Don’t let ‘senioritis’ derail your academic career

Spring is an important time of year for high school seniors — college acceptance letters are arriving in mailboxes, the last rounds of campus visits are being scheduled and they’re finalizing where they’ll spend the next four years of their lives.

But while students may be just counting the days until graduation, it’s important that they don’t let their academic performance slide into oblivion. “Senioritis” — the informal term used by generations of students and teachers to describe the mix of academic laziness and boredom that often kicks in after a student receives his or her first college acceptance — can be very real.

And in the worst-case scenario, a student’s poor academic performance during the spring of senior year can cause colleges to change their minds.

Barbara Dianis is an education expert and the author of “Grade Transformer for the Modern Student: Upper High School Edition.” We asked Dianis for her advice for college-bound seniors who want to end their high school careers on a high note:

Create apersonal compass: “Map out a calendar with all of the extra activities associated with the senior year — social or extracurricular — and put it somewhere you can see it,” Dianis suggests. “Then adjust your study time accordingly and really focus on making sure you are studying at least 45 minutes a day.” Countdown to commencement “Put your graduation day on the calendar and count how many days until you can take a scholastic break,” Dianis says. “You visualize that you have to finish strong for your GPA and for other academic opportunities such as extra scholarship money that may come available because someone else didn’t focus.”

Keep fillingyour tool belt: “You are still learning core concepts that you will need when going on to other levels of education,” Dianis notes. “You want to make sure that you’re not missing things that you will need in your future.”

Stay organized: “It’s important to keep your class notes organized every day,” Dianis advises. “Near the end, people tend to get sloppier — even the most organized students.”