It’s September again, and a new class has risen to the senior ranks at Madison High School. As a new school year came to a start, many new seniors have had new experiences and opportunities that were definitely strange at first.

As a senior, something that leads to a great amount of new experiences is senior privilege. During your senior privilege, seniors have the opportunity to leave school, go to the library, or stay in the cafeteria. As a result, and certainly not very surprising, many choose to leave the school in order to get food or just chill at a friend’s house. Also, if one has senior privilege right before or right after lunch, they have what it is called “super-lunch”. During super-lunch, a senior can leave the school during the lunch period and their senior privilege, combining a total break of one hour and forty minutes. However, many seniors do not know the length of each period, and often times, they come back to classes a little late. Christian Wong, a senior at MHS, states that his transition to senior year has been “pretty seamless, [and that] being allowed to leave for senior privilege and lunch is nice, but I also need to watch the time a lot more to make sure I get back accordingly.”

As seen with senior privilege, seniors are given a lot of trust and freedom. As a result, many seniors express their feelings of joy about being the oldest students in the building. For the first day of school, many girls decided to wear shirts that said “seniors out of th1s w9rld,” clearly expressing their excitement about being the graduating class of 2019. Sophia Haralampoudis, a senior at MHS, and one of the girls that wore the t-shirts on the first day, describes how they are attempting to create a new tradition for Madison seniors. Haralampoudis also mentions how senior privilege “makes [her] feel a lot older, and that it is very enjoyable to go home or go out to eat once in a while, and basically take a break from school.”

Senior year, just like junior year, is known for being stressful. All of the hard work put into junior year is reflected in your senior year, however, in addition, during the first months of senior year, many applications are due. It is not uncommon for most seniors to be stressed during the beginning of the year, since not only are they required to focus on their school work, but also they must remain focused and push through the application process. At first, especially to many who do not have an older sibling that has gone through this process, working on the common application can be a lot more time consuming and demanding. At this time of the year, most senior finished taking the SAT, and therefore, mainly focus on the common application. 

Senior year is a very exciting year since everyone is one step closer to finally going to college. However, in order to make this year count the most,  seniors need to find a balance between enjoying their last year of high school, while staying on track with college applications, which are very timing consuming.