During the first trimester every year, seniors struggle to balance class workload with college applications, classes, homework, afternoon activities, and their personal lives. This is a lot to handle and causes stress, which can lead to things like loss of sleep.
Seniors have a heavy workload in the fall, which requires good time management; some college deadlines are as early as mid-October and early-November, which adds even more work.
Four-year senior Kiran Misra explained that for him, the workload is not too heavy at the moment, but he expects it to get worse in the next few weeks as he starts to fill out college applications.
“So far, it’s been tough,” he said. “Mr. Liebowitz described our AP Lit workload as coming in waves … I feel like a lot of [my workload] comes in waves. Some nights I have five things to do, some nights I have two.” Though he says, “It hasn’t been that bad. I think October will be really tough because that’s when I’ll start writing out my college apps and doing my supplements.”
October and November are particularly stressful months for seniors due to early action and early decision applications being due. Seniors need to fit doing their applications in with already busy class schedules as well as things like last minute SATs and ACTs.
The SAT is offered Oct. 5 and Oct. 18, and the ACT is offered Oct. 26.
These exams will make life much busier. There are several consequences of this increasing workload, most notably the decrease in quality of work. Seniors may have to prioritize college applications over homework as deadlines approach.
For the moment, the workload is lighter for some. But as Kiran said, some work comes in waves.
Four-year senior Michael Saliba described his workload as being lighter than junior year.
“The workload’s honestly been a lot better for me than it was junior year so far,” Michael said. “Junior year was horrible. I had eight assignments on every Sunday night due on Monday.”
For some, the first trimester is off to a lighter start than usual, like in Michael’s case. How long that will remain the case is yet to be determined.
As for what can be done about workload, English teacher Sarah Levine believes that teachers should be understanding of the variety of things going on in students’ lives.
“Students are people too, and they have other things going on in their lives other than homework and assignments just for their classes,” she said. “They have other assignments for other classes, they have after school activities, they also potentially have health things or family things or other circumstances.”
Teachers being understanding and accommodating to students by giving extensions, for example, would lighten workload and make the first trimester easier for stressed, struggling seniors.