I haven’t physically written a post on here for quite some time now (mainly due to being insanely busy this year with medicine), but I thought that right now would be the perfect time to hop right back in, because today is A-Level results day.
Let me speak personally for a bit, before I get onto the big stuff.
5 years ago (2013), I was freshly 18, with no university offers for medicine in the bag, just my insurance (UCL Biomedical Science) standing proud on UCAS Track- an offer that I would decline anyway. I was battling an eating disorder that was taking every ounce of my energy, and everyone I knew had offers to go study somewhere and something that they were excited about. Not getting an offer for medicine the first time round was the first time in my life that I had felt like I failed at something.
On results day, I just knew that something would happen, that something would go wrong, because it hadn’t really gone right this half of the year. I knew that what I needed was AAA minimum, with no retakes possible (as I wanted to apply to Nottingham, who didn’t allow any retakes of AS or A-Level exams). My perfectionist mind wouldn’t really have been content with anything less than A*A*A*, 100% across the board, but to be quite honest my perfectionist mind really needs to learn to shut the fuck up.
I waited until later on in the day to collect my results, because I was terrified of the disappointment and shame that I felt I would feel if they were anything less than what I needed. I watched others wake up to ‘confirmed offer’ on UCAS Track, not even really needing to know their results, because whatever they were, the key fit into the right door. The shape of that key wasn’t important anymore.
When I finally went to collect them, my personal tutor was there, beaming as always, with my brown envelope. She was hoping that I’d open it in front of her, but I insisted on opening them in a darkened alcove seating area, alone, with trembling hands. I kept thinking about the exams that I’d done on 0 calories, or the one where I’d forced down the first 200 calorie flapjack that I’d eaten in 2 years because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, or the one where I’d tried to shake my legs for the whole 2.5hrs just to ‘burn extra calories’. Could the outcome have been different if I’d fuelled my brain and body? Would I still be feeling this way? (Probably)
It was fine. Better than fine. A*AA. No retakes, high As, my A* grade was 100%. A little bite of contentment for my perfectionist mind? It was what I needed, and indeed, it was the right shaped key that would later let me into Medicine, but had it changed anything? To be honest, not really.
The grade wasn’t anything besides a key for a lock. That’s all it was. And I could have gone back and re-sat exams to get the right shaped key, if I needed to. Or I could have changed the lock around a bit. I could have tried a different combination of locks. Sure that anticipation and tension melted away as soon as I saw those results, but it was just a tick in the box.
I am privileged in many ways, one of which is that I get to tell that story and the outcome is A*AA. Some people opening results today may not get they outcome they want or need, and some may get what they need but still be disappointed. I feel that a lot of us in this generation, particularly those who use tumblr as a study aide/studyblr/whatever you want to call it, are primed for productivity and perfectionism. We have been taught from a young age to be busy, to pass exams; that doing well will open doors, and that not doing well won’t open the right doors. There has always been that pressure on our heads.
There are secrets that nobody tells you. I’ll tell you what they are:
1. There are second chances: resit exams, years out to take another subject up, re-marks of exam papers, calls to universities to negotiate, clearing, re-application, alternative pathways, gap years. There are plenty of ways to get to where you want to go, and you may have to take a different path to where you want to be, but you’ll end up there eventually.
2. It’s okay to take those second chances. It doesn’t make the end result worth less or less satisfying when it does come. Most of the time it makes it more satisfying. I know that when I finally got my offer for my dream med school the following March that it was about 10000x more satisfying than it would have been the year before, because I felt that I’d worked so much harder to get there.
3. There is no shame in failing. This is something I personally still find it very, very difficult to grasp. There is no shame in it whatsoever. None. Everyone fails at some point. Some of the best things come after failures. When I didn’t get an offer in my first year, I was absolutely ashamed of myself, and I didn’t want to share that news with anyone. I felt that ‘people’ would look down on me, that my family would be angry, that I’d never be able to climb back up and do well.
4. Sometimes failing can help. Getting back up and trying again is hard, and it takes a little bit of courage. But it can help to fire you up in a way you won’t have been fired up before, especially if this is the first time something hasn’t gone the way you wanted it to. It can motivate and push you to look for what went wrong, for what happened to produce a result that you didn’t want, and it can help you isolate those problems and work on them.
5. You are so young, and there is so much time to get to where you want to be. Fuck having an age limit on things. I know this may be the first time that this has been said to you if you, like me at the time, are 18 years old (or even still 17) and school up until now has been an inevitable year on year progression forwards. This concept was also new to me. Let me explain. It is a lie that we are told in this society, in many areas, that we have to accomplish anything by a certain age. Academically, this lie is pushed and pushed and pushed. But it’s simple. Who gives a fuck the age you are when you get to where you want to be? That’s your life, and your goals, and your plan. You do you.
6. You have so many options. Honestly, you really do. This is another one that took a while to get into my head. You may need to take a day to feel sorry for yourself (and that’s okay too) and cry and mope about and binge Netflix and eat your feelings, but tomorrow, you need to get up, and you need to re-design those blueprints for how you’re going to get to where you want to be. Do your research. Call around, look online, speak to teachers (that last one is so important). Sites like The Student Room can really help, and have a wealth of posts from others in similar situations. Ask friends or parents or teachers for help. Create your own path. It may take some time and it may not be a straightforward process, but eventually you’ll get to where you need to be.
7. At the end of the day, you’re still 18 years old. When you are ready, go and join the parties. Be with friends or family, and celebrate that today you did achieve something. Even if the results weren’t what you hoped for, and even if they were, you passed through one of the most difficult exam seasons that you may ever experience. You sat those exams. You revised like hell. You finished another year of school. You learned things, you grew.
I really hope today brings you everything you hoped for. It feels like there is a lot riding on today, and I think sometimes other adults like to perhaps minimise it a little by saying things like ‘it’s okay, it’s not that big a deal!’. And I get it, it really is a big deal. It feels like a big deal. But what it isn’t, if it goes wrong, is the end of the world. Even if at the time it feels like it is.
Feel free to message me on here if you’d like some help/advice/congratulations after you’ve opened that envelope.
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