Junior year. The mere sound of those words cause college freshmen to have nightmares. The year that sucks you dry and consumes you. The year where you have no free time. The year where going to sleep before midnight is considered an accomplishment worth celebrating. This year is going to be fun.

Junior year is traditionally the hardest year of high school due to students wanting to cram in difficult classes before senior year. Students also try to participate in as many extra-curricular activities as possible to build up a college resumé. Speaking of college, this is when colleges start to seriously begin looking at prospective students. This adds to the pressure as you feel like you have to do everything perfectly in order to build a flawless application.

The classes are especially brutal. Juniors have the opportunity to take almost any Advanced Placement class and many seize this opportunity. I am taking 6 different AP classes this year and there are others even more unbelievable than I am. The big two AP classes that many juniors take are: AP calculus and APPS, which is combined AP Government and AP Comparative Politics. These two classes are highly sought after by students as the AP credits they offer are invaluable. All of these AP classes mean that there is a tremendous amount of homework to do. When you combine all that homework with sports and after school activities, you have a recipe for almost no free time. Anthony Rosa is a junior juggling punishing AP courses, tennis and extra-curricular activities.

“I probably get 5-6 hours of sleep per night,” he says. “Sometimes you just have to stay up super late doing homework.” This schedule takes a toll on a person and makes it difficult to operate at full capacity.

This year is going to be rough and challenging in the extreme. There will be sleepless nights and times where all I will want to do is just cry. Stress levels will reach new highs and cramming will reach new levels. The hardest year of your school life so far has just begun. Are you ready?