Finally, the long awaited GPA “freeze” has taken over, leaving seniors’ GPAs in a theoretical standstill. After the second quarter, the GPA’s of seniors cease to change and newly recalculated GPA’s are sent to colleges on mid-year reports. Since GPA’s are not recalculated until the end of the fourth quarter, this number is what they will be applying to college with. However, as seniors get ready to lay back and not worry about school a question arises: should seniors stop trying?

Colleges monitor the grades of those students who have been accepted and keep an even closer eye on its prospective students. Many students see this freeze on their GPA’s as an opportunity to let their “Senioritis”  take over and plan on slacking off on upcoming assignments and due dates. Senior year should be the best year for students in high school; however, that does not permit students to forget that grades will always matter-especially to colleges willing to accept them.

During this last year of high school, there are a lot of incentives for being a senior. Field trips, treats, and occasionally special treatment. Things like this have seniors stray away from their academics; it’s a jam packed nine months of nothing but fun for them. Through this period of time there’s only one thought going through every seniors head: when is graduation? There really is no specific thing to worry about during this last year – everything is equally important.

“I think that seniors should work as hard even after their GPA freezes because colleges have access to your transcript and can request your grades at any time so you don’t want to risk your admission to the institution. If you’re an IB student I believe that you should put in as much effort as the first two quarters because you have your HL and SL exams. Personally, I think ending the school year strongly is the way to go especially since you’ve worked so hard to get where you are,” junior Marissa Singer said.

All together,  this GPA freeze has called a commotion among seniors. Now, many plan to stop trying when it comes to academics and just focusing on upcoming graduation. This will really hurt those at the end of the last quarter when GPA’s are recalculated and final reports are sent to the schools students plan on attending. So here is a message for seniors: do not stop trying – it’ll benefit you to try hard now and have it easier later.