Elizabeth Dyer ‘19 knows exactly what she wants to do when she gets out of high school. She’d like to run her own daycare. However, she doesn’t even know where to start to look for colleges. On top of this she is worried about leaving home. “I am excited, as well, it’s just I’m more worried about being away.”

Another Junior, Grace Bemis, has her plan and has the details hammered down.  She knows what her life is going to be after college. “The medical field is really competitive and you have to go to pre-med and then a medical school.” She even has summer plans aligned to her future career, as she’ll be spending time at JAX labs on MDI. Grace will be there to learn about genetics.

Nagoo Morey ’19 has yet another common junior approach. He doesn’t know at all what he wants to do after high school. “I just don’t want to be a bum.” Morey said. However, he did do some college touring last summer.

Upcoming senior year can cause a lot of stress, but fortunately we have people to help guide us through. Upcoming seniors can do a lot to help themselves over summer break and early senior year.

Andrea Hallett, Guidance Director, says an easy and painless way to begin the planning process at this point in junior year is to visit college board, where you can find the right college for you. All you have to do is scroll down, find the green button that says ‘Access’ and click on ‘College Search’.

“It helps narrow down colleges by looking for what type of college you want by either a four year college or trade school,” Hallett said. “It will also eliminate colleges if you prefer to be in a college in a small town or big city.” When you leave home it’s okay to want to be with your family, but Hallet stresses that this is a chance to assert independence.

To help get to graduation you have to make sure to stay on top of classes, and sadly, seniors don’t have the room to slip. This will help with a huge amount of senior stress if you are on top of passing your classes. Hallett says that taking care of yourself relieves stress too.

Senior Ally McLellan also agrees with Hallett about making sure you are on top of school work during the fourth year. She encourages students to get scholarships because if you don’t, you will end up behind. Some students take scholarships for granted and it just adds more stress.

Senior Ellie Goheen agrees with this. Looking back she wouldn’t have procrastinated this much. In fact, she just applied for college on April 23. Fortunately, she was accepted. She made jokes to help with stress. Goheen said, “You think junior year is bad but wait for the last three months of senior year.”

Before you get to the edge of a nervous breakdown, Hallett said, “Make sure you ask for help if it every gets too bad.” For upcoming juniors she said to start finalizing a plan, you don’t have to know a career you want, but knowing what sort of college will help with the stress.

“This is going to sound cliché but your senior year goes by so fast. Your life will change during senior year,” McLellan said. “Your life is going to head down a different lifestyle than you expected.”

Senior year is hectic, and sometimes classmates may feel like giving up, but as Goheen says, “Just hold on, you’re almost there.”