<p>
If you want to change your schedule, you can ask the school in advance if that would be a problem. It probably won’t be. My son (for example) didn’t want to continue French the second semester of his senior year. I made him ask the Yale admissions office if that was OK–and they didn’t care.</p>
<p>OP this is a character question. So you want to work to your potential or do you want to skate by. The world is full of people that do the latter. </p>
<p>If you are stressed by high school work you are in for a major shock in college!</p>
<p>Here’s my advice: do your homework, prepare for tests, etc.–but stop worrying about the grades. Let your parents worry about them if they want.</p>
<p>I would be careful about what you let slide. Will studying just enough to get a B prepare you enough for the college level course that is next in the sequence? A low B in Calculus I might make Calculus II harder. You could end up trading an easy fun senior spring for a tougher than necessary freshman fall.</p>
<p>The real question might be not if you can but if you should.</p>
<p>Easing back on the gas in Senior year allows you to recharge and renew so that you can taking on your freshman year with full vigor!</p>
<p>Alternately, you can evaluate if you are an efficient study-er or a grind study-er. If you have gotten your straight As by a grind method (spending a lot of time on school work, sacrificing social activities for school work, etc), then you can spend your last 6 months learning, testing, and practicing an efficient study-er method. The method is in the book, How to be a straight A student by Cal Newport.</p>
<p>In a former life, I taught in a prep school. We had a student who was into Princeton and then got a D and an F his second semester senior year. Princeton made him take a year off. While he did not have to reapply in full, he did have to show them he had done something worthwhile with his year.</p>
<p>I would try to have your cake and eat it too by lightening the load a little and still aiming for A or A- in all classes.</p>
<p>One way it can really come back to haunt you is if you ever want to transfer.</p>
<p>Don’t let your grades slip.</p>
<p>But if you were participating in any extracurricular activities just to make yourself look good (rather than because you genuinely want to participate in them), it wouldn’t hurt to decrease your participation. If they’re non-school-related activities, you could drop some of them altogether.</p>
<p>The college is going to check on your second semester grades, and I suppose there’s a remote chance that the final report from your school might indicate whether you’re still involved in the Spanish Honor Society or the Key Club (although it probably won’t give any details about whether or not you’re still chairing a committee or leading a fundraising activity for one of those organizations). But your college is not going to check to see whether you’re still volunteering at the local hospital or playing in the community youth orchestra.</p>
<p>You get the idea.</p>
<p>^that could be considered lying, depending on what you put down on your applications for your ECs</p>
<p>I haven’t gotten accepted anywhere (which is rather annoying, especially when your friends are all talking about how they’ve already gotten their acceptances and I have to tell them that I’ve got to wait until late March/early April). I can see why your parents want you to keep up your grades. It’s great that you got accepted Early Decision, and little drops in grades won’t be red flags to colleges; however, you shouldn’t take it easy just because you know that you don’t have to worry about college. You should try to finish high school off by getting the best grades you can. Think of it this way: now that you know you have been accepted by a college, you don’t need to worry about whether or not you’ll get into the college that you wanted to get into. So now, instead of worrying, you can concentrate on your classwork and grades. It’s sad that many seniors decide to slack off once they get accepted into college. If you’ve worked really hard the past three years and got accepted into a good college, why would you want to just stop caring? That’s what I personally think. I totally stressed myself out with a crazy schedule, and like I said, I haven’t heard from ANY colleges yet, except for my deferral from Brown. Good luck anyways, and try not to develop senioritis. Keep holding on until that diploma gets handed to you; that’s when you can REALLY relax.</p>
<p>If you have been getting As for all three years of high school, and also in the first semester of senior year, don’t easily shrug off getting Bs. Although I don’t think a college can reject you for that, you shouldn’t be getting Bs if you have been getting As. One B is okay, or even two. But three and four is basically showing that you have fallen subject to senioritis, and that is usually never a good thing. Like I said in the post before, just do your best until summer. What I’ve been telling myself is that once I graduate, I can truly enjoy this summer, since I won’t have any kind of homework to do, nor any college applications to worry about.</p>
<p>IMHO, your parents probably consider this the slippery slope. They don’t want to condone lower grades because once you let one slide, then all the others start to go. I have had this discussion with my son, not about maintaining straight A’s, but basically talking about continuing to work hard. </p>
<p>I worry just like your parents and many other parents. You have a wonderful
opportunity, they are very excited for you, love you and want you to be happy and successful. They just don’t want to see many years of your hard work undone by 12
weeks of " relaxing".</p>
<p>I agree with others that it says something about your character if you suddenly get multiple B’s after never getting them before. I don’t see any reason not to always try your hardest, and in your situation there is still some motivation. You don’t want to leave your parents, going to college, on a bad note, and they might punish you. </p>
<p>I like to think of things by asking how I will feel about them five or ten years down the line. Will I regret it? I know if I was in this situation, losing my straight A’s due to senioritis would be regreattable.</p>
<p>You guys posted some good reasons for keeping that 4.0. DS3 has been getting 4.0 since his elementary school. He is taking 5 AP’s, a regular course, and a computer programming course at a CC this last semester. However, he understands that he may not get into one of the reach schools. Even if he is admitted, there is no guarantee that he will be able to go if the final EFC is significantly higher than the NPC. On the other hand, he is still working on the full ride from our IS school. He may indeed end up with going to the IS school with just the free tuition and that is something hard to swallow for him. He has told me that he would get drunk the entire summer if that happens. Then, work his xxx off after going to the college. I think it is more than just the Senioritis. Rather, it is the uncertainties and the potential disappointment that are tough to handle. I am not sure if I can blame him.</p>
<p>Only you can decide how much effort is “enough” this last semester. Many incredibly creative, analytic, intense, and even perfectionist types have an essential talent – that of knowing when they must focus deeply on the work in front of them and when they can take a break and let loose a bit. And when they take that break they’re not suddenly transformed into dilettantes and lose their intensity and focus when the next crucial challenge comes along. The break is not the precursor to the fatal disease of sloth.</p>
<p>If I were interviewing you for a summer position I wouldn’t think twice that your last semester grades were Bs rather than As. I would assess your interest and fit for the job that I had, and I would look at your entire high school transcript, and (in a major way) take into account that you’ve gotten into a top college.</p>
<p>Once you’re 18 your parents won’t have access to your college transcripts. Perhaps you’re already that age. I don’t quite understand why they would worry about some possible Bs in your last semester high school report. I would think that it’s their problem and not yours. Manage it diplomatically. Your last semester grades good or mediocre will be soon forgotten.</p>
<p>high school is easy. Keep working hard, just dont let it keep you from being social every weekend. Its good prep for what life will be like in college</p>
<p>@stressedoutt: I don’t think it’s lying to drop out of ECs, as long as you were telling the truth about your participation at the time when you applied. Saying that you’re in an EC doesn’t imply a commitment to participate in that EC for an entire year. In fact, ECs often don’t last an entire year. Sports have seasons. Volunteer projects may be time-limited. You may lose a part-time job. This is normal.</p>
<p>Anyway, what I was trying to suggest to the OP (apparently, rather ineptly) was that one way to ease the workload of senior year without jeopardizing grades would be to cut back on unnecessary commitments outside of the classroom. If the goal is to have more free time and less stress, this could be a better choice than cutting back on studying.</p>
<p>Continue to do your best–it will serve you well down the road.</p>
<p>I think the major benefit of being accepted by ED/EA of your dream school is not that you can relax in your last semester in high school while many of your classmates are still waiting and wondering their chances of admission. It is the certainty of knowing where you’re to spend the next four years that enables you to plan ahead on practical matters, like how many AP credits will be accepted, what courses to take, application for summer job/intern/research etc. </p>
<p>Don’t forget what you have learned–every college has placement tests waiting for you.</p>
<p>Regarding ace550 and the DS3 who is taking 5 APs and may have to settle for a full ride IS - something to keep in mind is that state schools are typically generous with AP credit. It’s worth continuing to study hard enough in those 5 AP classes to be well prepared to do well on the AP exams. If DS3 goes IS, he would probably be happier “APing out” of a lot of gen. ed. requirements than taking classes that go over much the same territory as the AP classes he’s taking this year.</p>