 receive warning letters, and no more than two or three offers are rescinded.

Illinois State University began to carefully review students' final high-school transcripts about five years ago. Before that, the university hardly ever revoked admissions offers. Now it bars at least a half-dozen students, out of 3,000 admitted, from matriculating each year.

"That scrutiny is a way of boosting our image as well as our retention," says Steve Adams, director of admissions. Although the number of students whose offers are revoked is small, he says, high-school counselors have taken notice and alerted students to the university's change in policy. "It's more about the message more than the action."

Smith College has two warning letters, dubbed "Slide One," for students whose grades drop, and "Slide Two," for those who fail a course. Only a handful of each go out each year, and withdrawing an offer is rare, according to Audrey Y. Smith, director of admission.

"Usually, there's a reasonable explanation, and when there is not, we rescind admissions, which is the most unpleasant thing that any admissions director could have to do," she says.

Although the issue is of constant concern in admissions circles, she notes, Ms. Smith speculates that among high-achieving students, severe cases of senioritis are relatively rare. "You do have a group of students who have been pushing themselves very hard for a long time," she says, "but that's not the population in which this is a problem."

Aggravating Factors

Some high-school teachers and guidance counselors, however, contend that top-notch students are often the most prone to senioritis.

"The early-decision process has exacerbated this problem for high schools," says Deborah Slocum, a guidance counselor at Staples High School, in Westport, Conn. For seniors who get into college early, "the end is sooner now. In late January, you'll see kids say, 'Phew, I made it.' Even my hardest-working kids make less of an effort at that point. And once Advanced Placement exams are over, there literally isn't a curriculum in those classes."

Recent research suggests that the senior year can be a lost cause for all types of students, regardless of their abilities or college aspirations. In June 2000, the U.S. Department of Education and several philanthropic foundations established the National Commission on the High School Senior Year to examine students' experiences and recommend ways of improving them. In the first of two reports, "The Lost Opportunity of Senior Year: Finding a Better Way," released in 2001, the commission found that for many students, that year "becomes party-time rather than a time to prepare for one of their most important life transitions. ... Many students reported 'ditching' senior classes because the atmosphere encouraged them to consider senior year a farewell tour of adolescence and school."

The commission also suggested that senioritis may, in fact, be most pervasive among the "best and the brightest," given that the savviest students understand that it's what they accomplish through the end of their junior year that will determine where they attend college.

In its final report, "Raising Our Sights: No High School Senior Left Behind," the commission called for a redefinition of the senior year and for more projects that would better prepare students for college-level work.

More than 60 high schools throughout the nation have adopted innovative programs based on what is known as the Woodlands Individualized Senior Experience, an experiential-learning model that began at Woodlands High School, in Hartsdale, N.Y., in the early 1970s. In those programs, high-school seniors, with teachers and administrators as mentors, either do internships or design cultural, artistic, or performance-based projects. Although the programs vary, students generally keep journals, discuss their findings with one another, and meet with their mentors to reflect upon what they are learning. At the end of the semester, the seniors submit their journals for evaluation and give oral presentations before a panel of students, teachers, and community members.

Scarsdale High School, in New York, signed on to the program in 1992 and now requires all students to complete a "Senior Options" project in the final semester. Seniors stop taking regular courses and spend about six weeks working on their project.

"The question was, how could we get students to have some more intrinsic learning experience, because the extrinsic goal of getting into college had already been taken care of?" explains David Greene, a history teacher who is the program's director. "We were, in effect, trying to change the culture, trying to get kids in a situation where they could learn something for its own sake -- because they chose to learn it."

This year, one Scarsdale student worked at an auto-accessories store, where he has studied not only the business but also the culture of car enthusiasts who modify their vehicles. Another, who is interested in musical comedy, worked closely with a professional actress on research into the art of monologue.

Maintaining such programs is not easy. At Staples, the senior-projects program poses constant logistical challenges, says Ms. Slocum. Since its inception, in the late 1990s, teachers have had to stretch their time to help students with projects while working around Advanced Placement exam schedules.

Unlike Scarsdale's, Staples's senior-projects program is optional. "It's only for kids who are organized and self-motivated," Ms. Slocum says. "In and of itself, it's a wonderful idea, but it hasn't solved our senioritis problem. A handful of students took it so they could have an additional free period."

Nancy Faust Sizer, a former history teacher and author of Crossing the Stage: Redesigning Senior Year (Heinemann, 1999), says keeping students motivated is largely high schools' responsibility. But, she adds, senioritis may be indicative of an inherent irony in the college admissions process.

"Seniors will tell you that their grades don't matter anymore, and I'd like to blame them for that, but I think it's a value they've gained from us," says Ms. Sizer, who is a lecturer at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. "They've been asked to put together a perfect picture of themselves, and they're supposed to feel like a polished human being already. But as a high-school senior, you're really just an act in progress."

'Change Their Comfort Level'

As long as there are widespread symptoms of senioritis, it is likely that high schools will continue to seek new and different treatments. Some educators speculate that the search will lead to an increase in independent programs that cater to seniors looking for a challenge.

One such alternative is GlobalQuest, a Maine-based nonprofit group established in 1999. It offers a 12-week semester program in which small groups of students travel to Thailand with teachers to study the country's language, history, and culture, and to perform service projects. Students then complete a research study and return to their high schools in mid-May to present a portfolio of the experience.

Tim Ellis, the organization's founder and executive director, plans to expand his program to other countries and sees a market for similar experiences, both at home and abroad. "It's a travesty for students to be waking up from a snooze at graduation," he says. It's preferable that students have experiences that "change their comfort level, so they come back with lots of new questions and answers."

Ms. Floyd, the student who is heading to Randolph-Macon, says that students are less likely to shrug off projects in which they feel that they are making a difference in the world. Still, she doubts that senioritis is entirely curable: "You need to be a little bit free before you go off to college."

Bill Mayher, a former high-school history teacher and college counselor, and author of The College Admissions Mystique (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998), says the "psychodynamics" of finishing high school are complicated.

"In the senior year, there's a funny oscillation," he says. "Kids act badly so that they can bear to leave, and they say, 'I can't wait to get out of this dump.' They break up with their old friends. This is followed almost seamlessly by a wave of sentimentality and deep nostalgia for the school and their friends."

"If senioritis were only a matter of waning motivation, you could beat the kids with a grade book. But it's deeper than that."

WORDS OF WARNING

Excerpts of letters sent to admitted students who have displayed signs of senioritis:

"In order for the Committee on Admission to be fully aware of any extenuating circumstances, I ask that you submit a detailed personal statement to explain your disappointing academic performance. ... Failure to submit this statement will result in the cancellation of your admission."

--Providence College

"Since the final transcript represents a departure from your previous level of achievement, it is imperative that we receive an explanation of your poor grade(s) immediately and in writing. Please be specific in your remarks as they will be used to help us determine appropriate actions."

--University of Pennsylvania

"In preparing for your arrival on campus and the rigors of a Smith education, please consider taking steps to regain your academic momentum ... by creating a reading list within your particular academic area this summer; by availing yourself of summer classes or tutoring opportunities; or by investigating the academic support services at Smith when you arrive."

--Smith College

"Due to the fact that you did not meet the course-specific requirements, it is our strong recommendation that you work closely with your academic adviser to assist you with your transition to Illinois State. ... You will be required to meet with your adviser several times during your freshman year, and you should be prepared to discuss your performance inside the classroom."

--Illinois State University

"The St. Lawrence community values hard work and discipline and strives to admit students who illustrate that commitment to their academics. We are extremely disappointed in your recent effort but expect a renewed dedication to your studies this fall."

--St. Lawrence College

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