Strength in Numbers

I used to think Senioritis was a disease that came after being accepted into college. Once seniors know they have a place to go after high school, they feel as though they do not need to work as hard. This is partially true, however, the generalization was not completely adding up because I have friends who knew where they were going for sports by the end of junior year. If the theory was correct, then by principle these girls would have experienced "Senioritis" at the end of junior year, and this simply was not the case. One in particular used to make flashcards for her tests junior year, even after she verbally committed to college. This year however, she told her teacher that she would rather receive a 0% on an essay assignment rather than make it up after school even though she had nothing going on in that time period. First of all if that's not the definition of Senioritis then I don't know what is and second of all you may be wondering why now? Why did she wait until now to display the symptoms of Senioritis?

There is no doubt that stress and anxiety were relieved upon her verbal commitment to college. But, the reason she did not display symptoms until senior year is because many of her fellow classmates also heard back from colleges senior year, and in my experience thus far it is much easier to become infected with the disease when you are surrounded by a large group of classmates. Senioritis does not infect individuals, it infects classes.