<p>My D is having a less than wonderful senior year...so much drama around plans for prom, shuffling of dates, mean girl stuff. My D feels that she has outgrown her high school friends.</p>
<p>I'm wondering how others experienced their senior year.</p>
<p>I’ll ask ds when he wakes up. lol. Must be nice, huh?</p>
<p>I agree. Son can’t wait to go off to college for a variety of reasons similar to what you have stated above. I think some kids really outgrow the whole high school scene and are ready to be done with it by this point.</p>
<p>Oh yeah. My S and some of his friends are ready to be in college NOW. My S has stated such. I reminded him of the fun senior activities yet to come and he softened his stance a bit. Plus I reminded him he and his friends should focus on planning their summer trip across the country.</p>
<p>D was ready to go off to college after the summer of her junior year. She was dreading senior year and all it’s drama she knew was to come. She managed to get through her senior year and had a pretty good year except for the period from March to June. There was drama over college acceptances and her friends turned on her like only girls can. She still hasn’t really forgiven them.</p>
<p>Why are girls so mean to eachother? Do you think it changes in college?</p>
<p>For both D and S, senior year of high school was the greatest emotional roller coaster rides of their educational experience. The stress of college applications, the anxiety of waiting, the joy of acceptances, the dismay of rejections, the ambivalence of wanting to get out of high school and into college (both excitement and fear), the stress of AP exams, the nostalgia of the ‘last time we will ever be together doing this…’, saying goodbye to people you have known since kindergarten. Not all of these experiences were wonderful. It is difficult to say that it will ever become the “best year of your life”, although they had some great moments. </p>
<p>As parents, we often selectively remember our high school senior year experience (or college experience) as the “best year of our life” and, sometimes inadvertantly, convey to our children that it should be the same for them. One has to be careful in putting that kind of expectation on a year in school or on their college experience, for that matter. </p>
<p>Hopefully, things settle out but HS Senior year can be one of distancing from high school, friends, and parents as the reality of leaving home begins to set in. These feelings are not always pleasant to the child (or the parent) and can be manifested in some less than wonderful behavior.</p>
<p>I think it’s tremendously silly to call any year the “best year” of your life.</p>
<p>My personal experience is that senior year is predominantly positive. I’ve seen others struggle with some friend/nostalgic drama, but I haven’t had to deal with anything like that myself. For me, senior year is about getting the most out of my high school (spending time with people, going to all the performances, etc) and about all the senior-only stuff (college, graduation, etc).</p>
<p>I’m very ready and excited for college, but while I’m still here I’m focusing on experiencing all the positives this place has to offer me.</p>
<p>t_c, can I introduce you to my son?</p>
<p>He woke up, and, over breakfast, I asked him if senior year is the best year of his life. He put down his fork and said, “What kind of question is THAT?” lmao. I explained it came up on cc. He said every year has had good stuff happen so it’s impossible to say.</p>
<p>I think the best year of his life will be when I quit asking so many questions. That could take awhile.</p>
<p>oh questbest my heart goes out to you and your D. It’s a tough transition </p>
<p>Mine was having a similar exprience last January, she was mopey and cross and I found her one day in her room sobbing. She shared that:
she didn’t know if she wanted to go to college,
she knew she didn’t want to stay home and go to CC,
she knew she didn’t want a gap year,
she was afraid college would be just like hsl but without the comfort of home/family
her friends were by and large a habit that no longer shared true connection
her closest friends, sister and bff, had time consuming ECs and a bf respectively
she was at a loss and totally sick of most of her classmates</p>
<p>Things improved as Prom rolled around and their Senior trip helped reconnect her with some of her other buddies. By the last week of school it was all hearts and flowers and excitement and pranks but she was ready to take off on the collegiate adventure as soon as she got home from Orientation.</p>
<p>now over a year she is ecstatically happy at her first choice school. Has found friends with whom she has a real connections and has rekindled her affections for some of the girls from hs. After a rocky first semester she is now being academically responsible and doing far better.</p>
<p>It was hard to make her see her future on that January afternoon but now she barely remember that cry fest and all of the strong emotions that inspired it.</p>
<p>So, QB this is normal and you can count yourself as lucky that your D shares with you. Be a supportive shoulder and keep on pushing through. Hugs to you both!</p>
<p>oh and there will always be mean girls but they seem to occur in lower concentrations in colleges. Best of luck!</p>
<p>yds LOL seriously LOL!</p>
<p>I didn’'t/haven’t much cared for either my HS or college senior years… Too much applying, worrying about getting in, going on interviews, and making decisions. Too much “one foot out the door” for me.</p>
<p>I think senior year is overrated.
But then again, I didn’t do the “senior things” you’re supposed to
I didn’t go to homecoming
I won’t be going to prom
I won’t be going to graduation
and am not having a graduation party</p>
<p>This year, for me, is all about getting the heck out of my HS and going to college. I am not nostalgic or anything. My high school offers nothing to me anymore and I’m ready to be done</p>
<p>My focus this year was college apps…as it should have been</p>
<p>YDS: you win post of the day…</p>
<p>(from my daughter’s mouth: “You (me) are so irritating with all the questions…”)</p>
<p>Wow, what a relief to read these letters. Our daughter has had some similar angst, old friends going in different directions. A very jealous “frenemy” becoming more cruel as ours got into a school where the other girl had been rejected. Lots of weekend nights at home watching TV because she’s so burned out , and out of the loop with her old friends. Nice to hear that this all will all change when she finally gets into college.</p>
<p>Senior year is not my S’s best yr so far. My S has one foot out the door. He’s so bored with high school! Will he miss out on not going to the prom? Doubt it. But he’ll make sure he goes to the senior bbq and grad night! </p>
<p>I told him I made arrangements to retake his sr. pic. He hates the conventional tux picture they had to take for the yearbook. So, I asked a photographer friend to take some outdoor pics. </p>
<p>Senior year for me was fun and enjoyable because I knew what I was doing next - going to college. I imagine it’s more special to those who have no immediate plans to further their education and are going out into the unknown.</p>
<p>I’ve been ready to leave high school for years. I outgrew it a while ago. </p>
<p>The melodrama, the immaturity…my friends are still swimming in it and I can’t sympathize anymore. =(</p>
<p>I’m finding senior more tedious than anything else. The work is heaped on but it’s so easy and boring that it just feels worthless. </p>
<p>Sure, there’s prom and beta convention and senior trip, but everyone is irritated because it all costs so much money. The seniors are basically broke. </p>
<p>And for some reason, no one is really talking about college that much even though most people are waiting for decisions. I mean, I’m sure the excited chatter will pick up once April swings by, but for now, the people who already know where they’re going (like me) are just sitting there silently cause no one’s talking.</p>
<p>I mean, sure senior year is easy, but it feels more like waiting time until college than an actual “school year.”</p>
<p>High School lost all its appeal for me a while ago, now I’m just coasting until June.</p>
<p>I think it is very important to help our kids realize that life is not perfect…so to expect college to be perfect sets them up for disappointment. There will be good days and bad days, mean people and some nice ones - just like life overall.</p>
<p>YDS: I’d love to meet him! :D</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because I go to a smaller school, but I’ve found that the one-foot-out-the-door sort of thing (college acceptances, graduation) is actually bringing my grade much closer together. Sure, some people are just dying to get out asap, but most of us are kinder and more open this year, i.e. posting acceptances and such on Facebook with lots of people congratulating them. I think it’s because the fear that people won’t accept you is replaced at least partially with the fact that after this year, you won’t ever see these people again except by choice, so what they think of you doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>As a high school teacher I see my seniors struggle daily with their desire to start college while having to finish up all of the senior curriculum requirements. I teach at an IB school and seniors have a lot of Internal Assessments to complete. These range from lengthy research/analytical papers to oral assessments in the languages. Of course May brings them days of IB and AP tests. </p>
<p>My daughter who is a senior is so busy finishing up all of these requirements that she isn’t having as much fun as she had hoped for, but she anxiously waits for the third week in May when everything is done. I feel for her as my high school year was a lot of fun, but I wasn’t in a college prep program.</p>
<p>I really do commend high school seniors in challenging programs because of how difficult it is to want to start the next leg of the journey before finishing the first, but not being able to. As soon as they decide on their college the wait gets harder, but they persevere and I respect this.</p>