Senioritis, an annual phenomenon, occurring at the start of second semester every senior year, affects a multitude of students. Common symptoms include but are not limited to: slacking off, sudden apathy to anything school related and attitude issues. Teachers have long warned students not to fall into the pits of senioritis, but every year, students succumb to it.

“I start seeing it most in the beginning of February,” Spanish teacher Dana Ouart said. “They’re not motivated and ready to go to college.”

Ouart said that the most common problem is that students stop showing up to class.

“I have a conversation with my students about attendance and AP scores when they stop coming to class,” Ouart said. “I’ve had two students fail the AP exam because they stopped showing up.”

Ouart also suffered from senioritis in high school; however, her grades were not affected. Her advice to juniors is that the “habits you have in high school are the same you have in college.”

The senioritis Ouart suffered from did not come from laziness. It came from the excitement she had to graduate and start college, she said, but Quart didn’t want to ruin her chances of getting into college so she worked hard and kept her grades up.

For some students, symptoms vary.

“Getting out of bed is easy for me. I don’t think senioritis is bad in my case,” senior Tray Stephens said. “I guess it affects people differently.”

Some students have other motivating factors, such as keeping their grades and attendance up, colleges keeping tabs on them and scholarships.

“I have to keep good grades and attendance because the schools I applied to look at second semester,” senior Kaitlyn Henry said. “I also am applying for scholarships that require good grades.”

Henry works with horses once a week as a destresser, which helps her remain focused on school.

For some, indulging in senioritis just isn’t logical.

“I’ve already come this far,” senior Max Grove said. “It just doesn’t make sense for me to taper off at this point.”