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"At Seventeen" is a song by American singer songwriter Janis Ian from her seventh studio album Between the Lines. Columbia released it in July 1975 as the album's second single. Ian wrote the lyrics on the basis of a New York Times article and used a samba instrumental, and Brooks Arthur produced the final version. A pop and soft rock ballad, the song is about a social outcast in high school. Critics have regarded "At Seventeen" as a type of anthem. Despite her initial reluctance to perform the single live, Ian promoted it at various appearances and it has been included on compilation and live albums. Critics praised "At Seventeen", which earned Ian the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Grammy nominations for Record and Song of the Year. The single reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and had sold over a million copies as of August 2004. Internationally, "At Seventeen" charted in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It is one of Ian's most commercially successful songs, considered by critics her signature song. "At Seventeen" has been used frequently in television and films, like The Simpsons and Mean Girls; it has also been referenced in literature. Various recording artists and musicians, including Anita Kerr, Jann Arden, and Celine Dion, have covered "At Seventeen". The Hong Kong all female band at17 named themselves after it in 2002.

"At Seventeen" was written by Janis Ian at the age of 23 and produced by Brooks Arthur. In the article the girl was 18, but Ian changed it to 17 to fit with her samba guitar instrumental. At the time, she was living with her mother. The final version contains two combined takes, as the initial ending was deemed too weak compared to its start. Allen Klein listened in during a session and responded positively to the song. Brooks Arthur, Larry Alexander, and Russ Payne were the audio engineers for "At Seventeen". Some commentators connected the song to bossa nova. Mix magazine's Gary Eskow cited Ian's style as the opposite of Antônio Carlos Jobim's because she "explore[d] the belly of the bossa, the flip side of Ipanema". and music scholar James E. Perone associated it more with jazz and a "coffeehouse folksinger" approach. Perone described the song's style as more restrained compared to Ian's contemporaries. "At Seventeen" is a pop particularly with respect to adolescent cruelty and rejection. The lyrics focus on the conflict between cliques as represented by the contrast of "ravaged faces" and "clear skinned smiles". The song opens with the line "I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens". and remembering "The valentines I never knew/the Friday night charades of youth." Some commentators viewed "At Seventeen" as a type of anthem. Crowley equated the awkwardness described in the lyrics to the confusion over one's sexual orientation.

Ian's manager and CBS felt the song was too long, and CBS was uncertain how to market a song with so many lyrics. "At Seventeen" was first released in July 1975. It was made available as a 7 inch single on November 20, 1976, through Columbia; "Stars" and "Applause" were used as B sides on two separate single releases. The album version was four minutes and forty three seconds long, She has subsequently included "At Seventeen" on compilation albums. A remastered version of Between the Lines, including "At Seventeen", has also been made available; on August 4, 2014, Ian released an acoustic version of "At Seventeen" through her label Rude Girl Records.

Ian was initially hesitant to perform the single live, describing it as deeply personal and fearing public ridicule. She later said that the frank lyrics encouraged pathos from the listeners. She also sang it on an episode of The Tonight Show, with guest host Steve Lawrence. Ian and Howard Stern performed a parody of the single to spoof then 38 year old Jerry Seinfeld's relationship with high school senior Shoshana Lonstein at the Miss Howard Stern New Year’s Eve Pageant on December 31, 1993. She performed the song as part of the Women in Music: 1960 1999 concert, aired by MTV in 1999. Ian performed a science fiction version of the song, entitled "Welcome Home (The Nebulous Song)," at a banquet for the 2008 Nebula Awards. The version included references to science fiction authors and publications. The same year, she recorded an acoustic version to include on the app for Wally Lamb's novel I'll Take You There; it included a soundtrack containing eight songs, including "At Seventeen". Some of Ian's performances have been released on live albums.

"At Seventeen" received a positive response from critics. A contributor for The Jewish Chronicle praised it as "a moving and memorable appraisal of teenage loneliness". The Advocate's Gina Vivinetto summed up "At Seventeen" as "the best song about growing up female ever written". Brittany Spanos, writing for The Village Voice, attributed the song's success to Ian's intimate delivery of its subject, likening it to Joni Mitchell's fourth studio album Blue (1971). Jeff and Don Breithaupt wrote that the song was "lifted above the level of generic moping by a sharply detailed lyric". John Lissner described "At Seventeen" as "mellow [and] improve[d] with each hearing", along with the songs “When the Party's Over”, “From Me to You”, and “Bright Lights and Promises”. Ian received the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "At Seventeen" at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards, and the song was nominated for record and song of the year. She performed the song as part of the ceremony. "At Seventeen" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008, According to Mike McPadden of VH1, the single had made Ian a "major mainstream folk rock performer".

"At Seventeen" peaked at number three on the September 13, 1975 on Billboard Hot 100 chart, and remained on it for twenty weeks. It reached number one on the Adult Contemporary Billboard chart for two weeks in August 1975, and stayed on the chart for fifteen weeks. It also peaked at number one on the Cashbox top 100 chart, and number six on its year end pop singles chart. On the Billboard Year End chart, "At Seventeen" ranked number nineteen. It also reached number twenty for pop and number two for easy listening. According to Billboard, the song enjoyed a resurgence in sales after the Grammy Awards in 1976. On RPM's top two hundred songs of 1975, it ranked number seventy one. "At Seventeen" reached number thirty seven on the New Zealand Singles Chart for the week of October 10, 1975. and was included at number eighty on the year end chart. Ian cited the song's commercial success as making her an example of the American dream. The Register Guards Lewis Taylor referred to a 1970s release of "At Seventeen" when Ian was broke, and music critics deemed her music not commercially viable, as the first of many comebacks. As of August 2004, the song has sold over a million copies.

"At Seventeen" has been a popular choice for film and television soundtracks. It was played in the 2001 film Scotland, PA, an adaptation of the Shakespeare play Macbeth. The character Donald Duncan, portrayed by Geoff Dunsworth, is shown listening to the single in a scene Professor Jennifer Drouin interpreted as indicative of his queer identity. The song can be heard in the background of a scene in the 2004 film Mean Girls. Some critics felt it represented the character named Janis Ian. The A. V. Club's Erik Adams described the scene as a callback to Fey's work on Mean Girls. It is also featured in the first season of The End of the F***ing World, the fifth season of The Blacklist, and in anti bullying advertisements. The single was featured in three episodes of The Simpsons: "A Streetcar Named Marge", "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer", and "Chief of Hearts". In "A Streetcar Named Marge", the lyrics are changed to describe the contestants of a beauty pageant. The A. V. Clubs Nathan Rabin cited the scene as representative of the episode's satire on "loneliness and despair [transformed] into crowd pleasing entertainment through wildly inappropriate showmanship".