@Tperry1982 That’s alright, I didn’t word it carefully enough either. I see now that I shouldn’t have chosen the word ‘slacker’ as it does not a truly represent me, but I mistakenly thought it would suffice instead of further elaboration with specific details.
@aznraffe Thank you for the insight! I can definitely see how they would come to those conclusions, but I wish they’d consider a third - simply that internal exams aren’t put on that pedestal in international countries that they are in the US. It’s not so much that I slacked off during the year or couldn’t keep up with the curriculum - in fact I found some of it ridiculously easy - but the fact is that for some of them I didn’t even show up so that I’d have more time to revise. On my teachers’ advice, nonetheless. Perhaps it wasn’t the most kosher advice, but we were encouraged to think of those exams more as personal assessments as anything else, and I’m not going to lie, sometimes I would be preparing for an entirely different subject than the one that would be tested at school, just because the board exam date for it was closer.
Of course, at the end of the day these are all excuses and I should’ve been more careful and it might just end up costing me the opportunity to study at a top college outside my country. Lesson learned, but I can’t help but wish I’d been advised about this earlier. Maybe I’ll contact my previous school’s officials and suggest they set up an educational workshop at the start of 9th grade regarding overseas admissions and their requirements. In any case, I’d like to thank everyone for their reply!