Dear Class of 2019,

Patriot Press just wrote an advice article for incoming Freshmen, featuring tips and tricks that will make the four years of high school more bearable. Do not fret, seniors, for you have not been forgotten during your last year of high school. It’s going to be an awesome year (at least parts of it), and these tips will help you make it even better!

• First and foremost: try not to stress. Yes, senior year is full of changes, but you will get through it! Every high school senior does, and you are no exception.

• If anything, look forward to the senior-only events that our school holds yearly: Senior for Hire, Senior Trip, Senior Assassin, Senior Barbecue, Senior Prom… I just said the word senior six times in one sentence. Impressive.

• Plus, you can skip your final if you maintain a B+ average in a class! So try to keep your grades up senior year, even if it’s just to skip the finals at the end of the year. It will be very annoying having to sit in a stuffy classroom for an hour just to take finals – especially right before graduation.

• Also, colleges do keep an eye on you even after you’ve been accepted, so that’s another reason to make sure your grades don’t drop too much. Fight the senioritis!

• Stay organized during the college application process and make sure to plan everything out beforehand. As soon as possible, find out all the deadlines for applications, financial aid, scholarships, teacher recommendations, and so on.

• Finish up any testing you still have to do, including SAT, SAT Subject Tests, or ACT – double check on the websites of colleges that you are applying to if they require any specific tests.

• You will have to select around two or three teachers who know you enough to write you a recommendation letter. These teachers should know you academically and personally; enough to know your work efforts and what kind of person you are. So try to talk to your teachers and develop your relationships with them, even during your senior year.

• Make sure to ask your teachers for recommendations early so that they have time to write them! You really don’t want to create any inconveniences for the teacher you’re asking for a rec.

• Try to finish your applications for colleges and scholarships sooner rather than later. As the school year progresses, you will likely find yourself with more and more homework – so it’s a good idea to start working on those essays right now. Plus, it will give you more time to edit them, making sure you submit to colleges the best product possible. Also, it will feel nice to be done while others are scrambling to meet deadlines 😉

• Make sure that you thoroughly research the colleges that you are applying to! Spend a few hours looking through their website to make sure that the school can provide you everything you will need.

• The most important piece of advice for people who stress about colleges is this: the college you go into does not matter so much as what you do within that college. If you’re getting an education in a field that you love and are enjoying your college years, that’s all that matters – regardless of where you are.

• A rejection from a school, even if it is your top choice, doesn’t necessarily mean that you weren’t qualified to attend that school. It may mean that you and the school were not ‘matches’ – that, perhaps, you could not have shown your full potential at that school. Everything will happen for a reason, and everything will be alright.

• It’s OK to not know what you want to do after high school. Not everyone knows what major, career and college they want to pursue after high school, and that’s perfectly fine. You are still young, and nobody can expect you to know how exactly you want to spend the rest of your life.

• If you aren’t sure about what college you want to go to after applying to a bunch of schools, or if you’re still unsure about what your major is going to be, that’s OK too. Do more research on the colleges you applied to, or tour the campus if you don’t know which one you want to attend. If you think you want to work the year after you graduate so you can save money or take a gap year, then go for it! People of every age go back to college every day. If you’re not ready for college, then take a break and figure out what you really want to do in life.

• Finally, and this is key to having a good senior year, make sure to leave free time for yourself and have fun! Enjoy your life as the (supposedly) biggest and the wisest students at the school and seize all the exciting opportunities that this year will bring. Spend the year together with your family and friends, making the most of your moments together before you leave for college.

Remember, seniors: stay organized, enjoy life, and don’t stress! Everything will work out just fine in the end 🙂