Skyward.
The word that is always on the tip of my tongue.
Along with it comes a growing list of things constantly circulating in my brain: GPA, SAT, class rank and, above all else, the constant fear of “What will happen if any of these things are less than perfect?”
In a futile attempt to end the spiral, I constantly open the blue and white app to check that not a single number has changed. This mindset is shared by my peers, who determine their future and their self worth by their grades.
Every test I take, this spiral comes back and I throw myself into another haphazard study session. With finals, this is amplified because the tests are my last chance to raise my grade and a huge risk of lowering them. Going into each test, I have a pre-set number of questions I can afford to miss while keeping an A+. When the tests are over, the all-too-familiar sinking feeling in my gut returns.
Since I started high school, grades have become increasingly important to me. The better I do, the less satisfied I become. Compared to freshman year, when a 97 would have sent me through the roof, all the grade means now is that I was three points away from perfect.
The over-hyped ideas of what college is the “best” and how much money one is offered to go there only further the spiral. It is a petrifying, harmful mindset to think the difference between getting into a “good” school is between earning a 97 or 98, or taking one extra AP class — yet, this is exactly what adults and stressed-out teenagers are promoting to one another.
These ideas came to a climax three weeks ago, when I called out sick from school for the first time in years. My immune system has always been fairly strong, but due to a lack of sleep and influx of stress from the three tests and a research project within five days, I finally collapsed. I slept a total of 17 hours that day and suffered symptoms of disease for a week.
In truth, there’s more to a person’s character than what grade they receive or college they try to attend. Numbers on a transcript cannot dictate who one is, and that pushed narrative is the unhealthy trap of a “perfect student” mask.
Though grades are still important and something to be aware of, there is no need to push oneself to perfection because striving for it will end in failure. As finals begin to get graded, I will not open Skyward every hour like I have the last two years. Instead, I’ll take a deep breath, take a break and, no matter what score I get, I’ll be OK.
