For most people, throughout their high school career, they hear the phrase “don’t worry, senior year is the easiest,” and it eases – for a moment – the stress they are feeling during their freshman, sophomore or, especially, junior year. I was one of these people and my stressed-out little heart was counting on the promise of a “break” before college.

Boy, have I been surprised. We are only five weeks deep at this point, and I think I’m more stressed out than I was my junior year, the year that is stereotypically the hardest. The thing about senior-year stress isn’t the grades or the workload; it’s the pressure. There is something terrifying about thinking of the unknown that faces us in the upcoming years. College, work, the military; it’s all such different, uncharted territory for us.

Senior year is not the easiest year, in my opinion, it’s the hardest. You have counselors breathing down your neck wondering where you will apply for college, what you want to do after graduation. They ask, “Did you get all your SSL hours in?” “How’s your GPA?”

Then there is the Common Application, which took me about two days to complete. It is comprised of many intimidating pages of questions pertaining to your high school life and even the educational background of your parents. You sit, reaching back into the far, far, reaches of your brain and cringe, thinking that you should have done more.

As a senior, you are constantly bombarded with emails and letters and postcards from all sorts of colleges and universities. You might care about some or be interested in them, but, for most, you’ll simply roll your eyes and sigh before chucking them in the recycling bin.

To put it bluntly: Senior year is overwhelming, and people need to chill and back off!
This is our choice, our future, our lives. We get it! You’re worried we’ll miss a deadline or forget about some crucial thing we need to graduate, but we can do without the constant reminders that very soon we are going to be all alone in an unknown place and spending tons of money.

Senior year is important; it really does set the stage for how we feel about college. However, too much stress might result in being scared and deciding – for all the wrong reasons – to stay in-state and never give ourselves the chance to really grow. If we are too lax, we might strive too far and wind up in a situation we can’t get out of all the way across the country.

There has to be a happy medium, right? Of course. Our parents, teachers and counselors can’t protect us from everything. We need to make mistakes and learn from them, so let us explore who we are, where we want to go, and what we want to do.