The Terror of Midterm Grades

By CARLY CANSECO ‘27

Last week, Exonians got texted texted, handed over, or told their midterm grades. How do you prevent absolutely crashing out over this stupid piece of paper? Write a manual on how to not lose your mind when your adviser sits you down to “talk about what’s going on.”

Hours turn to minutes, minutes turn to seconds. Your hands tremble, your legs shake, and your eyes twitch as you open the insidious text from your advisor. Six weeks of sweat, tears, and blood have culminated in this moment. As your cursor hovers above the black bolded words “MIDTERM GRADES,” you stop. You quickly open Blackbaud to find your current GPA calcuation. It provides no comfort. After several minutes of Instagram reels, cleaning your room, and staring aimlessly at your computer, it’s time. You can no longer put it off. You open the email. As you scroll through your classes, a tear falls onto your mousepad. It’s disastrous. Here are four tips to cope with when you inevitably experience this throughout your tenure at the Academy.

GPA Calculator

Open your notes app on your phone and the calculator application on your computer. Outline the rest of the terms you have left at Exeter. Calculate the GPAs you need to get in future terms to save yourself. This will absolutely stress you out more, but can delay your mental breakdown by a little bit.

Motivational Podcasts

To succeed, you must believe you can succeed. Get into the mindset. Search through Youtube, Spotify, or Apple Music for a motivational podcast that will (probably not) encourage you to get your grades up. 

Call Your Parents

This is definitely the bravest one. It will require you to muster up a substantial amount of courage. But remember, high risk, high return. Your parents could yell at you so much that you become self-motivated to lock in and get your grades up, or decide that their investment in you going to Exeter is no longer fruitful and will pull you out of Exeter. You probably know your parents best, so proceed cautiously if this route is chosen.

Give Up

Who even cares about grades? Bill Gates was one of the worst students in high school, and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college. School doesn’t really matter if you truly think about it. Life is short. Go out, give up on grades, and be you. 

This method must only be used if the situation is so dire, it calls for it.