You are Not Your Grade by Jade

You are Not Your Grade by Jade - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

The weeks before the AP tests are some of the most stressful times of high school. In my junior year of high school, my classmates and I were preparing to take the AP Biology test, which is known to be one of the toughest of the AP exams. It was during this anxiety-ridden time that I learned the most important lesson of high school. At one of our AP study sessions, our AP Biology teacher said to us that “You are not defined by your grade.” Yes, she reminded us, it’s great to be successful on quizzes and exams, but at the end of the day, if one gets one bad grade in her class or on the AP test, it probably won’t be the end of the world. What’s more important than a simple letter or number on one’s report card is what the student does with his or her knowledge. “In ten years, you probably won’t even remember your grade in this class because it won’t change your whole future,” she concluded.

This is not to say that grades are irrelevant. The quickest and easiest way to assess a person’s progress is through raw data. But this lesson was a reminder to me that it is not my missed test questions or botched homework assignments that impact my future, but how I move on from these mistakes and learn from them. It is better to struggle in a class and be able to overcome that challenge than to put in little effort and achieve only mediocrity. The fact is, everybody makes mistakes at some point or another, and real progress happens when one pushes through a challenge. When a person doesn’t overcome a mistake it can hurt his self-confidence and make him less successful in the future.

My biology teacher’s advice was also reassuring because she helped me recognize that some people are inherently better at certain subjects or skills than others. It is unrealistic to expect a 100% success rate, but it is realistic to expect a 100% recovery rate. As long as I learn from failure, I am much less likely to make the same error again in the future, and if I err anyway, I will be able to fix the problem and move on from it more quickly the next time. Additionally, those who encounter problems can help others overcome those challenges and pass down knowledge.

As a result of my teacher’s advice, I have stopped focusing on achieving perfection in every category of my academic, extracurricular, or other activities. Instead, I have acknowledged that failure is not really harmful unless a person is so overcome by failure that a rebound becomes impossible. I have learned that it is okay to struggle or slip up as long as one remains optimistic and avoids making the same bad decisions repeatedly.