Palo Alto High School upperclassmen taking the June 1 SAT test will have a slightly less strenuous last few weeks of school now that Paly finals will end the last week of May. For the first time, this year the SAT is offered after school ends, allowing for students to focus on school before worrying about standardized testing.

Some students, including junior Aditya Mahadaven, reacted positively to the change.

“I think the change is beneficial,” Mahadaven said. “ We have a day in between finals and the SAT, so I don’t have many complaints. It’s a bonus.”

“Because most of my classes have had finals earlier than finals week, I’ll pretty much be done with school by the time June 1 rolls around,” junior Lande Watson said. “Besides, the SAT is not something that you can cram for anyways, so it’s not like the week before will be full of finals and SAT studying.”

Junior Ziv Shwartz found the schedule change to have little impact on the overall stress level of the coming weeks.

“The whole schedule is hell for juniors in the sense that everything important lies in the span of a month and there is no time to breathe,” junior Ziv Schwartz said. “It basically conveys a sense of never-ending studying.”