Before Walpole High School seniors leave in May, they have to make sure that their final grades for the second semester in each class are above an 80. Anything below an 80 for a class, even a dreaded 79, means they are required to take the final exam for that class. This can be a real drag for a senior that is ready to get out of high school for good. All the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have to stay in school for over a month and a half more, while the seniors are out joy-riding and enjoying an early release from school. Seniors shouldn’t be the only students who are exempt from finals.

The underclassmen are not only jealous that the seniors get out extra early from school, but they are also envious that the seniors have the privilege of not taking finals if their semester average is an 80 or above, mostly because they are unable to take part in this exemption. Students did not have to take an English midterm, but they did have to prepare for a big essay, vocabulary, grammar, or reading exam instead. Other classes such as art courses, technology courses, and some music courses did not have any midterms either. More and more schools across America are either doing away with midyear exams or making them optional.

The same thing is happening with finals. Although, each school is different and has its own rules on when they are, who has to take them, and what grade you have to get to pass, at Walpole High, all underclassmen must take a final exam for every class.

But why should only seniors be able to enjoy this privilege? It doesn’t seem fair to all the underclassmen, whose grades are an 80 or above. Seniors take classes all year round– just like freshman, sophomores, and juniors. The last four days of school are merely for the purpose of students taking finals. Those last four days are significant of what each student has learned all year, or at least half of it. If this is true, why are seniors even in school?

The second half of the year for seniors is a complete joke. All they have to do is get above an 80 in every class, and they do not have to take a single final. If they do have to take some finals, they take them the last few days of their time in school, which is in May; they do not have to come back in during the middle of June to take a couple of finals.

Walpole High should decide either to make everyone, including seniors, take finals or allow seniors, along with underclassmen, to not take finals if their final semester average is an 80 or above for each class. Some students at Walpole High think that just juniors and seniors should have this option, but this would be unfair to the freshmen and sophomores.