<p>I need some advice and words of encouragement. I obsess over my grades and I think my perfectionism has reached a very, very unhealthy level. tonight i feel was my breaking point. I studied 10 hours for part one of my history final and got an 81. The reason I was so upset is because now I'll only be able to receive an 88.5 in the class at the highest (with extra credit). I honestly don't know why I'm so obssesive and I really try not to be. My parents aren't even the ones putting pressure on me. I am. I had to sit in the dark and take deep breaths to calm down. Now I have a pounding headache from crying so hard. please help. what can i do?</p>
<p>It’s funny that I’m sitting here scoffing at you when I would do the same exact thing. But posting here is a terrible idea, CC is extremely judgmental.</p>
<p>I know kids like to confide in other kids, but that sounds pretty serious. You should tell your parents and possibly even think about therapy. You don’t want something like that happening at college when you’re away from friends/family to add to the stress so getting real help sooner would be better than later.</p>
<p>^Yeah CC is not the place for your issue. Talk to friends and parents. They will understand.</p>
<p>Ask your parents for help. They’ll be more help than kids aspiring for colleges (which will stress you out even more IMO).</p>
<p>I mean its a B anyway…You probably needed a 95+ on the exam to get an A in the class. Or atleast a 92.5 minimum A</p>
<p>I have the same problem but im trying to solve it.You are doing the best u can ! Why are you letting grades break you down?They are just grades afterall, and they dont determine whether you are a successful person or not.Im not saying grades arent important,im saying just take it easy a little bit.If you study all the time,the only thing you are doing is hurting yourself.Try the best u can,but dont kill urself with stress and pressure! Good luck</p>
<p>You’re a perfectionist yet you had a low A/high B to begin with? </p>
<p>Hmm…</p>
<p>CC really isn’t the place for this because like above posters, people can be very harsh and judgmental, but I’ll tell you what I think.</p>
<p>I think you’re at the end-of-year burnout stage. You’re sick and tired of everything school related. It’s hard to deal with these kind of situations, trust me, I had a very similar one back in December before semester exams. But you need to just calm down, try to understand that you did try your hardest. What you got is what you got, and there’s nothing you can do about it except make sure you don’t have a teetering grade in the future! It’s all good, don’t stress out about this. :)</p>
<p>You can only do the best that you can do, and you have to accept that. </p>
<p>At the end of the day though, a B isn’t going to make or break your college chances.</p>
<p>Gah, I know exactly what you’re going through from personal experience, and it isn’t pretty. People are right with saying here isn’t the best place, but I’ll help you out a bit.</p>
<p>True perfectionism is one of the most stressful things to have, considering that most of the world doesn’t understand it. Even my parents don’t understand it, either. You just have to realize that grades aren’t everything. I got my first B on my report card this year, and I cried as well. I’m not sure what grade you’re in; regardless, a college isn’t going to look at your transcripts and say, “You got a B+ in history… NO ADMISSION FOR YOU.” 
</p>
<p>A psychologist/psychiatrist can be very helpful, and it most certainly doesn’t mark you as crazy. Though like an above poster said, it sounds like it’s just end-of-the-year burnout to me. Unless this interferes with your life constantly, over time you’ll accept your grade.</p>
<p>**** all the insensitive people here - I’d really like to punch all of them in the face for your favor. I hope you remember that passion precedes grades and learn to separate that percentage from your self-worth. I don’t know what your case is, but if you’re doing all the studying, all the grades, all that for anything but yourself it’ll never work. Revitalize yourself. Do all that crap you actually want to do, unless you glorify studying as your pasttime. Otherwise, give yourself a break. Please please PLEASE talk to your parents about this, because if it’s been going on for the entire year or longer, you need to fall back on someone. Hopefully someone who can help you see that your grades are nothing more than a class’s scale. </p>
<p>It’s the end of the year, you’re almost there.</p>
<p>You remind me of myself in so many ways, haha. My history class this year was really hard on me. I would study 22 hours for simple quizzes and still fail. I could never score above a B on anything. I obsessed over it, too.</p>
<p>On the final I prayed and prayed for me to somehow get an A. I took a practice test I found online the night before. I go in the next morning to take my final and it turns out he used the exact same practice test that I had found online. Not only that, I remembered every answer. It was a hard exam and he curved it by 8 points, so my score turned out to be more than I ever dreamed it would be.</p>
<p>After I took the final I told him I had already taken it the night before as a practice test. He spent some time complaining about how College Board sends teachers practice exams to use as tests and yet they put the test online for kids to see, but since I was the last test turned in (I have extended time) and no other kids knew about it, he let me keep the grade.</p>
<p>From this, I know that hard work pays off. History was one subject I just didn’t really “get”. It didn’t interest me enough, but I tried. And in the end, it worked out for me. And 20 years from now, I won’t even remember my history grade in high school.</p>
<p>You’ll be fine. 
Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>(And the moral of the story is to always take practice tests administered by the College Board if you are taking a test in that subject, because you never know)</p>
<p>I was perfectionistic since I was little, and I am still a little perfectionistic these days. My first grade teacher wrote in the comment area of my report card that I overreact to every winning/losing and that I should take everything with a calm, normal mood. ( of course you can be joyful when you win and be a little sad when you lose, but don’t be too extreme. Don’t be too perfectionistic) But I didn’t get what my teacher had meant until I was in fifth grade when I cried because I couldn’t get into the GATE program. Then I realized that ten years from now, I probably wouldn’t even remember or care about that test.
Think, ten years from now, would you care about that B?</p>
<p>First of all, everyone else is completely right. Avoid CC for help, as many people are very judgmental and ambitious and have no sympathy for those of us who have genuine struggles. Ultimately, they won’t make you feel any better. In fact, you should probably avoid CC all together for a while, as it can really worsen how you feel about yourself when you see some of the more “sane” students stats, haha. </p>
<p>I deal with the exact same issue, and it’s lead to issues with depression and fairly severe anxiety. My perfectionism is completely self-inflicted, and it leads to terrible procrastination, stress, and no sleep whatsoever. My grades in classes where the grade is based solely on tests are always terrible, despite how much I study and how easily I grasp the material. For example, I have a 78% in math, yet in Japanese, where we have no formal “tests”, I have a 98%. </p>
<p>The hardest part, I think, is telling yourself that your grades don’t define your worth and your intelligence. It’s really, really hard, and I still struggle with it everyday. It’s so hard to stop competing with everyone else and just focus on your own well being, especially when college and university looms ahead of you. </p>
<p>My advice is to talk first to your parents, and then think about some form of therapy or counselling. You could also talk to someone about ways to get support in your school. It sounds to me like you have some kind of anxiety issue, which is completely valid and your school should take seriously. In light of my issues (which also included some fairly challenging family dynamics), my school was very helpful and things were lightened academically. Granted, I do go to a private school, but you should still try, because you never know.</p>
<p>I hope things get better!</p>
<p>Think of it this way:</p>
<p>Think about the most influential people you know of in our country. Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, heck, Martin Luther King, Jr. Did anyone ever ask them about their grades in high school? No, because they were obviously passionate and successful in their fields and therefore it didn’t matter that they didn’t get an A in high school Geometry.</p>
<p>Even though CC might not be the best place to talk about such things because we can be so judgmental, I really like this thread. Many on the threads here make it sound like unless you’re getting straight A’s in high school, you’ve slacked. We should still acknowledge that some work really hard without necessarily having the grades. </p>
<p>I used to be a huge perfectionist until at one point I gave up because it wasn’t paying off. My transcript was quickly filling up more and more B’s as opposed to the all A’s I had always worked for. So I became a total burn out for maybe my junior year of high school. Excessive anxiety and studying could potentially lead you to burning out, causing a collapse in your grades. (low grades → anxiety → more low grades → and so on.)</p>
<p>Last year I barely passed Latin 3 even though up until then I was a decent Latin student. The teacher was excellent and the material should have been within my grasp, but despite hours of studying even for basic quizzes it was impossible. What made it infuriating was seeing classmates who claim to not have studied at all except for in the morning before class get A’s while I routinely had 40’s 50’s, and 60’s on quizzes and tests. I also had similar problems in calculus and physics (both AP), the latter of which fortunately had a lot of grade inflation. Anxiety, depression, and anger followed. I was just like any other student with high college aspirations wanting to be the best at everything, so it was really painful. </p>
<p>My advice is to just look at high grades as a side benefit to working hard. Your greater goal is to learn a useful skill, gain perspective, and avoid feeling bored by keeping your mind active with your school work (obvious, I know guys). I was able to get out of my funk by finding certain subjects and topics I really liked and working on them over the summer. That helped me restore my ability to focus as well as my work ethic, which ended up benefiting me in all subject areas. </p>
<p>Also, know when to stop! I took a very difficult course load senior year and I ran cross country in the fall along with being part of a musical in the winter and I still got at least 7 hours of sleep every night because I realized cramming never works for me and I would assume it has minimal benefits for others. I also became an obsessive note taker in class. I basically noted every detailed mentioned. That helped me learn more, quicker, and made it so I didn’t need to study as much outside of class.</p>