I have spent the past three years dreaming of the freedom, the glamour, and the javas associated with the fourth year of high school. However, over the past eight months, I have come to discover that senior year is a SHAM. Here is an informal list of my main disappointments relevant to this year:

1. The Pressure to go to Prom

There are always those friends that were asked to prom by their steady boyfriend of six and a half years. That boyfriend, of course, hired a mariachi band and several dozen can-can dancers to spell out “Prom? <3” using hundreds of Labrador puppies all stacked on top of each other.  Those are the kind of friends that tell you, “Oh, come on! You have to go to prom! You’ll be happy you went thirty years from now.”

Well, hopefully 30 years from now I’ll be too busy pumping gallons of Botox into my face and dating a barely legal Guatemalan pool boy named “Márcó,” to think back about the good-ol’ days when I drowned my loneliness in a chocolate fountain while listening to the remix of the Skrillex version of the mashup of Lil’ John’s “Turned Down for What” and Idina Menzel’s “Let it Go” (“Let it Down for What” feat. Kanye West’s second cousin twice removed.)

Hopefully, I’ll be too busy buying overpriced sweatpants with suggestive words usually used to describe summer fruits printed on the back to reminisce about the night that I spent $54  to watch some girl in four-inch heels hunched over as she consumes the face of her oompa-loompa of a prom date.

2. Underclassmen are not Afraid of Me

Unfortunately, high school is not like prison. Or at least, this high school is not like prison. The oldest do not necessarily have the most street cred or evoke fear in the newbies. I thought that once I was a senior, everyone who was too young to get their permit would feel an obligation to laugh at all of my bad jokes. Well, that was clearly wishful thinking because I have not heard even the slightest chuckle out of an underclassman at even my top tier comedy material. Perhaps it’s my soft and warm face that just melts any fear or apprehension away, sort of like Mother Teresa except hotter.

3. Choosing a College is Hard

My newsfeed has been abuzz with statuses like “Just committed to [wildly prestigious university]! So excited to be a [ridiculous school mascot]!” Personally, I am quite frustrated by the constant reminders of college decisions. I dare you to ask me one more time what college I’m going to, Grandma Esther, one more time…

4. Being Broke

Parents are so fed up with wasting hundreds of dollars on application fees for those “reach” schools that their seniors didn’t even come close to getting into, in addition to that measly $241,080 estimated cost of raising a child that often times, parents cut off their “almost adults.” This really leaves the degree-less high school senior with two options:

1: Get a minimum wage job that is not only degrading, but barely pays enough to feed the bottomless pits that are their gas tanks and stomachs.

2: Mooch off of friends and promise them, “I swear I’ll pay you back when I get a job. I heard Berry Happy is hiring.”

5. “Senioritis”

I hate the term “senioritis.” Let’s be real. I have been lazy my entire high school career. The only difference between now and my freshman year is that 1) I can drive, 2) It’s almost respected by my fellow peers as a sign of growing out of high school, and 3) It’s exacerbated by the fact that I barely need to pass my classes to graduate and go to the college of my choice. I feel as if all seniors that are not attending an Ivy League school should not have to attend class until 11 a.m.

But, to all of those juniors out there, I don’t want to scare you. Senior year isn’t all bad. Senior javas are pretty cool.