An empty word document, a blank notebook page, a packet of math questions left half-answered, a grade printout with more zeroes than completed assignments.

As the second semester begins, these are the things that many seniors at AHS have become all too familiar with. For many seniors, as college acceptances begin to pile up, the drive to put forth effort in their current classes plummets.

“I have very little motivation to do my work this semester, I am already into the colleges I want to go to so I’m not as worried about doing my work,” senior Maddie Smith said.

In addition, as the second semester has officially begun, so has an increase in seniors claiming to be suffering from “senioritis.”

A symptom of not only being a senior but the completion of the second quarter can also be accompanied by  a decrease in student work effort and motivation.

Senior Nathan Seeto, who recently was accepted at Virginia Commonwealth University, has experienced so-called senioritis and feels the distractions becoming ever present. “It’s extremely distracting to think about [college] while you’re attempting to study for a test or while trying to do a homework assignment,” Seeto said.

Despite this, he also points out that he still completes all of his assignments because he knows in the end it will be worth it. “As hard as it is to study or try in school knowing that you’re accepted to a college, graduation will be completely worth all of the work.”

Because most students apply to colleges before the end of the semester, only grades from the first three years of high school are sent initially. Though senior year grades will be sent to colleges at the end of the year, they very rarely rescind offers of admission due to poor grades in the students’ final year.

“Even though I know it’s rare, we’ve all heard too many stories of acceptances being rescinded after a kid slacked off in the second semester, so I still make an effort to do well,” senior Lillian Singer said.

“I’ve already been accepted at North Carolina State University and sent in my deposit. Even though I get really lazy and don’t want to do my work sometimes, I still complete all of it. It just might not be quite as good as it was before,” senior Megan Loman said.

Along with lack of motivation to do school work, another thing accompanying senioritis is how easy it is to become distracted.

For some, distractions such as Facebook and television are especially problematic in completing their assignments.

“I would say my biggest distraction is Facebook, because once I get onto my laptop I just subconsciously check my Facebook and I also watch TV as I work, the second semester hasn’t changed too much for me since I still do my work, it just might be a little late,” senior Katie Bui said.

Because many seniors marked the end of the semester on Jan. 28 in their agendas on the first day of school, there were some who were were not particularly fond of Principal John Ponton’s decision to extend the second quarter two extra days due to inclement weather cancelling the final three days of the quarter.

“I understand why it is necessary, but at the same time I was really looking forward to being a second semester senior so I was a little afraid my teachers would use it to assign more work for the quarter when I thought I was finished,” Loman said.

However, others saw it as an opportunity to turn in late assignments that they hadn’t gotten the chance to complete and turn in due to the missed days.

“I had some geography articles that I needed to turn in, so I was initially a little worried that I wouldn’t get the chance to do that,” Singer said.

For many students, the drag of doing tedious homework assignments is far more painful than studying for tests and quizzes at this point in their high school careers.

“Homework assignments are not weighted as heavily as tests and quizzes, so it’s difficult to fight off the feeling that it’s simply busy work that is not worth the time,” said Singer.

Singer says that being accepted to the College of William and Mary at the beginning of December was actually helpful because she feels like the effects have already worn off.

“The impact of getting in early decision has actually come full circle for me–– in the weeks following the acceptance, I did slack off a little, but once the novelty of the feeling of being accepted wore off, I found myself studying and working at about the same level that I used to.”

Whether suffering from senioritis or not, all graduating seniors are looking forward to June 16, the Class of 2011’s graduation day at Constitution Hall. Countdowns for the big day are everywhere, from whiteboards in their classrooms to tallies in their agendas.

“The moment I begin to think about things like graduation and the school year being done, I lose all focus on assignments,” Seeto said.