I am a high school student that has worked tirelessly for the past few years. But now, it is junior year and getting close to my AP test and SAT test dates… And I have no inspiration. High school and recent assignments have basically drained my energy and I do not feel compelled to work anymore. On one hand, I am watching random YouTube videos, but on the other, I am scared of failing my exams and losing my chance to be admitted to my dream college. Not sure what to do in this situation… the stress is too much and I am not motivated to finish the work nor willing to fail. Please help and advise. Anything is good. Thanks
Think about your dream college and ask yourself what you need to do to really get there. Try to not watch random YouTube videos and instead do something productive that is either in the form of spending time with your family or working towards a goal (such as your dream college) or playing a sport, etc. Why are you posting a thread about this here? You could have used the time you posted this thread on doing something more productive. This is the main reason why people get unmotivated: they will try to seek help from other people on forums such as this one and in turn lose more motivation. So try to find an outlet where you can express your motivation and focus your energy on that instead of putting a post on CC. You are no stranger to the fact that to get into a good college or your “dream college”, you will need a good SAT score and preferably passing AP scores; so then why not focus your commitment on those areas? Just put my advice into practice and hopefully you will get some more motivation. Don’t give up! Hope this advice helped and have a nice day 
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It sounds like you may be suffering from depression…talk to your parents/ Guidance Counselor/School Psychologist /doctor about this. It is good that you are reaching out for help before it is too late but you need to talk to real people in your life about this.
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…think about “future you”…you next year who is picking a college to apply to. What would you want “today you” to do?
Maybe you need to have your parents keep you on track and make sure you aren’t watching youtube -
You seem to be self sabotaging…are you afraid you will fail so you are thinking “it is worse to try hard and fail than it is to not do anything and fail”
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If you are doing well up until now you will probably continue at the same level. Talk to your teacher about your anxiety and what you should be doing.
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If you don’t do well on AP tests, it doesn’t matter for college admissions…only for college credit and placement.
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if you don’t do well on SAT tests, take them again.
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We here on CC don’t recommend “dream colleges”…usually they are colleges that are “famous” and expensive and have many talented students applying to them. We always say “Love thy safety”…that is, put more effort into finding safety and match colleges that you would be delighted to attend Go ahead and apply to a reach schools if you want.
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There are 3000 colleges in the USA…there are many options for you
I agree… if this is more than just a rough weekend, speak to your parents about the possiblity of professional help.
But if you’re just having a rough patch, I’m going to go counter culture.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do to increase productivity is to walk away for a bit. Give yourself a break. Skip the math homework one night and go to the movies… your grades will survive. Spend next Saturday binge watching How I Met your Mother on netflix. Go to the beach if there’s one nearby-- it always cleanses my soul and revives me.
Above all, relax. You WILL get into a college, and you WILL bloom where you’re planted.
i feel like that sometimes. here’s some things i do that help…
- do not go on CC!!! just THINKING about college is stressful enough, so avoid it as much as you can
- take breaks every once in a while. i loveeee using the pomodoro technique. search it up if you're curious. it helps me focus when i do hw and i often don't get off task because of it.
- tell yourself that you are SO close!!! why just give up now??? you just have to push through for a couple of months, and then you'll have summer.
- if you're that type of person, friends really do help. studying with them really helps especially when they have the same struggles and complaints as you do. they make late night studying and cramming much more bearable.
- if you are feeling EXTREMELY stressed out, do something to distract yourself from it (if you approach stress that way). i do not like to avoid stress, but if i'm stressing out really badly, it really helps to get distracted for 10-20 minutes. i watch The Office as a way to calm down and destress, and once i finish an episode, i get way calmer and can start studying and actually focusing again.
As a junior, I know the feeling. You know the “senioritis” that seniors say they’re having right now? Juniors are experiencing something similar in which they feel like they just want to give up towards the end of their junior year because they’re almost seniors. I call it “junioritis”. Many say that senior year doesn’t matter as much, but many colleges will look at your transcripts from your senior year to make sure you aren’t just giving up during that one year. Do not spend all of your time on YouTube. Remember that you don’t NEED to do homework for hours at a time. You can do homework for a while and then take a break when necessary. Also, I know junior year is getting pretty hard right now because there’s AP tests and SATs. Study for those because if you study hard and end up getting a really high score, it could lead to a full ride at wherever your dream college may be!
Best of luck,
Simon
Class of 2019
Attitudes like this are WHY kids get depression.
OP, the best thing you could do is have your parents try to find you a therapist, but this is a longer term thing.
- Happiness: In the short-term, allocate a specific amount of time for you to be joyful and do something only for you. Whether that be watching you tube, video games, reading, hanging out, whatever. This is YOUR time, and NOTHING is more important. Figure out what makes you happy. If you don't figure out how to be happy in HS, it only gets harder.
- Schoolwork: Also allocate a specific amount of time to do school work and do your best. It might help to get a tutor, or it might help to just force yourself to do school work. Maybe sit in the library with no electronics so that you can't be distracted and do your work. Maybe go to a public library in another town so that you don't get distracted by running into people you may know. Either way, you have to force yourself to do your school work.
- College: Don't have a dream school. That's not worth thinking about. Have a dream life. When you have some time (not while in the heat of battle trying to close out the school year). Try to figure out who you want to be, and what you think it takes to get there. When it's time in the second half of junior year, you will have a record. At that point you can research possible colleges that can be a stop on your dream life. Having a dream college is a sucker bet engineered by competitive college admissions officers to boost their salaries by encouraging more and more people to apply to schools so that they can reject them. Don't be a sucker. Don't play this game.
- Sleep: Make sure you get enough sleep. Sleep deprivation can damage your cognitive function and cause homework to take longer causing you to lose more sleep causing depression and damage. Don't get caught in this vicious cycle.
- Don't be afraid to fail. People who are afraid to fail can never be successful because success requires risks. You can always overcome failure.
- Don't cheat, though you may understandably be tempted. Losing your reputation for integrity is much harder to overcome than failure.
It will be ok because you will make it so.
Where on earth would you post it, if not here?
I’ll never understand the CC obsession with being the BEST and doing the BEST and being BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE and WORKING HARDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.
There’s time enough for that sort of stress as an adult. I can’t imagine subjecting an adolescent to it.
Take a couple mental health days.
You may be suffering from burn out. What classes are you taking? How many hours sleep to you get on average on weekdays? Weekends? Are you involved in non competitive activities?
Truly, thank you to all who responded! I took some days off to take a break, and feel much more rejuvenated!
@MYOS1634 I am in 5 AP classes, do a competitive sport, serve on a school board council, am a published poet, volunteer to multiple languages, and a passionate advocate for resource stewardship (petitions, marches, speaking at board meetings). I would definitely say that sleep is staggered depending on homework load during the weekdays, but more constant during the weekends.
Learn to not do all the hw (figure out what will really matter and what won’t, and take risks. Even if you miscalculate, at this point, a C on a quiz is NOT going to drastically affect your final grade).
Next year, take 3 or 4 AP’s and select them wisely.
(keep in mind that even top colleges don’t expect more than 8 total, after that the law of diminishing returns applies).
Be careful with sleep; you need 8 hours minimum 9 preferably. Under 8 you take risks with your health, very severe if under 7, with pretty drastic consequences once your brain has been harmed.
What’s your planned schedule for next year?
@MYOS1634 I am planning to do 8 AP’s next year, but a good number of them on the easier side. I think that I will receive all A’s for my classes this year, except for Calculus (92.1… so close :(( ).
@potatoepotatoe, eight APs? Why? Keep in mind that five academic classes is the usual course load.
“I am planning to do 8 AP’s next year,”
Don’t do this. Your goal in life should NOT be to keep piling on the stress until you collapse. It isn’t worth it, and this isn’t the way to make a significant contribution to the world.
People do VERY well in life going to “top 200” universities, and killing yourself to try to go to a “top 10” university is a very bad idea. I work with graduates from MIT and graduates from in-state public universities, and they work side by side and no one cares where anyone went to university.
^ actually, taking 8 APs in a year is likely to be counterproductive.
- it’ll likely be perceived as 1) insanity or 2) hubris or 3) both.
- it’ll be very difficult to maintain As
- it’ll impact your sleep time (to keep yourself, and especially your developing brain, healthy, you need eight hours a night minimum)
- it’ll force you to cut down on extracurriculars, which are crucial to highly selective admissions
- it’ll make spending the proper time in your applications highly unlikely.
Highly selective colleges expect a MAXIMUM of 8 APs over all of high school. They should include core classes, especially in your purported chosen field of study. But once you’ve met the threshold indicating you can handle the work, the law of diminishing returns comes into play and other factors are looked into.
Where does this magic “8 APs” come from?
Ok, I see. My school has mostly AP courses and not much choice outside of them other than an art elective.
Seminar (Elective, but AP elective)
Multi variable Calculus (Not an AP actually)
Spanish (Been doing the language and want to continue)
Government (Love learning about this stuff)
Comparative Government
Literature (Like reading as well)
Environmental Science (Big environmentalist)
Human Geography (Like MUN) (Elective, but AP elective)
I guess that I am a little bit concerned that if I take less difficult classes than last year, then colleges will think that I am trying to take it easy senior year.
Are all of those AP???
BTW, MVC is considered a post-AP, ie., even more rigorous and harder than an AP.
That’s WAY too many. I realize you seem to like all of them but that’s too many if they’re indeed AP’s.
Colleges wouldn’t expect you to take more than 4 senior year. Perhaps 5 if the 5th is HUman Geo or APES.
As a consequence, I’d drop Seminar and either APES OR Human Geo, for the following schedule:
MVC
Spanish
Gov/COmp GOv
Lit
APES OR Human Geo
one fun elective like culinary arts or current events
@MYOS1634 Yes, they are! Thank you for the advice- I think I will consider doing that. AP Seminar/ AP Research is a two year class though, so I will have to take Research next year (meant to write Research instead of Seminar).