College application season has come and gone. A lot of seniors have poured their heart and soul (not to mention every ounce of effort in their bodies) to complete the seemingly endless applications with their essays, financial aid forms, short answers, resumes, extracurricular lists, recommendations, personal statements, and on and on…

Now that the last one’s been submitted, all anyone wants to do is collapse on the couch and scroll through social media and phone apps until the first day of college, right?

Right. And that’s entirely understandable, but don’t phone in the rest of your senior year, and there are several excellent reasons why.

Colleges Check Your Senior Year Grades.

This isn’t an idle threat, nor one to take lightly. Even if a student’s already been accepted through early action or decision, colleges can rescind that acceptance if senior year grades aren’t up to par, and most colleges and universities require a final high school transcript.

For colleges and universities with more selective admission requirements, the odds of them scrutinizing final grades is even higher, so keep that in mind. If a college is concerned about student performance but isn’t quite at the point of rescinding admittance, they can also put students on academic probation for their first semester or year. While this is obviously the lesser of two evils, it still adds undue stress to a student’s first year, so avoiding it is obviously the goal.

Your Financial Aid May Be Affected.

Many colleges and universities award merit aid as part of distributing financial aid. It’s thrilling to receive that sort of compliment, that hard academic work deserves monetary praise, but succumbing to senioritis could make it disappear—seriously.

While admission may not be tendered if senior year grades take a hit, it could easily knock students off of the merit scholarship eligibility criteria. Typically, the guidelines are straight forward, maintaining a certain GPA in combination with excellent test scores, but if a student suddenly slips off that spectrum, it could cost actual money, which then needs to be taken out in loans or compensated elsewhere.

It’s Scholarship Season.

The last thing anyone wants to hear after college application season is that there are more forms to fill out, more essays to write, and more applications to submit, but, well… there are. It’s scholarship season, meaning that there are thousands of dollars being offered up by companies throughout the nation (even the world) ripe for earning and college is expensive, as every teen is reminded hundred thousand times by everybody and their mother.

Whether you’ve already received your financial aid packet or you’re nervously waiting on the verdict, you’re still likely going to need money for tuition, board, books, travel, or the miscellaneous other costs that go along with getting a postsecondary education. Plus, do you know what happens when it’s determined you don’t owe the school any more money? It’s dispersed to you.

So get to work! Check out our scholarship database. Make an account and save all of the scholarships you want to apply for. You can also start here, with this awesome list of scholarships great for the Class of 2019!

You’re welcome.

Keep Working For It.

The easy part of combating these problems is that you’ve already been accepted or fit within an institution’s criteria by just doing what you’re already doing—just keep doing it! Don’t let senioritis throw you off your game. Colleges don’t want to rescind admission and typically reserve it for extreme cases, but the possibility is a good enough reason for most students to keep hustlin’.

Shake It Off

The solution is easier said than done, though, right? You know what hangs in the balance, but what if you’re feeling stuck?

• Be Accountable. One of the best ways to keep yourself on track is to have somebody else help keep you accountable. Grab a friend and check in every day to make sure your homework is done.

• Keep the Same Study Habits. Do you remember that time before you started applying to college and being wholly consumed by the process? Whatever you were doing back then, make yourself do the same thing now. Whether that’s meeting with other students from class or cosying up in your favorite chair and copying your notes from one piece of notebook paper to the other, be consistent.

• Put On A Nice Outfit. Whether that constitutes a pair of jeans, slacks, leggings, the non-holey pair of basketball shorts, or a dress and tights, put on an outfit that makes you feel good. It’ll motivate you to get things done.

• Keep a Calendar of All Due Dates. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s a great way of keeping track of everything even when you’d rather check out.

• Plan Things You Enjoy. It’s senior year! Do fun things after school, hang out with your friends, but, most importantly, avoid stressing over when you’ll get acceptance letters.

• Don’t Be Hard On Yourself For Taking Down Time. This time in your life is stressful, and it’s okay to take a chill weekend now and again and not be called “lazy.” The big thing is to not let that down time turn into all the time.

Graduation is a hop, skip, and a jump away, so go out at the top of your game. Shake off that senioritis and get ready to walk your high school stage—you’ve earned it!