From workloads to social lives to teachers, there are many factors that contribute to the overall rating of a school year. You might hear a lot of things about each of the years of high school. It’s common knowledge that junior year is the busiest and senior year is the year to skip classes, owe hours, and have senioritis. The question is, which grade is the best? 

While not all might agree with my opinion, I, being at the end of my senior year of high school, have come to the conclusion that there are obvious winners and losers. However, because the four years of high school are very hard to compare because of all the various factors, I’m going to make two ratings—one for school life and workload and one for social life. 

Let’s start at the beginning—freshman year. New school, new teachers, new environment. While some might have had their friends from middle school, I didn’t. I moved during COVID, so I walked into freshman year practically by myself. Even though this situation doesn’t apply to everyone, there were still many new changes, making it more of a hesitant, confusing year for everyone. However, there was still a positive aspect to this. Coming into freshman year was a fresh start. I, along with everyone else, had opportunities to make new friends, commit to new goals, and try out new classes. Despite this, my experience in freshman year wasn’t the best.

Sophomore year was a little more enjoyable than freshman year. While the workload was about the same, I was more adjusted to it after a year of high school. I started forming some really great friendships and started getting more comfortable and familiar with the teachers. However, sophomore year was the most forgotten year for me. It just wasn’t an eventful year. Freshman year is the first year in high school, junior year is the year of tests, studying, and stress, and senior year is the final year filled with fun memories and college preparations, but sophomore year doesn’t have anything noteworthy. It wasn’t a bad year at all, but it wasn’t important or interesting. 

Junior year, as everyone knows, is a lot. Lots of tests, lots of classes, lots of studying, lots of homework, and not a lot of free time. I didn’t even take as many difficult classes as my peers, and I still struggled with managing my time. I took two ACC classes each semester, two AP classes and then balanced a job on top of that. Some of the work was difficult, and some of it was easy, but difficulty level aside, there was just a lot of work. Despite all of this, I enjoyed my junior year. Even though there was a lot of work, I learned a lot and felt like a better student by the end of the year. I got to know my teachers better and learned to enjoy lectures and make the most of the boring ones. It finally felt like what I was doing and learning actually mattered, and the end of high school started feeling close. I loved my junior year, despite my busy schedule. 

Senior year. The year of lasts. The year of college applications, skipping class, owing hours, and looking forward to the future. I took a lot of easy classes, so I haven’t been stressed with work or tests. I had one off period in the first semester and two in the second semester, so I had super short days and much more free time to hang out with friends or to do anything else I wanted. I’ve made a lot of fun memories at events like homecoming and prom, and there are still more to be made at graduation. However, while most things about senior year were amazing, there were a few negatives about it. First of all, my older brother and all of my older friends left, and I missed them a lot, as I’m sure many can relate to. Even though I still had a lot of really close friends, it felt different without them here. Another reason is senioritis. Some say it’s fake, but the fact that the word is in the dictionary should be enough proof of its existence. I thought I had senioritis junior year, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of wanting to just be done with everything. Senioritis made even the easiest assignments feel like a mountain to climb over. Even this article was a struggle to write. Everything seemed pointless, especially after getting accepted into college, and I’m sure all seniors can relate. So while senior year had a lot of fun things and went by fast, the individual school days seemed to drag on, and I was only focused on the future rather than the present. 

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: my official grading of the grades in high school. Fourth place goes to freshman year without a doubt. While it was good to have a fresh start, it was a huge adjustment from both middle school and COVID. Third place goes to sophomore year—it was just not memorable. That leaves us with junior and senior year. Both were good overall, and both had some negatives. However, the struggles of senioritis are enough to just barely pull senior year behind, leaving junior year in first. While this might be controversial because of the huge workload, I believe that junior year was the best year in high school because of the social life, motivation, and the amount of things I learned.