Academic Secrecy

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I've been thinking about it for a while, and it sort of tears me up more than anything else.</p>

<p>There's this one girl at my school, a chunky asian girl, and she's pretty socially awkward. Our parents are asian friends, so we sort of know each other. Honestly, she's sort of annoying, but I have tried being friendly. So one day, we took an exam in precalc. She asks for my test score, and I tell her. Of course, I ask her back and she immediately changes the subject. This happens again in ap euro and I ask her. She replys with "no", laughs and go back to her seat. Honestly, I was quite suprised for a bit since I've never encountered anyone so..so academically secret. She honestly has no friends and treats everyone as a GPA opponent or something.</p>

<p>I was pretty disgusted. So I ignore her. Yesterday, my friend and I go up to our precalc teacher to ask a question. She sits right in the front. My friend, pretty outgoing, asks her if she took AP psych (not a class, obviously a selfstudy) since she had some psych notecards out. She mumbled, my friend being ignorant, ask her what? She whispers something to him blah blah. She's taking AP Psych. Later she acts as if it was some huge plan and I found out about her dastardly plot or something...</p>

<p>She cares so much about her academics and everything, blah.</p>

<p>Now it boils down to me. What should I do about my academics? I don't really want to be all Cold-war about it, but I don't want to be spewing off all grades and stuff to her while she doesn't. Everyone else (the academically devoted) isn't THAT secretive. We all share our euro grades (50s, 60s, good laughs) and she's peeking at our grades..
Should I just be open to everyone? Even her? Theres a few others like her. Honestly, when this sort of stuff happens, I feel like I'm losing an arms war or something..It sort of disgusts me when I do this, but I don't know what else to do.</p>

<p>So, sorry for the long boring story.
tldr, how open are you about your academics and stuff? How open should I be? How do you deal with people like this?</p>

2

<p>She might not know she’s being a ******bag. You don’t have to directly confront her, just drop a hint or two. Anyways, don’t bother giving her any special attention. So what if she knows your test score?</p>

<p>The secretive people are annoying though, especially that asian kid who studies for something 24/7 and then refuses to give study tips to anyone else (we’ve all met him). I’m generally pretty open about any wisdom I might have picked up, and so are my friends, so we have a nice little community there.</p>

3

<p>Maybe she doesn’t want you to feel intimidated?</p>

4

<p>@MeSsiah, yeah she’s EXACTLY that stereotypical asian kid. Whenever I ask myself “so what if she knows” I just sort of freak out I guess. And then I get curious about her scores too :frowning:
She’s not the one to exactly get hints, since she honestly wouldn’t care about being a *bag</p>

<p>@shewas
What do you mean?</p>

5

<p>Ahh I’ve been through this before. My “best friend” was one of them. As a senior in high school reflecting back on my experiences, I would advise you to not get too close to such people. Also, if she’s being all academic-secretive towards you than you should do the same with her. It feels great to know that your opponent feels insecure- and they should After all, true geniuses don’t need to be insecure or acdemically secretive imo. I personally am open with only those who are open with me. I abhor the fact that some people can go to such extremes but its a part of life, you’ll encounter many of them.</p>

6

<p>I mean, maybe she’s curious about your grades but she doesn’t want you to feel bad if/when she gets higher grades than you.</p>

7

<p>Is my school the only school where all of this stuff is open game? Everyone knows everyone else’s SAT, GPA, class rank, EC achievements, class schedules, and grades in classes. Or if you don’t and you just ask, it’s not a big deal. Public knowledge. And I just go to a regular public school.</p>

<p>I feel like it’s healthier that way.</p>

8

<p>@desi_chick
ok, but she often snoops around us when we talk, trade answers she’s always peeking around and stuff. See, this is where it gets confusing. Should I just be open when everyone else is around? But then I’m playing into the Cold-war academic hiding game, and it makes me feel pathetic</p>

<p>@shewas
I doubt that, but I will hope :slight_smile:
During that one exam where she said “no” flat out, I asked “Jesse” who is good friends with me and knows her. She freaked out “Jesse why did you tell him?!” word for word. except the name ;)</p>

<p>@christiansoldier
Yeah, our school is essentially like that, except for HER and a few others I would guess.
But when I put it that way, it looks like I’m envious or hate her for something, so yeah, I’m sort of caught in the middle and lost and frustrated.
arghuadhfoeijiaeof</p>

<p>I don’t know why this is bothering me so much, ughhh.</p>

<p>Bleh, I’ll just be open to everyone, except people like her, I’ll stay away from.</p>

9

<p>I was totally academically secretive – NOTHING was shared: grades on anything or in any classes, test scores, college applications, etc. I was a closed book.</p>

<p>There was no downside. It simply meant that my friends and I had conversations that didn’t revolve around our academic performances. No problems. </p>

<p>It’s a policy I highly recommend.</p>

10

<p>Academic secrecy is good…but that girl is going too far. That is practically 150% paranoia right there.</p>

11

<p>That’s so weird. I don’t know anyone like that. We aren’t like christiansoldier’s school, just because no one cares that much to find out all your stats, but any grade, ranking, or SAT score you want to know, you can ask about and 95% of the time, you’ll find out. I mean, people don’t ask you grades that they know would be low and are embarrassing, just to be nice, and some people are really shy about telling high scores, but anything is pretty much cool.</p>

12

<p>^I wish I went to your school.</p>

13

<p>But if everyone didn’t talk about there grades, it’d just seem competitive. I mean, if I asked my friend “What did you get on ___?” and he didn’t share, I’d view it as competition/opposition in a way. I’d honestly find it hard to make friends that you aren’t willing to even share your academics with :(</p>

14

<p>You just dismiss the question gently – “Oh, I don’t talk about grades” or “I don’t share scores.” </p>

<p>It’s not competitiveness, it’s just keeping private things private. Of course, I would not fault anyone for sharing scores, etc. </p>

<p>And one can make friends easily. After a little bit, no one even talks about academics at all.</p>

15

<p>It’s hard to keep academic secrecy when the class size is 21 students. Word spreads around pretty quickly, you’ll find.</p>

16

<p>I don’t ask what people get, and I don’t volunteer the information either.</p>

<p>If someone ask, I give a general letter grade… but that’s it :P</p>

17

<p>I’m glad my group of friends is completely open to one another as far as what grades we received on a test or quiz, etc. It’s just not something we feel insecure about. If someone didn’t do so great on a quiz, for instance, so what? It’s good to get feedback from friends who take the same classes, in my opinion. However, I do understand that there are some merits to academic secrecy, as is the case with much in life. If I got a 100 on a test, for instance, I wouldn’t share that with anybody unless asked.</p>

18

<p>If you aren’t prepared to reveal your own, then down ask.The law goes like this -
The asker is obliged to tell if asked back.
The askee is not obliged to tell their own.
The asker should not ask if he or she got a very high score, because of the high probability that you will make someone feel bad.</p>

19

<p>I think you’re overthinking this. You say she’s socially awkward so it makes sense she doesn’t make rational conversations.</p>

<p>And we all know the nerdy person in the class who uses other people’s low grades to boost their ego. Don’t sweat it.</p>

20

<p>Mess with her mind. Claim that you will be self-studying seven APs next year.</p>