In NVOT’s goal to further sleep deprive its students, the start and end times this year have been moved from 8:00 to 7:55 and 2:36 to 2:41. Now, it may not seem like a big difference, but when it comes to extra time to cling onto your blanket and procrastinate actually getting up, losing five minutes in the morning feels like an eternity. Due to the tragic loss of these five minutes, students are more likely to be late than ever before. To help, we’ve ranked the top ten most common excuses for being late, so you can save yourself from detentions.

10) Alarm didn’t go off/Overslept

Starting at the bottom, we have one of the most common explanations for missing the morning bell: oversleeping. Whether that be because your alarm failed you or you were up late studying for that chemistry test, this excuse has been used in schools for decades. Because so many students utilize this excuse, we’re unsure if it will be helpful in convincing your teachers to let you off the hook. Its lack of effectiveness may require you to use a bit more creativity to come up with an actually believable defense, leaving this excuse dead last.

9)  Didn’t feel good

Although sometimes convincing, you may need a doctor’s note to truly verify this excuse. This excuse is not very creative, but there’s no way a teacher can prove you wrong. What if you woke up spewing out last night’s dinner? They can’t penalize you for that and if they do,  they must not have their morals straight. But acting sick and lying can be a challenge for those non-theater students, thus putting this excuse at number 9.

8) Forgot start time changed

This excuse can be risky to use if you are a freshman, but students who have attended this school for over a year can claim they forgot the new start time. With such a dramatic change and students being sleep deprived, it might just work. Admittedly though, this excuse will become less effective as the year goes on, so it stays at eight.

7) Car line to get into school was too long

Everyone knows how jam packed the line can get sometimes, especially with people trying to cut and speed through the line. Some teachers can look outside their window and see the mile-long line. But most teachers will usually just end up saying, “You should have left earlier then.” Therefore, we are going to leave this excuse at 7 as it won’t work all the time. 

6) Misread schedule/ thought it was different letter day

This one really only works in specific situations, but it can work well. The ideal time for this excuse is after a confusing change in the schedule, or after a long break. Snow days or even Golden Knights periods are the textbook example of this. Sometimes we skip a letter day, other times we don’t. It’s perfect. But since the excuse is hard to make work outside of these situations, we’re leaving it at six.

5) Thought we didn’t have school today (Saturday, holiday etc.)

While a lot of the time we can have days where we’re only one to two minutes late to class, other times we can have days where we’re over ten minutes late. For those extreme situations, this excuse is particularly helpful. Whether you thought it was a holiday, a delayed opening, or just the weekend, pretending you didn’t realize you had school is a completely reasonable excuse for being extra late to class. And feel free to get creative and make up your own stories. For example, maybe you thought you were going on a college visit that day, but it got canceled. With how late you’ll end up being, you’ll have more than enough time to come up with a creative story.

4) Blocked by the train

The train excuse is a classic. No matter where you live in the Valley, students can come into the first period, gasping for air, claiming that the dreaded train had blocked their car. Unless ten other students walk in late saying the train delayed them, the teachers might be a little suspicious. However, the train is a realistic reason for being late nonetheless, making this excuse fourth. 

3) Car ran out of gas

This one is one of the most effective excuses for one simple reason: it makes your teacher feel bad for you. Think about it. Not only did you have to walk however far just to get to school, but now your car needs to be towed– all of which is guaranteed to make your teacher feel for you. However, this excuse will only work if you actually have a car, making it exclusive to the upperclassmen. 

2) Got kidnapped 

Another absolute classic. The more you’re willing to sell this, the more effective it is. You were going to get to class on time, you were even early, but you were kidnapped, and the only reason you even made it to class is because you just barely managed to escape. The more extreme you make this, the better. Say you had to break out of their car and hop fences just to make it to class. We assure you, there is no teacher heartless enough in this school that will mark you late for almost getting kidnapped. 

1) The clock in the room is broken, I’m not late.

Admittedly, for this one to work, you need to be a god at gaslighting, but if you can do it, you can get away with being pretty much as late as you want. The strategy is more than just saying that the clock is wrong, though, you have to commit to it. Try changing the time on your phone and just run with it. Maybe there’s a reason for why the classroom clock is broken, or maybe it’s been broken for years, and they’ve never bothered to fix it. Whatever works.

We hope that these excuses come in handy whenever you need those extra minutes of sleep in the morning, or when you need that Starbucks iced coffee in your bloodstream. Just be sure to not make this a habit, and to be careful for which teachers you use these on.