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During her junior final exams, senior Kate Pedrotti studied hard for her tests during the weekend break. As the semester comes to a close, a new finals schedule has emerged, causing all eight finals to be spread across four consecutive days.
“I don’t like that it isn’t separated by a weekend because I was able to use the weekend to study more for my later finals,” Pedrotti said. “It just feels more stressful.”
According to sophomore Annie McGuire, she is stressed about the change because she feels like she has less time to study for each exam. She also says that having a weekend break helped her study methods.
“I really liked having a break between the finals because then I only have to study for my first four during the week and the second four on the weekend,” McGuire said. “Now I have to study for all eight in one weekend, and it’s going to be a lot more stressful.”
Dean of Students Alex Keith said that finals were pushed back due to the late start of the school year from the gym renovations. The Archdiocese in the state of Kansas requires a certain amount of instructional hours before finals per semester. According to Keith, the finals week schedule just happened to play out with them all on the same week.
“I think any time you have any sort of change, it will affect the students,” Keith said. “I also think that this is a unique scenario because of the timing of our semester,”
Senior Ellie Gudex said she didn’t like the weekend break last year, and she doesn’t think the schedule change will affect her scores or final grade. Gudex also felt like last year she was at a disadvantage compared to other people who got to study longer.
“I feel like it’s more fair,” Gudex said. “I feel like if I have to take a hard exam on a Friday, but everyone else gets to take it on a Monday, it’s unfair – even the other way around.”
According to freshman Josie O’Brien, she is feeling nervous about finals, especially knowing they are all in one week because she feels like she has less time to study for each of them. Because she is a freshman, she has never taken a final before, so she won’t be able to change her study techniques based on how prepared she feels for the finals.
“I’m a freshman, and I don’t know what to expect or how finals work,” O’Brien said. “I’m just not sure what to study.”
Pedrotti believes the schedule change won’t affect her scores, but it will affect how long and dedicated she has to study. She also thinks having the weekend allows her sleep schedule to not get messed up.
“I definitely think it will affect my sleep,” Pedrotti said. “I think I will be up a lot later and get less sleep overall during finals week.”
Sophomore Adam Marsh takes four honors classes, including Honors English, Honors Algebra II, Honors Chemistry, Honors Principles of Engineering and AP Modern World History. With this difficulty and such little time, Marsh plans on a busy weekend leading up to finals.
“The new schedule is definitely gonna be an adjustment because the break between A and B day finals was a great way to study effectively,” Marsh said. “I think that without the break, studying will be more difficult and overbearing, so I’m not a big fan of the change.”
Students like sophomore Lucy Watson stress due to less study time and less sleep. She said she was worried about how it may affect her grade.
“I care about my grades, and finals are really scary because they are worth a lot of my grade, and if I don’t do well then my grade might drop and I don’t want that to happen,” Watson said.
In 2022, the finals week schedule was extended from three days to four. Keith and Pedrotti agreed that overall, the new schedule is better than the previous three-day final schedule.
“I think that it’s better than our old schedule of going three finals in one day, two days in a row, and then a third day of finals,” Keith said. “I do think that this is the best of the solutions.”
Pedrotti gave advice to the underclassmen for studying and said that they should study as early as they can to do well.
“Start studying more days in advance instead of just the night before because there is a lot of information you need to remember from the whole semester,” Pedrotti said.
