Ah, senior year. The last one should be the best one right? We already survived junior year, so we should be fine! Well, the optimistic view of senior year that we all begin with is seemingly crushed into pieces the minute we hear the words “college admissions.”

The process of finding what college best fits you (and then finding ways to make your otherwise mundane life seem like some mission from God) is painstaking and patronizing. You spend your time selling your soul to the Grim Reaper 17 times by picking apart every detail as to why a college should accept you.

“Do you, [insert goal school here], choose me to be your loyal pupil?”

Unfortunately this isn’t the Bachelor, meaning that the amount of acceptances will be limited. Once you have hit the glorious moment where you have turned in all of your essays, you can take a well deserved break…for about 30 seconds before realizing you have a ton of schoolwork to get done.

One will also have limited time to complete this work because, while you were building your resume, you also actually had to apply for a job and work there. We may say “college admissions are done, so it doesn’t matter now!” Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as much as our brains have decided that we can all slumber away the rest of senior year, unfortunately these schools actually seem to care about our performance throughout the year.

Lucky for us, this means we get to keep those hard earned test grades going, yay us! Who knew that maintaining an out of this world GPA actually had to be carried through the five AP classes you decided to take this year just so your transcript would look visually appealing? All of this exhausting writing and work leads us to become burnt out. We just want the work to go away, and many of us believe that since our fate is at the fingertips of admissions officers, our efforts no longer matter.

Finding a way to combat this complete lack of care is challenging. Even though our brains are antsy at knowing what our entire future holds at the age of 17, focus on the fact that we are seniors. There are many perks of being a senior, such as the Chick-fil-a breakfasts, being at the front of the bleachers, skipping random dates of school unbeknownst to staff, admin and even other seniors. Even though it may seem stressful, now that your future is terrifyingly in the hands of strangers, live in the present moment and enjoy the benefits of being a senior. All until you realize that with AP courses, come AP exams in May. Best of luck!