This semester, final exams at New Trier High School will look a bit different. Rather than grouping exams together by subject, they will be scheduled by class period. The change aims to build in more time between exams and allow students to test with their teachers, but it will likely cause more trouble than it is worth. 

This is not the first time New Trier has tried to mess with final exams. Recently, they attempted to rebrand finals as ‘End of Semester Experiences’—and I say attempted because no one has ever used this wording unironically. It was a truly uninspiring effort at making exams seem less stressful. Several years back, New Trier made a much larger change by shifting first semester finals to before winter break. I never experienced finals after break, but from what I have heard, it was challenging for students and teachers to make this adjustment. Everyone has their own ways of preparing for finals, but that big of a shift can throw people off and increase end of semester anxiety. 

Exams will never be a pleasant “experience.” We all need to accept this fact and stop trying to sugarcoat everything associated with finals. This would certainly be for the best, as making changes causes unwanted and unnecessary stress. 

Final exams grouped by class period sound hectic to plan. Every student at New Trier has a different schedule with unique combinations of classes and subjects. Personally, without the lack of finals in some of my classes following Advanced Placement tests in May, I would have had my most difficult and stressful exams back to back. During my time at New Trier, I have found that my Blue and Green days have been very unbalanced, with my hardest classes always grouped on the same day. This new system for final exams would certainly not make my experience any less stressful, and I know I am not the only one who would have this problem. With the sheer number of students at New Trier, it is hard to envision the administration taking into consideration the oddities of each student’s schedule.

Students are told that if they have three exams on the same day, they can reschedule one of them. That is one more thing for those students to worry about. I say we should stick to the system where this problem doesn’t come up. 

Thinking about the teachers’ perspectives, this new schedule won’t be doing them any favors either. Rather than having all of their classes show up together and take the exam simultaneously, teachers will have to proctor finals day after day. I don’t know what the final exam experience is like for teachers, but attending the maximum number of tests does not seem pleasant. Furthermore, there is a higher chance of cheating and sharing answers if some classes take the exam earlier. 

Students are used to the normal way of scheduling finals, and it works. It would be beneficial if students only had to worry about the content of their exams and nothing more—that is how New Trier can actually limit the amount of stress associated with the end of the semester. No amount of changes to final exams will ever make them enjoyable.