Credit: Melina Barris

WSPN’s Melina Barris discusses unnoticed stress during her senior year.

You are sitting at your desk, rapidly tapping your finger against your computer keyboard. In front of you, the Common App website is glowing, waiting for questions to be answered and essays to be written. After a long sports game, with a long bus ride home, there’s now a long night of homework ahead. Overwhelmed by the piling workload, all you can think is “Why is my senior year so stressful?”

After an academically draining junior year, I was excited to begin my stress-free senior year. Little did I know that senior fall is far from relaxing. Balancing homework, along with Common App assignments and playing on a varsity sport team, I have been busier than ever. The all too familiar “you got the hardest part of high school done” truly doesn’t feel accurate.

Being a senior means an opening of a variety of new classes to take, including many more Advanced Placement (AP) classes. I decided to take two AP classes that suit my interests. However, while these classes appear impressive to the College Board, they are also rigorous courses that require time and effort. This results in staying up extra hours, spending my frees in the cubicles and always having a new due date in my Google Classroom. I know I chose to take these time consuming classes, but along with my other senior year choices, it all comes back to what is supposed to benefit me most for the future.

While the academic workload is demanding, something that goes unnoticed is the stress of playing a time-consuming sport. As a member of the girls varsity field hockey team, my afternoons consist of practices and games that can sometimes last till 7 p.m.. My stress does come from my long after school activities, however, it also comes from the intense pressure to perform my best on the field for my very last season.

Socially, I feel an awkwardness displayed throughout the senior class because of the competitive component of applying to colleges. Whether two friends are applying to the same school, or student athletes are committing to universities early, students might feel they have to figure out their plan for future years as quickly as possible. There is constant comparison over who finished their Common App essay first, or how many applications they finished that overall contribute to intensifying the stress and rush during senior year.

There is a ceaseless stress in my mind that constantly reminds me of the negative news I could receive from colleges. I spend endless amounts of time searching through Naviance, scrolling through previous colleges’ statistics to see where my grades stand. Just looking at low percentage acceptance rates makes me feel a pit in my stomach as I dwell over whether I can get into a school because of their strict requirements. After working so hard in my classes, sports and extracurriculars, I worry that all the effort might be for nothing.

Overall, I strive to keep a positive mindset academically, socially and mentally as I experience this jam-packed season. Even though my stress levels are high right now, there is still one thing I need to keep in the back of my mind: enjoying one more year with my classmates and appreciating all of the opportunities senior year offers.