In today’s world, grades can be one of the biggest determining factors of a high school student’s future. From the first day of freshman year all the way up until graduation day of senior year, a student must maintain a high grade point average (GPA) to even be considered for admission at a prestigious university. An individual’s GPA is composed of each and every grade they receive throughout their high school career. While grades can help show the level of proficiency a student has in different subjects, they can also be a big stressor for many students. For example, the first word that comes to mind when CHS junior Ellena Biermann thinks about her grades is “stress.”
“I want to get into a good college and build a successful future for myself, and I feel like that starts with getting good grades,” Biermann said. “But trying to get perfect grades while juggling many other activities in high school can make it a really frustrating experience.”
Biermann’s feelings towards academic grades have been reciprocated by many adolescents around the nation. According to a study conducted by the Journal of School Psychology in 2022, out of the 1,200 high school students surveyed, almost 70% reported feeling high levels of stress due to academics, with a majority of the students feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to do well on exams and schoolwork in general. These alarming statistics put into perspective the level to which high school students experience stress due to grades.
For CHS senior Charlotte Rotenberg, the pressure of maintaining good grades has negatively impacted her self-esteem.
“I’m trying to remind myself that grades don’t define me, but it’s tough,” Rotenberg said. “My motivation fluctuates between ‘Give it your all’ and ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’ It’s been a back-and-forth of trying to push myself and then feeling like nothing I do is enough.”
While Rotenberg feels that nobody else besides herself puts pressure on her to perform well in school, her own self-critique can be her worst enemy, leading her to constantly ask herself questions like ‘What if it’s not enough?’ and ‘What more could I be doing?’ Recently, Rotenberg has realized how much her mood is affected by her grades.
“If I get a bad grade, I immediately see my brain shift into a negative mindset,” Rotenberg said. “If it’s close to the weekend, my weekend will be ruined because I will spend it overthinking and figuring out what I did wrong and how to fix it.”
A lot of the pressure to get good grades can come from the unknown aspect of what the future holds. For many high school students, attending a college or university is their plan after high school. But submitting an application to any school requires a student’s high school transcripts, and this is where the stress is formed. Many students come into high school with the goal of keeping a 4.0 GPA (an A in every class throughout high school), but this goal of being near-perfect is much harder than it seems.
“It’s obviously disappointing when you can’t be perfect,” Biermann said. “But we are all human, and nobody can be perfect all the time. It’s definitely a mental struggle though to accept that I might not get an A grade in every assignment or class.”
For Biermann, it’s scary to think about how getting a B or C grade in a class can affect what colleges she gets accepted into or rejected from. While there are tons of schools out there that don’t require top-level grades to be accepted, for the colleges Bierman has her hopes set on, keeping her grades up is a must.
“If you don’t have good grades, it can be a deterrent for colleges,” Biermann said. “I want to get accepted into a good college, and I need consistently good grades to do that.”
When the anxiety of a bad test grade takes over, Biermann finds it most beneficial to take a step back from school and do something active. Going on a walk or working out are both activities that she finds very helpful. Rotenberg always turns to a hot drink like tea or hot chocolate to calm her nerves and make her feel less stressed. But in general, for both students, detaching from school and screens in general, seems like the best strategy.
But through all the stress and pressure, both Biermann and Rotenberg strongly feel that your grades don’t define you. Biermann believes that keeping this mindset is crucial to maintaining both your mental and physical well-being.
“Your entire future is not dependent on your grades,” Biermann said. “You will get into a good college somewhere, and you will figure it out. In 20 years, a math grade from junior year won’t matter at all in comparison to the person you are and what you stand for and believe in.”
