Senior Skip Day, although unofficially official, is a well known tradition at almost every high school in the nation. It’s a reward for students who have been grueling through the K-12 education system for the past 13 years of their lives. It may not be recognized on an official school calendar, but administration knows it, teachers know it, parents know it, and students most certainly know it. Although this age-long tradition may sound appealing, is it truly worth it? With challenging course loads and high school cliques, the ideology of “Senior Skip Day” seems to be dissipating. 

Over the years, the high school education system has become increasingly difficult, competitive, and time consuming. Many students are taking honors classes, AP Classes, and college level courses, which are far more demanding, and therefore difficult to make up. The amount of effort needed to make up classwork seems to surpass the efforts of just attending the period. More and more seniors come in for these classes even on their skip days in fear of missing out. On a four block schedule, seniors may be here for one block, two blocks, or three blocks– making skipping pointless. Along with their coursework, seniors have to also devote their time to completing college applications. The due dates for early, regular, late admission continue to loom over their heads. With such a heavy workload, is it truly practical for them to create more work for themselves? 

Besides the course load, high school cliques have created a new and arguably less thrilling version of skip day. If asking older generations what their skip days were like, they would probably describe a completely different scenario than ones that students would inform you of experiencing today. Skip day used to be a gathering of the entire graduating class, a celebration of their last year: a party of sorts. Today, skip day activities consist of groups of seniors roaming around town, staying at home, studying, sleeping, and doing other random activities. 

Seniors, what are your thoughts on Skip Day? Do you relate to this, or do you disagree? If you are not a senior, what do you envision as your ideal Skip Day? Do you believe it will be worth it?