When most high school seniors think about their hardest year in high school, they most likely are going to think about their junior year.

   Junior year is often the first year where students start to take more than one AP class and try to juggle all of their courses. Because they have not taken many advanced classes before, they are trying to adjust their new schedule to make time for each class.

   Junior year is also the year that counts. Colleges look mainly towards these two semesters to see if a student is academically eligible for their school. The pressure is nerve wrecking.

   Also, the third high school year is when most students take the ACTs and SATs on top of all of the studying for the AP tests. “Juniors start taking AP classes and are preparing for their ACTs and SATs so they can get into good colleges,” said Senior Alison Ruddy. Students are constantly reminded that higher education determines where they will end up in life, and the idea of ruining that scares many.

   Most high school graduates say that the third year is the most difficult. Amanda Karunaratne said, “Junior year is the hardest in my opinion because that is when we get more than one AP class, and you have to study a lot for the AP exam.”

   Freshman year is possibly the next where high schoolers struggle the most. This is the year when students are settling into a new environment. On top of that, some Freshmen are taking junior-level year classes, namely Algebra 2/Trigonometry Honors.