While being a senior is full of events that can make the final year of high school memorable, there are a variety of costs that come with it. From senior pictures to prom, there are many costs that students have to pay in order to have a “fun” senior year.

The expenses start to add up in the summer before your senior school year when many students start to have senior pictures taken. Senior pictures are important because these pictures are used to put on graduation invites, open house invites and one of them goes in the yearbook. While technology and cameras on phones have made it possible to take high quality pictures, most people still opt for paying $500 or more for professionally taken photos.

Another expense comes from all the dances, especially prom. Formal is in the fall, and then Spinsters and prom are so close together that it makes more sense to borrow a dress for either dance. Many girls like to save a buck by wearing one of their friend’s previous Spinsters dresses so they can buy a more expensive prom dress. Every girl wants the perfect prom dress, and for some, that can be up to $700. Add that to shoes, jewelry and dinner, and you can easily be spending $1,000 for one dance.

As if that isn’t enough, seniors get to pay for AP tests (which happen to be $93 a piece), yearbooks for around $60 and senior class party for $60. While some sophomores and juniors also take AP tests, a vast majority of seniors are taking more of these classes than the underclassmen. The same goes for yearbooks; I know that some underclassmen buy yearbooks, but to me it sees more important for a senior because then you have something to remember all of your classmates by before you graduate.

The final big cost of senior year is having an open house and attending open houses. Yes, people give you money at your open house, but it costs money to rent tables, chairs and to cater food to your event. So basically, while you are happy because you are making a couple bucks, your parents have to dish out a lot of money just for you to even have an open house.

Overall, senior year is a great experience, but there are way too many expenses that you almost have to pick and choose which events you can miss out on and which you really want to attend. In the end, it is only a scrawny few thousand dollars in comparison to the costs seniors will incur when paying for college.