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?

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

Sorry OP but no, you're not 'academically gifted'.

GCSE's are a pretty low measure when talking about academic 'giftedness'. In maths and science subjects, if you were truly gifted across the board you'd have gained A*'s without the need for revision. And also pretty high in the others - although there's more skill needed in English for example, where practice at knowing the best way to answer is just as important as knowledge or intelligence.

Many of us don't reach our academic potential for many reasons. I never went to Uni but I absolutely should have. And my internal voice huffs at me and secretly says that I could probably have reached 'the top' in one of many fields. I know I'm intelligent enough for it. I know I'm more intelligent than many people I meet every day in high level jobs.

But I didn't do lots of things for many reasons. It is what it is 🤷‍♀️ And thats why it's my INTERNAL voice that says these things about how I could have (and on the anonymity of MN) 😂 Because saying them outloud to other people will make you, rightfully, look like the biggest knob alive.

Stop banging on to people in RL about how brilliantly you could have done if only xyz. It's tiresome and will make you look silly. You are where you are, to date. Move forward and achieve whatever you can from here.

You'll only ever be judged on your achievements, not on what you think your achievements could have been.

What you're describing doesn't sound like 'gifted'. I was in top sets, got excellent results, did well at University. I did a reasonable amount of revising but nothing too intense.
I'm not gifted. I'd consider myself intelligent not not gifted. You don't sound gifted either.

Sadly when boys do well, it is remembered and deemed to be more stunning than girls.

I was the same. Very mediocre results at school, but eventually got a First in my degree. I had to learn which revision techniques worked for me (answering past papers) and how to answer exam questions (firstly read the whole paper without picking up a pen, answer the really easy bits first, even if that's just writing the beginning of the first sentence "In Shakespeare's Hamlet, we can see the use of metaphor" or drawing the axes on a graph, answer the next easiest bits, keep parsing through the questions until you finish. You will score 60% of your overall mark in the first 40% of the time.)

The secret to procrastination is to do other important things when you are procrastinating. That way the revision may not be getting done, but at least your bedroom is tidy.

This short academic article on procrastination won an IgNobel Prize - they are given to papers that make you laugh and then think. I hope you enjoy reading it and in finding out more about the IgNobels.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-procrastinate-and-still-get-things-done/

Agreed, @burntheleaves .

May I just add that the fixation (in this case on Cambridge) and obsessing over what others might think is actually not uncommon for someone who is neurodivergent? I know that I have the same traits myself and it can be hard to let go.

Concentrate on getting into uni OP. The best students don't always get into Cambridge. I've had excellent pupils who applied for Oxbridge but didn't get in there. They got into other unis and did very well for themselves.

It’s probably not that they don’t believe you, they’re more just inwardly eye rolling. It just sounds a bit cringe and braggy even though you’ve got nothing to actually brag about. It’s also just a bit unnecessary surely? What’s the context in which you’re telling people? Do you just randomly come out with “I got xyz in my exams but I COULD have done better if I tried.” If someone said that to me I’d just be like “right, cool.” And I’d think they sounded a bit insufferable.

I used to think I was really clever (not gifted but well able) but I never applied myself, and Id always feel frustrated that I wouldnt get what I felt I was capable of. As Ive got older I realised I cant be as smart as I thought I was - who is cleverer, the person with a lower IQ who studies and gets a B, or a person with a higher IQ, well capable intellectually of getting A*s but doesn't study and also ends up with B or even a C?
Well if you're happy with a B then fine, but like yoh I always wanted the higher grades, so I should have studied. I didnt, and therefore Im not as smart as I used to think I was - or a different type of smart at least

They saw him achieve on his potential. Why would they use you as an example years later, other than as an example of what can happen if you don't put enough effort in? He got his predicted grades, you didn't. You got an offer, they congratulated you on that. Getting A* in mocks simply is not the same as the actual exam, hardly something to hold up as a shining beacon for future pupils.

ADHD or not, you are coming across as someone immature with a very large ego, who is disappointed to find they are not all that.

Good grades are a measure of a number of skills including being organised and as BM one gets older, working hard. If you don't get the grades that you aspire to it can be because you don't have a good memory or that you have poor analytical ability or use of language but it can just as easily be that you are not well organised so in that case the grades reflect the reality of your abilities. The good news is that you can improve your organisation. Many people get worse skills comparatively for other reasons such as illness , a difficult time at school, lack of support at home etc; I don't think comparisons are very useful.

As another poster has put, not revising wouldn't have mattered if you were gifted. The information would have been there regardless.

It sounds like you are defining yourself by getting into Oxbridge, but have you thought about what happens once you're there? To do well you need to be able cruise through A levels so that you've got something left in the tank for the big step up. If you've flunked your exams, it might not be the best place as it just isn't very supportive if you need help focusing or with ADHD. Flopping a levels is one thing, but crashing out of uni would hit anyone hard.

I got 'A's in everything at school. Apparently (I don't think it was something that I consciously thought) I convinced myself that all academic work was easy, whereas in fact I was just good at listening and doing tests and exams.

Then I got to university and assumed that I could wing it there too. Big mistake, because (at my university anyway) the exams weren't just rehashes of the same short format questions based on a public curriculum that you get in GCSEs or A levels - they were set from scratch by very smart people and really tested whether you understood the material. It wasn't until my final year that I actually got down to learning how to properly study. Up to then I would have been "Able to get a first, if it wasn't for X" too.

(I'm also perfectly able to lose two stone in weight by Easter. I just have this small issue that I keep eating biscuits and drinking wine. But apart from that, I'm up there with Nadine Dorries, on the trim figure front if nothing else.)

Have you got an official diagnosis that you have discussed with your teachers?

My brother (aged 58) has maintained his whole adult life that he got 100% in his maths O Grade.

He did get an A, but he says he checked afterwards and knows he got them all right.

It makes for a fun argument on the dark nights 😂

How old are you and why do you care?

Not sure I follow this. What did they see in him that they didn't see in you? The fact that he got his predicted grades, I guess. They were happy when you got your offer but they could hardly say "she would have got those top grades in the exams even in less ideal circumstances" if you didn't actually get those grades in the exams.

It doesn’t really matter what you’re capable of or what you were predicted, only the end grades matter. Retake them if you want to prove people wrong, but you need to work for the grades and if you don’t get them then you don’t get them.

To be honest, I don't think you'd cope with the workload and work pattern at Cambridge. It nearly broke people smarter than I am, I was just bright enough and efficient in the way I did it.

*So, I am academically gifted and perform really well in class, always getting really high marks in homework assignments etc.

I was predicted really high GCSE grades and A-level grades as well.

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.

I am truly capable of getting As 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.

So your procrastination doesn't prevent you doing the homework and getting high grades and didn't impact your performance in the mock exams but DID impact the grades you got in the real exams. That sounds like an excuse. Everyone is capable of getting higher grades if they do more work but, in these exams, you didn't do enough work to get the high grades.

You can learn from this and fix it going forwards though. And it's an important success factor in life - being able to work now to reap the benefit later will help you with everything from school / work, saving money, staying healthy etc.

You sound very obsessed by this thing which is absolutely meaningless. You may be bright but I doubt you’re gifted. If you were, you’d have done very well without revising.

But, why do you need to be gifted? It sounds like you have a massive inferiority complex and are trying to big yourself up, compare yourself to others all the time, and obsess over how people rate you. Don’t It won’t do you any favours at all. Nobody cares. They have their own stuff going on. They judge facts not pie in the sky.

Forget it. Move on. Stop blaming others. Accept you could have done better if you’d revised more (if that’s actually the case) and move on.

Think of it like a driving test .
You did well in your lessons the teacher / instructor thinks you are good but on the day you fail because you either haven't studied the highway code or you jump a red light.
It doesn't matter how well the lessons went , you don't get your driving licence.
But it's far from the end of the world, you can either study more and retake them or get on with life without them , many people do very well without the certificate.

It is perfectly possible that even with the best grades that boy could have performed better and more memorably. I had two friends who did maths at one of the most prestigious unis and got Firsts. However, one of them got the highest grade in maths that had ever been achieved in the history of the university so that was the only thing people talked about. Being down on or writing off other people's grades doesn't make yours any better.

It's hard at your age when you're used to thinking of yourself as the best at everything, but once you go to university and realise that many people are actually far more intelligent than you will ever be and you realise and get over that, things are a lot more realistic as to your expectations.

5-10 years after that, unless you continue to pursue academia or an academic career, you won't care or remember at all since education is effectively useless and rarely comes up. Many people lie on their CVs and no one checks so the whole thing is performative anyway, but after your first 1-2 jobs no one looks at your education.

Why do you care? You're off to a good uni. In your shoes I'd focus on getting support with study strategies to get consistent results, as well as building self confidence based on a wider range of things than what certain teachers say. You'll need both at Cambridge.

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.

Why are you bothered about this when you're basing it on something that is an assumption, in your own head, not based in fact?

I mean, everyone is capable of getting better grades if they work harder, it's hardly rocket science to understand that. If you're already in uni, why are you expending any brain power even thinking about this?

But if you aren't capable of working steadily then you aren't capable of getting the grades, no matter how smart you are. That's pretty much what I'm like too.

Why does it bother you? It's ok to be in a normal bracket.

OP, are you actually gifted or just very clever? Top sets for everything is obviously a sign of academic intelligence, but I can't help but feel that an actually gifted person probably could get top marks without preparation. I might be wrong; I'm no expert and I don't even know what the formal definition of "gifted" is, but I assume it goes beyond "above averagely clever person who is in the top sets", because that covers a lot of people.

Because you’re not actually capable? Having the notional “ability” without any of the Drive determination or application to actually do it means you’re not actually capable at all.