Recently, I’ve been getting a string of 80s on various tests and I’m usually a high 90s student. I feel like my numerical GPA will drop at least two points.
I feel depressed and tired and I want to get out of it all. I’ve gone to teachers for extra help but there’s no way my GPA in their classes can go from a 90 to a 98 in four weeks, unless they give me 20 points XC which is not happening, especially since some teachers don’t even give/believe in XC. Honestly, I care about learning the material but I also care about my grades and I’m doing so horribly. I haven’t told my parents my bad grades yet because then they will think that I’m not as smart as they think I am and I want to surprise them with a 99.xx average but it seems like I can barely pull a 95 at this point…
Also, I have a 10pm curfew but I can’t finish anything by 10 and I really should be going to bed at midnight; even if it means sleeping less, I’ll be confident that I actually did all my homework right instead of scrambling and rushing to do it before curfew. Also, I’m basically a recluse now; I don’t really talk to my friends and whenever I laugh it sounds so fake because I’m dead inside.
Even if you are aiming for the very very top schools (Harvard, Yale, etc.), low A's will not be detrimental to your college admissions much, if at all. Anything above a 4.0 in unweighted GPA is considered great at ALL colleges, and one A- will not cause you to go below an 4.0. You definitely need to be less stressed about this, and I'm sure everyone on these forums will agree. You are obviously a very smart person if you've been making A+ in all of your classes, and I'm sure that your parents and the college admissions officers will agree. And you are also NOT doing horribly in your classes by any reasonable standard.
Also, I’m not sure what grade you are in, but I can assure you that one day you will get a B in your classes, whether it is in college or during your senior year. And that’s okay. It’s totally normal not to be completely perfect. No body is. Even the valedictorian at Harvard has gotten a B on a test and in a class, I assure you. My mother used to tell me “It’s not about the grade you received, but the effort you put in.” And if you put in the maximum amount of effort that you can, the grade you recieve is simply the best you can do on that test. And whether it’s a 100 or a 72, it’s not a reflection on your overall on your intelligence or your worth. It’s just how good you are at a particular subject.
All throughout high school, I had a 10:30pm curfew, and I HATED it. But when I got into college and received no denial letters from any of the schools I applied to, I realized that sleep and physical health is MUCH more important than a few points on a test. I got into a much better school than many of my peers, and it was because I slept way more than all of them, even after getting home most days at 7:00pm and juggling being the President of three clubs and taking 6 AP classes. My advice is: evaluate yourself to see if you are perhaps procrastinating the homework, or spending more than six hours a week per subject/eight hours per extracurricular, and then change your schedule to reflect any inefficiencies in your current routine. If you still can not possibly complete all of your homework before the time, you'll want to make some other changes.
If after making sure you aren’t spending time on anything unimportant (Netflix, Snapchat, etc.) and you really need to stay up later every night, you may want to strongly reconsider your current course load AND ask your parents to extend your curfew by an hour or an hour and a half. Because while even I’ll admit that 10 is a little early to go to sleep for a high schooler, it sounds like the source of your stress is less about the curfew and more about the ridiculous amount of stress that your classes (and whatever else you are doing) is putting on you. Your mental health is SO SO much more important than grades, so you may need to drop the most stressful class/take a less challenging version so you can survive. IF that doesn’t help, have a conversation with your parents about staying up later. This will also help the friend scenario.
If your AP classes are like my daughters they are bologna group project based ones. Where someone is always waiting on data, a graph, or a portion from some other lazier less focused student until the day before whatever it is happens to be due. Its sucks PERIOD!
The teacher’s feedback “It is vital you learn how to work as a team” its hogwash and grades are by group not for individual contribution