It’s the end of the year, and for most seniors in any high school it’s the final push to bump up their GPA’s and finalize their transcripts for college.

However, as the year winds down, most seniors struggle to even muster any motivation to attend their classes much less get a passing grade.  Counselors do their best in encouraging their kids to finish off the year strong, but there is only so much they can do.

“It seems all my students think that the final grading period is the best time to slouch off,” senior counselor Evangelina Ojeda said, “it actually is the most important to walk.”

Through the hustle and bustle of the final semester, seniors also must start figuring out what colleges they want to attend once they receive their acceptance letters, but some haven’t even started applying.

“Most seniors think it’s okay to wait until the last minute to apply for college, but they need to actually be focused on other senior priorities like prom or walking,” academic advisor Brandi Couch said.

Most seniors are turn 18 during the school year and start to drive regularly while holding down a job. All of which diverts their attention away from school. 

“I believe that nowadays seniors are trying to hard to be like adults and juggle so many responsibilities at once and it becomes too much for them to focus on what really matters and fail their classes,” sophomore counselor Andrea Jones said.

Along with sending their college applications, senior students must focus on submitting their ACT and SAT scores as well but many have too low of scores to get them far or haven’t even taken it yet.

“They get discouraged,” Couch said, “they see that their score is barely average and they don’t think they can do better than that and accept what they got.”

The biggest underlying factor in all these problems is that there is just not enough motivation in the students to do the right things sooner.

“I see it all throughout the grade levels,” freshman counselor Pam Coleman said, “they wait to do scholarships that can be done as early as freshman year and think they can catch up on years worth of work.”

What students see as barriers others view as excuse.

“I’ve seen a lot of students give up because they don’t want to take the time to go to college, or they don’t think they can afford it.  The real problem is that they expect instant gratification for all their efforts and hard work.” Ojeda said.

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