Senioritis

Senioritis is a colloquial term mainly used in the United States and Canada to describe the decreased motivation toward studies displayed by students who are nearing the end of their high school, college, and graduate school careers. It combines the word senior with the suffix -itis, which technically denotes inflammation but in colloquial speech is assumed to mean a general illness.

Research

Writer James Coleman, Chairman of the President's Panel of Youth, urged changes in the high school curriculum to address the problem of senioritis. These concerns gave rise to the implementation of a "Senior Semester" in many high schools throughout the country, which allowed seniors to spend time outside of the school or attend seminars in their specific interests. In 1974, for example, McKeesport Area High School in Pennsylvania received a grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to establish a "Senior Semester" Program. The Evaluation Report for Senior Semester Program 1974-75 McKeesport Area Senior High School, McKeesport, Pennsylvania was produced by the Office of Measurement and Evaluation, University of Pittsburgh, July 1975. The Director's Report for Senior Semester Program 1974-75 by Dr. Lester F. Jipp can be found at ERIC ED 157 165.

Senioritis (musical)

Senioritis is a high school musical comedy about the stresses of senior year and is a satire on teachers, parents, college admissions, celebrities, and the money culture. Written by nine students from Virginia and Maryland, it was performed in August 2007 at the Kennedy Center and made into a feature-length film, thanks to a grant from the Arts Council of Fairfax County.

Senioritis tells the story of the senior class at Erma Schmoe High School, which unwittingly becomes the object of an experiment testing the famous laziness so common in the final year of high school. When the seniors bomb their first-quarter grades and tests, they get rejected by the elite "Holly League" colleges. They (and their hovering parents) fear that their lives are hopelessly ruined. Things go madly awry when the seniors get wise to the experiment and decide to get even by having the worst case of "senioritis" in history. The seniors put on a "high school mythical" about senioritis and become global sensations.