Senior Pranks

When you envision senior year, do you imagine the jokes and pranks you might pull off to commemorate four long years of hard work? How about one humongous, impressionable senior prank with the rest of the graduating class? Planning a memorable, history-book worthy prank within legal limits is tough, especially when most of the ideas that cross your head have already been executed. Creativity requires a spark of inspiration, so here’s a list of interesting pranks and some crazy stories to help you get started. 

Unleash the Animals!

If the school has farm animals, the first thing that crosses the mind might be to unleash the farm animals. May River High School seniors from South Carolina did exactly that on May 14th this year, except the pigs were supplied from off-school locations. Several students carried in two pigs and let them loose in the building. The students also proceeded to spread various ingredients throughout the floors and overturned furniture, causing extensive cleanup measures to restore order to the school. The pigs managed to damage printers and other expensive equipment, totaling possibly around $100,000 worth of damaged property. The seniors went overboard with their idea, and police are discussing punishments consisting of school discipline, criminal prosecution, and fines for the vandalism.

Imagine if they brought in three pigs and numbered them 1, 2, and 4! It would get a kick out of the prankters, watching the authorities desperately searching for the missing, nonexistent pig labeled “4.” But if those two pigs were capable of causing thousands in damage to May River High School’s assets, how much more ruckus could double the pigs bring to the table? Maybe it might not be such a great idea after all…

Campout at the Principal’s Residence

A common senior prank theme on TikTok is visiting the home of the head of school. In 2023, St. Andrew’s seniors staged a sleepover on the first floor of the Dean’s on-campus house. Seventy seniors snuck into the house around 1:00 am with pillows, blankets, and a whole breakfast set-up of donuts and coffee in the kitchen. They left a message for the Dean, who walked down that morning to find a senior class pretending to be asleep on the floors. To pull off this all-nighter, the seniors had coordinated with the staff and the Dean’s husband leading up to that day. They earned permission to enter the Dean’s home, unbeknownst to the Dean herself, and organized a gourmet breakfast to celebrate the success of the prank.

Statue on Rooftop Shenanigans

Is it possible to move a huge, heavy statue up onto the rooftops of a school building? Yes. The question of how students manage to pull it off is an entirely different story. The problem with this senior prank is that the movement of any property constitutes vandalism. In that vein, it flirts with the fine line between legal and illegal ventures. In the late 20th century, however, the disappearance of statues from their normal places and the reappearances on school rooftops received less punishment than it would now. In 1977, Wakefield High School seniors “kidnapped” Bob’s Big Boy mascot in the night and placed it atop the flat roof over the entrance of the school building to welcome students to class. Back then, Bob’s Big Boy restaurants, where you could get burgers and shakes, were popular among teenagers, just like Chick-fil-A is today. That year wasn’t the only time the mascot disappeared and reappeared on school grounds, and many other mascots experienced the same phenomenon throughout the 1970s. The likelihood of being able to accomplish this feat is limited due to the stricter security measures imposed in these modern times, so, for now, it is just food for thought.

You Got Rickrolled!

How can we ever forget this bait-and-switch internet prank of the 2000s? Of course, with the short attention spans of today and the constant hunger for new memes, it may have slipped out of people’s minds. The “rickrolling” prank began with a similarly named meme: “duckrolling.” It was a misleading link that would, instead of bringing the user to their requested site, display an image of a duck with wheels. A United States Air Force airman, Shawn Cotter, created the first “rickroll” on 4chan, an imageboard website, when he disguised the link to Rick Astley’s music video “Never Gonna Give You Up” as the trailer for the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. There was no specific reason for the music choice, other than it was released the year of Cotter’s birth, 1987, and that it was funny. At one high school, the senior distributed QR codes with the message to “Click here for our farewell message,” which instead brought them to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” YouTube video. This would be the perfect prank, if it wasn’t for the public awareness on all matters concerning cybersecurity, especially phishing. Nowadays, probably no one will naively click on random links, or get “rickrolled” on the internet.

But, be warned fellow schemers. Before you start scheming, always remember to get approval from your teachers and the relevant authorities. Schools have barred students from walking during graduation, withheld their diplomas, or even involved the police to enforce penalties for pranks. As long as you use your discretion, however, the only limits on your success are your imagination (and–just as a reminder!–the law).