GHS Students Reflect on Midterm Policies and Stress

By Alexa Loera, Greenwich High School, class of 2026

It wasn’t until Tuesday, January 21 that students at Greenwich High School were finally be able to breathe after about a month.

Why so much stress?

The answer’s simple: midterms.

GHS always has its midterms during January, after holiday break, which begins in December. For many, the break isn’t an opportunity to truly relax and unwind from school, as the looming presence of midterms resides in the back of their minds.

Students return to school during the beginning days of January, typically having about one week of regular school before midterm season begins. Just four short days, but enough that thousands of teenagers begin to worry even a month prior.

The 2024-2025 school year marked an important change in midterm policies at GHS. To elaborate, the school has always held a special eight-block review day immediately before midterms, during which many students take the time to ask last-minute questions or study for their first exam the next day. Historically speaking, if this review day was canceled because of a snow day – as it was last year – midterm exam days would not be pushed back, and students would be left without a review day. This policy was changed this year, with administration stating that in the event of a snow day the review day and the midterms would be pushed back, allowing students to still have the eight-block schedule before exams started.

This is only one of many changes that GHS has made regarding midterms since the pandemic. For a few years, midterms were counted for less of a student’s overall grade, but the traditional policy returned last year.

Additionally, GHS created another eight-block day after midterms last year, so that students had an opportunity to go over their exams before the semester ended. Not to mention the new snow day policy. The question is, are these changes enough? Or should GHS make even more changes?

“
If there was something I would change about midterms it would be the weeks leading up to midterms,” said freshman Pilar Ortuño. “After break, we had about two weeks until midterms started. I think it could be beneficial to students if teachers refrained from giving homework during at least the week leading up to the midterm so students have time to study. The review day is not something I really see as something helpful; the review day before midterms could be helpful, but having a day after exams have ended doesn’t seem very helpful since midterms have already ended. The school could pay attention to more important things, such as review before exams.”

Additionally, Pilar stated, “
The worst part about midterms was having to balance studying and other work; balancing study and school work was challenging. Teachers could still give exams, projects, and homework fairly close to midterms and that added to the stress…Personally, I think the deadline for projects and exams was too near to the actual midterms. Given that the cutoff was a few school days before the exams, I didn’t have as much time as I would’ve liked to study because I was focused on other school work.” This opinion was shared by the majority of students.

Jasmine Cohen, a junior, said, “This year we were given around 3 or 4 days to adequately prepare. Most teachers ignored that, not only for me but for others as well. This made it incredibly difficult not only to prepare enough to be confident, but led to significant levels of stress. For this I would rather have a full week and a half or two to adequately prepare. This would make things so much more enjoyable and less stressful.”

Sophomore Leah DeMarco said there simply wasn’t enough time to prepare for midterms. “So many teachers are teaching new material up until the very end and giving tests. The deadline for giving tests has to be way earlier so we can actually study for midterms,” Leah added,  explaining that she only had two days of review in some of her classes.

On the other hand, senior Shreya Prabhu said she believes that there is enough time for students to prepare for exams.

“I think we probably have enough time to prepare for midterms, but it really feels like one week because we don’t do much in classes to prepare.”

Instead, Shreya believes that GHS should focus on changing their two-exams-a-day policy, stating, “It is a long time to remain focused, and it’s sometimes difficult to perform well because of that.”

Regarding this, junior Sharon Ye said, “I think having two midterms each day is pretty manageable, but I think the worst part is that there’s a chance of having two of your hardest midterms on the same day.”

But the school can’t get rid of this policy entirely, as it would mean that midterms would take too much time. Instead, Leah DeMarco suggested, “I think we need a few hours between midterms so we can rest, eat, and maybe take a nap or something…we need more time between exams on the same day.”

So, what exactly should GHS do to address these concerns?

It’s admittedly hard to implement sweeping midterm policies, especially as students in different grades have vastly different experiences.

Freshmen are adjusting to taking so many heavily-weighted exams in the span of just a few days for the first time; while sophomores are adjusting to taking midterms for college-level midterms if they are taking AP exams.

Meanwhile upperclassmen, especially juniors, are perhaps the most concerned about scoring well on the exams, as college applications – another significant source of stress that worsens midterm-related anxiety – loom nearer with each passing day.

GHS could return to its recent policy that emerged after the pandemic, and which was removed last year. With this policy, there was no “set” weighting for midterms.

Currently, midterms count for 10% of a student’s final grade for a year-long class, 20% for a semester-long class. With the old policy, midterms’ weighting were determined by the student’s grade. If the student’s midterm grade was equivalent (or higher) than the grade that they had in the class, it counted for 10% or 20% of the final grade, depending on the classes’ length.

However, if the grade was lower, it would only count for 5% in a year-long class and 10% in a semester-long class. This lesser weighting significantly reduced student anxiety, and it may be a solution for upcoming years.

Jasmine Cohen agreed with this idea.

“Some or most students like me feel that a big test of this weighting does not represent their academic abilities at all,” Jasmine said. “For me, big tests only lead to higher levels of stress and this stress only leads to performance that isn’t usual for me. If we could have them weighted less I would not only feel more comfortable taking the test but would probably get bigger scores due to the less stressful nature of them which would help me think in the best way possible.”

However, not everyone agrees with this.

“I believe that greater weighting could be a good thing,” said Pilar Ortuño. “For students, it might not seem like something good, but midterms are a strong indicator of success in a course.”

Regardless, it seems that GHS is considering a possible change regarding exam weighting. Although no official proposal has been made, Greenwich Public Schools Superintendent Toni Jones and the Board of Education have discussed the possibility of changing exam weighing in response to concern regarding students’ mental health.

In the end, midterms are, and likely always will be, a complex topic that elicits strong emotions. It’s a difficult situation to navigate, as shown by the constant changing of policies that GHS has made in the last few years. Students and staff might disagree on what needs to be changed, but it seems that one thing can be universally agreed upon, at least on behalf of the students: there is never enough time to prepare for exams.

So the question is, will GHS focus on this in the coming years, or will it continue to make new midterm policies that many students find unnecessary, and perhaps even more harmful than beneficial?