OH is already halfway through its 2025-2026 school year, and students are looking forward to ending the year strong. Seniors are especially looking forward to graduating and moving on to the next chapter of their lives
“ graduate in May this year,” said OH senior Victor Sanchez, “I’m pretty excited to move on.”
As good as these celebrations sound, there are some final hurdles seniors have to overcome to receive their piece of paper and a handshake. Much to a senior’s surprise, there are some graduation requirements that are not course-based.
OH counselor David Mattes said, “ of the graduation requirements students need to complete a FAFSA form. You can either complete the FAFSA or you can opt out.”
42Fifty asked the College and Career Readiness Center director, Tracyanne Kroger, for more details regarding the senior-level FAFSA form that must be filled out.
“It’s an acronym for financial aid from the government”, said Kroger, “and there are different workshops; there is a FAFSA workshop every single Thursday,… next week is the scholarship , and the week after that is college search and deciding on a major. scholarships are all in schools…”
“And they need to complete a senior survey,” adds Mattes,” or a college and career readiness survey. Sometimes we pool those together,” Mattes said.
These smaller requirements, like the Federal Application for Student Aid, often slip from the minds of most graduating seniors.
“I have not filled out my FAFSA or senior survey yet,” mentions Victor Ramos, “I don’t know what that is.”
Now is clearly the time to double-check with your counselor and ask questions about what these senior-level forms and requirements mean for you.
There are also other important reminders that the graduating year of 2026 must pay attention to. Those with their hearts set on pursuing post-secondary education must give all their effort into boosting their grades as high as they can. A common high school misconception is that your senior year’s grades do not count as part of your GPA. Ms Kroger explains the contrary:
“Typically, you start applying in August September, so we don’t have your grade, so the GPA colleges see junior year, because right now you don’t have grades yet for a senior year.”
Most students who are applying to colleges like to begin writing their college applications halfway through their senior year, which is now. Thus, many wrongly believe that their senior grades won’t count in their GPAs when they apply.
“When you start to apply,” said Kroger, “once you apply, you’ll apply later, and you’ll get your senior year transcript. And that second semester, you’ll get that in January. Then you have to resubmit it to the college. Or in May after you graduate, when you get those, or June when you get your final transcripts, they do count towards your GPA.”
Ms. Kroger also explains some options for those choosing a different type of post-secondary education, including trade school to enter the workforce.
“There are different deadlines there’s Early Action, and there’s rolling admission, so …so … where you want to go… determines when you should start applying.”
The end-of-year experience will be different for every student, but Kroger ends with advice that all should take.
“I would start exploring things, such as job searching, doing research on colleges, and that will help tell you when apply.”
Hello! My name is Tristan Acosta and I'm a junior at Oswego High School, this is my first year of being on the 42Fifty staff. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
