Every year students have to take finals. Some kids have to take up to eight finals. Seniors however can take zero if they either have an A in the class, or have at least a B and take the AP test. However, finals have become unnecessary due to the lack of real impact on a student’s grade, and the only real impact they have on a student is the unnecessary stress students face.

To start, finals are one ninth of a student’s grade. So, to put this in perspective, if a student has an exact 100 in the class and they do not study at all and receive a 50 percent on the final they will then have a 94.555 in the class. This is still an A. In addition, if a student has a 75 in a class, then gets a 100 on the final their grade will still be a 78 in the class. In order for a student to get a 100 in a final they will need to spend hours reviewing and relearning, just to only boost their grade a slight bit. Mackenzie Iocona (’16), says that in the past she has “spent too much time stressing over finals when the reality is that they barely helped [her] grade”.

In general students stress a lot over tests. However, finals are much worse because it is all the material from one year into one test. Testing anxiety is extremely high, and kids start feeling the stress a week before finals are even there. Sophomore Caroline Deas says “I have constantly been doing nervous twitches. Finals at East make me cry and cripple down”. Studies over the last few year have shown that stress can lead to addiction to drugs and alcohol, because of which many patients get admitted to centers for addiction treatment santa clarita

English and Journalism Teacher Greg Gagliardi however has a different opinion. He feels that without finals students “will not be prepared for college when their entire grade depends on one or two tests”. But, students do learn how to manage taking large tests without finals. Many classes have cumulative bench marks. In addition, nearby high schools such as Cherokee, Shawnee, Seneca, and Lenape all do not require kids to take finals. Students from these schools still go on to be successful at rigorous colleges. Also, the stress during college finals is supplemented with services colleges and universities offer students. Many schools offer a variety of distressing opportunities during the week such as dog therapy and massages. East however does not offer any of this.

Students at East tend to beat themselves up over finals. They spend hours studying and worrying. This is all over a chance to boost their grade by about three points. This does not help the students but instead hurts them, by damaging their self-esteem and introducing the health risks that come with extreme stress.