Why would people not believe me?

[sarahlayton06]

I want to ask something and I’m being completely honest.

So, I am academically gifted in that I have always been in the top set for all of my subjects and perform really well in class, always getting really high marks in homework assignments etc.

Based off of this, I was predicted really high GCSE grades and A-level grades as well. But, I also have an issue with procrastination and leaving work to the last minute. It’s not pure laziness but it’s related to the fact that I have ADHD and anxiety and that plays a role in causing me to procrastinate and leave everything to the last minute.

So, with my GCSEs I literally left revision to the last minute and with my exams in Year 12, I did so as well. I then got lower grades than I was capable of.

However, why does it seem as though nobody truly believes me when I explain this to them? For example, I was explaining to my teachers/classmates that I am truly capable of getting A*s in my exams and was capable of getting 9s at GCSE as shown by my performance in mock tests and homework and classwork but that I only got lesser grades because I left it to the last minute. They didn’t say anything to contradict me but I just got the impression that they thought I was lying and wasn’t as clever as I thought I was.

Im not even complaining about my results and am getting help for my anxiety/ADHD issues for - but maybe if my teachers/classmates were to say that I need to do better and stop procrastinating that would be one thing. But I feel like they don’t even think I procrastinate and that I’m not that clever.

Fundamentally, why would they think that seemingly think I’m lying?

Stop blaming everything and everyone else for your situation. That is easy/lazy for your own comfort but it doesn’t help you in the long run.

Start realising that you let yourself down and that success is within your control.

Use your negative feelings (guilt, frustration, sense of injustice etc.) as motivation to “prove” yourself.

But for god’s sake do it quietly.

It is naval-gazing of the highest order, tone-deaf to others’ challenges and so tedious and irritating to others to hear your in depth, obsessive ramblings about the ins and outs of your exams.

Nobody cares about your "potential" - literally nobody.

That sounds harsh but having "potential" means nothing on a real, practical level.
The thing that sets you apart from every other person with "potential" is the ability to follow through with results.

Gently, you need to get out of your head and into the real world.

Spend a lot less time thinking about your "potential". Spend even less time comparing yourself to people you go/went to school with, people who get into Oxbridge and people in general. It's terrible for your mental health.

Find a practical way to overcome your procrastination and whatever else other obstacles you may have identified and just do it.

People will measure you by your results, not by your ‘potential’. I know a few people who appeared quite bright at school but didn’t have the organisational/executive function skills or commitment needed to get any qualifications- ‘promising start but failed to deliver’.

I think you need to stop thinking about what people think1they might be right, they might be wrong, but can’t control their thoughts. All you can do is try your hardest to get your qualifications. If you’re failing to get top grades in a ‘typical’ number of GCSEs and A levels though, deciding to do 2 extras seems bizarre. Just focus on doing the normal number well!

Going to Oxford or Cambridge is no longer the be all and end all. And Universities looks for more than grades, although they are a vital part of the package.
If you give up your part-time job to study for these five exams, you are giving up something important.
What about hobbies and interests, community projects and being a good citizen? These things matter not just University applications, but in life.
Even if you did get in, have you thought about how you will cope when you get there? Because that matters.
You sound like a very bright and capable person and I feel sad for such a young person worrying about all this.
I’ve got friends who went to Oxbridge, and friends who didn’t. The ones who have really flown went to
all sorts of Universities, and the ones who did best didn’t bother going at all.

My niece went to Oxford and studied English. Her mum assumed she’d be able to walk into any job she wanted. She hasn’t. It’s not a free pass.

Doing 5 A levels is not a good plan. You might get 5 average grades when you could, with hard work, have got 3 good grades. My son did 5 A levels and he did get 5 A*s but other than results day it matters to no-one, ever. Even for his Cambridge offer he only needed 3.

Did your son got to a private school or a selective grammar school?

OP, you still here? Did you take anything on board?

Ultimately it really doesn't matter to anyone else other than maybe your mum. It's just bruised ego on your part.

Buckle up, get help if you need it. Tuition worked for my ds with ADHD - it kept him accountable for his work. And try to make the best of it for YOU, for your life.

Good luck! I hope you can turn all your angst and anger etc into something positive for you

He went to a sink estate below bog standard comp but got in because he's intellectually and academically gifted.

If you need help to make the most of your abilities then get it. You won't achieve what you want otherwise.

But he has a supportive parent like you who is not ignorant of the British educational system unlike some people whose parents can’t even speak English.

Gently OP, I also got into Cambridge from a sink comprehensive after spotty teaching, having achieved all top grades at both GCSE and A level. As others have said, I think you’d benefit from stopping blaming others for your sense of underachievement (teaching, your school, those around you, the oxbridge system…) and concentrating on those things you can control, like learning how to manage your neurodivergence so that it doesn’t get in the way of study and exam performance, and looking realistically at what your best university options are. And deciding what you want to do, not what you think will make you better than others.

For Law at Cambridge it’s most likely that they will have more applicants with three A/A* grades first time round, than they have places and there will certainly be people with those grades who don’t get in.

Hahaha. You've had such a good run.

But it’s also not fair that I was disadvantaged by having to go to such a poor performing school while others got to go to private schools or selective grammar schools; or other students have parents who aren’t so ignorant. Why should others get advantages that I didn’t get?

And if you really feel that your family and school life have so massively disadvantaged you then, as you’ve been told elsewhere, foundation year might well be your best bet. You say you don’t need it, but a) it might be your best or only realistic hope of getting onto a Cambridge undergraduate course, and b) you list study skills, procrastination and other personal factors as stopping you from achieving, and the foundation year is precisely designed to help you learn the study and intellectual skills you’ll need to thrive at oxbridge - if you struggled to discipline yourself to do well at gcse and a level exams, why do you think you’d do better at the very tough oxbridge degree exams without help to change the way you work, plan and think?

No. Very average comp.In special measures for most of the time.

Agree. Literally everyone applying to Cambridge will have stellar predicted grades. That's just a given. So what else can you offer OP?

This surely cannot be the first time you've realised that life isn't fair?

Let's turn this on its head, shall we: it's not fair that girls in some parts of the world are born into absolute poverty, don't get to go to school at all, and then are married off to adult men as soon as they get their first period. Why should you get the advantages that others didn't get?

Life isn’t fair. You can spend your life blaming external circumstances for your failures, or you can grow up, develop a work ethic and crack on. Up to you.

Yes, this isn’t fair. Not just on you, but for every one of the 93% of the children of this country who don’t get to go to a private school. It is a massively debated, contentious philosophical issue that nearly everyone has an opinion on, and had for the past 300 years. It is not a new inadequacy solely aimed at you. It isn’t fair - true. You can’t change this, at least not right now - also true. It isn’t changing, and most people you ever meet have had the same challenges.

The question is what are you going to do with your life as it is? not what would you have done if you hadn’t been ill, if covid hadn’t struck the world, if you didn’t have ADHD, if your family had more money, etc etc etc. You have control and choices over what happens from here on. What are you going to choose to do? Find a way to achieve what you want to achieve? Or change your ambitions to match your ability? Or wish your life away in unobtainable regrets and bitterness?

Life's not fair. Make the most of what you have.

I had supportive parents. Plus.
I have OCD. Minus.
I had parents who didn't have the chance to get formal qualifications and therefore knew little about the British education system. A minus in your book, I guess - but knowing that they didn't have qualifications gave them the desire to help me to do better.

My dad spoke broad Scots with a foreign accent. A minus by your reckoning. It gave me an appreciation of language development.

I attended a state comprehensive. A minus in your book. It gave me the experience of mixing with a broad spectrum of people.

For various reasons - including the OCD episode that I mentioned earlier - my results weren't as good as expected. I still got an unconditional at a Russell Group Uni, a reasonable degree and a decent enough job.

The same secondary school that I attended produced a Nobel Prize winner whose work has saved many lives, a government minister who had a seismic effect on education and health and a prize-winning (now millionaire) author. All three came from a working class background. I'd say that they were both gifted and hardworking.

We all deal with disadvantages OP. Yes, life can sometimes be easier if you have parents who know about networking, etc. However, wringing our hands and bleating about the unfairness of life doesn't help. We have to deal with the lot we've been given.

My God, OP, just how young are you?

If you’re so brainy, OP, I wish you’d figure out how to quote so we could know who you’re responding to.

It's not fair, I quite agree, but life isn't fair - that's the most important lesson you have to learn.

On the positive side, only about 5% of the population are privately educated, and I understand from what I read on here that universities nowadays do consider the status and performance of your school as part of your application.

I was at a poorly performing comprehensive (some time after I had left, when Ofsted ratings came in, it was classed as 'in special measures') but I did well academically - I do understand that it takes more effort when half your classes are disrupted by people pissing about, and some of the teachers have understandably given up.

You are lucky in some ways to have at your disposal the resources afforded by the digital age. In my day, the 1980s, if you wanted to research or read outside the school curriculum it meant a trip to the library, or buying books if you could afford them.