Do Grades Matter?
February 17, 2015
One of the most frightening things to look at as an AP and excelled student is my grade. The fear of bad grades and where to go to college hovers while trying to do my best. While sitting in class, fear boils in my stomach while teachers explain that grades do not matter and students should not care or live for them. The idea seems absurd as it rattles around in my head with the question of will my grade prove worthy to get accepted into my dream college. Yet colleges care less about the number that is students’ GPA. They care about experiences and what they have done for their community and how they will build their school into a better place. Students need to take a step back and take a deep breath, grades do not define you, grades do not define your life.
“I feel that a 4.0 is a very short term goal but I’m more concerned about the kid that actually learned something,” English teacher Eric Benson said, “schools like you for more than your GPA.” People tend to forget about the extracurricular activities that truly cause you to grow as a person. These activities—participating in sports, singing in a play, being the president of a club—are the things that cause colleges to select you.
“It’s hard because sometimes parents and other students make it seem as if grades should always be at the top of our list, sometimes it seems like we try to bypass the learning to manage to get all our work done in our classes,” junior Thaovi Nyguen said. Students need to remember that it is the learning and the experiences that will help us excel in college and beyond, grades do not show this. Many students learn to cheat the system, earn that number that we all look up to but never actually learn anything. This is not going to help us when life progresses past high school.
Students need to step away from the gradebook, take a deep breath, and learn that this one small number does not define them, we need to focus on the way we develop ourselves. We need to help build our experiences, help the people in our community, and not just try to get an A but try to learn as much as we can.
Eric Benson • Mar 12, 2015 at 12:32 pm
That Eric Benson guy sounds smart. In all seriousness, though, I’m happy that you posted this. It’s a sad day indeed to see a kid who gamed the system walk as valedictorian through tricks and schedule dancing and watch kids who pushed themselves to expand their mind (but earned Bs) sit by without honor. I like to think I’m teaching batches of future citizens instead of people who can check boxes and look impressive simply for the sake of looking impressive. An A means perfection. I think most people would want to be around imperfect people willing to learn rather than people feeling they are entitled to the label of perfect because that’s what they are used to. If you earn your A, be proud and humble. If you don’t, look to how to improve and revel in the fact that, in your adult life, no one is going to care about that high school GPA too much at all.