Farewell to Finals: Will They Be Missed?

By Paloma Rudnicki '27

This year, Cate School made the historic decision to change the end-of-year schedule entirely. The legendary Finals Week that Cate Students have come to both love and dread has now been replaced with the somewhat anticlimactic Math Final on Friday, May 28. Students have been left in the lurch by the novel decision and are unsure of the reasoning behind the change.

The most recent Finals Week structure featured a Monday off classes for review, and then four days of finals: one day for Modern Languages, one for Math, one for Sciences, and one for English/History. Each exam was allotted 2 hours, and the rest of the day was largely free to be spent studying, socializing, or moving out, time spent and decided by the student. This schedule had been tweaked over the years, so this was actually a much lighter Finals Week than Cate originally had. Ms. Salcedo recalled an earlier version in which every single class had a final, so three different exams would be scheduled each day. That meant most students took two finals in a day.

By contrast, the new end-of-year schedule, while also having a free Monday, has three full-length classes a day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, followed by a 2-hour Math Final on Friday morning. The time commitment will be from 8:30 am to 1:10 pm, including blocks for assembly and lunch. However, these classes will be dedicated to preparing students to finish their final projects or take their final exam, rather than serving as instructional time. That also means there is no dedicated “review week” this year; the last week of classes is solely to have work time.

Ms. Salcedo discussed why the administration was pursuing this new end-of-year schedule now, rather than in the past. She explained that the school has been looking to make a change since the latter half of the 2010s, far before COVID and AI were fears in people’s minds. The primary thing they thought about was the question: “How do we want to end the school year?” 

Ms. Salcedo mentioned the growing trend among schools and colleges to abandon final exams in favor of more specialized final projects and papers. She said, “It became clear that exams—sit-down, pencil and paper, timed assessments—aren't actually the best way in some departments to assess what we want students to know.” One department in particular is modern languages, which she said has always “wanted to do some kind of oral assessment” to gauge students’ learning in a more practical and real-world way. 

Some students, however, feel that taking finals prepares them to take tests like the SAT or ACT. Also, despite the growing trend, most colleges still have a form of final exam in many classes. As Oliver Zheng ‘27 put it, “Sometimes college classes are also nothing but no-homework lectures, maybe reading journals, and then a final. And if you don't learn how to deal with a big test like that, that's going to be a bit of a problem.”

Despite the school’s reasoning that these finals will allow students to better show what they know, many feel that the changes will add stress and confusion. Many students mentioned that Finals Week isn’t the most stressful time of year for them; instead, end-of-trimester final projects tend to add more to their workload. Maggie Dean ‘28 told me that for her, she had plenty of time to “go do whatever during the afternoon” and that it “was a really good time for me socially last year, and I feel like I'm kind of being deprived of that experience again this year.” A lot of end-of-year bonding happens after exams end at 10:30, and that bonding will feel more constrained with classes from 8:30 to 1:10 on those three days. 

As for other times in the year, Oliver mentioned that “before Spring Break…[the workload is] pretty bad.” These large projects can drag on and require many hours outside of class time, which can drain students mentally and physically, something Ms. Salcedo noted as one reason Finals Week has been so successful until now. However, she refutes the idea that these extra classes and projects will add stress, as they are “well-scaffolded” by giving work periods during class time and check-ins with teachers.

Ms. Salcedo added that those on the committee who helped create the new end-of-year schedule looked at “sample schedules” for each grade to ensure that these final projects and tests wouldn’t be too overwhelming, balancing different deadlines with free blocks. She said, “We are really working to anticipate that, in support of kids' balance and time management.”

An additional factor of stress for students, many classes are still offering final tests, just not in a final exam format. For example, junior biology has to take two tests (the same length as one final exam) over two different class periods. As Ellie Walmsley ‘27 pointed out, “It still has the feel of a final, even though it is spread out.” This adds more stress to some students, as the testing time is now more than it was originally and isn’t a “one and done” like finals are. Maggie agreed with this sentiment, noting that her Spanish class now has both an oral assessment (the final exam replacement) and a cumulative final test over all of the grammar concepts from the year. 

The decision to change the schedule didn’t happen overnight. It took years of meticulous thought and planning, as well as small changes to finals with each new Cate class. However, this restructuring of Finals Week will impact students, with ramifications that the school won’t be able to accurately predict for a few years. The faculty leading the move are excited to see what a change could offer the school, but students remain apprehensive. Only time will tell if the change was worth it.