secretive about "good" A level grades to family.

[wheresmymillionaire]

Genuine question, and I'm happy to be told I'm being nosy if necessary!
Is it normal to not share exam grades with family? We are a small family with one niece. Apparently DN was happy with her recent A level results as she passed them all, and my sister put on FB a pic of them out celebrating the results and how proud they were etc. I gave DN some money to say well done, but neither DN nor DS are prepared to say what grades she got. I just find this odd. What's the big deal? Why can't I know what grades she got and be proud of her?

My DC got between them a full mix of A* to E's so I'm not going to be judgmental!

But why do you need to know her grades to celebrate? You were told she was happy with her results, you congratulated her and gave her a present of money — what would you do differently if you knew she had got CCB as distinct from AAA*?

From what you say about neither your niece or sister ‘being prepared to tell you’ the grades, it sounds as if you asked, which, yes, is nosy. Do you tell your family your exact salary point when you get a new job?

There’s nothing ‘secretive’ about fending off a nosy family member.

This seems to be much more the norm nowadays and I think it‘s great! My curious side would love to know - who knows why as it would make no difference to my life - but I am really glad that it’s normal these days not to share. The most anyone needs to know (for appropriate response) is if the person themselves is happy or not. We don’t know my niece’s results from last year, except that she had to re-sit maths. My daughter has had all sorts of difficulties over the past four years so is unlikely to meet her potential, but I’m glad for her that she won’t feel the pressure to divulge each detail.

Maybe because the aunt started a whole MN thread about her. Maybe that is why you might think an aunt would be sich a weirdo. 🤷‍♀️🤔😜

Absolutely 100%. It's such an odd thing to start a thread about.

I agree. And whatever people say about it being about wanting to celebrate with the family member, most of the time it was about one upmanship and boasting.
OP's DN said she was pleased with her results and is going to University. That is the culmination of two ( possibly 4 years including gcses) of extremely hard work, learning new skills and huge amounts of revision. Some kids do all that and get C's and some kids do bugger all and get A's. Their results don't tell you anything about what you should be congratulating her for, which presumably is doing her best and coming through an extremely hard period of study, then moving onto the next step.

@DeclansAFeckingDream and @Spirallingdownwards this is not even the weirdest thing I've seen in the last ten minutes on MN!

🤣🤣

Aren't the results for each student still published in the local paper?

I didn’t even share with my DD what her 11+ score was. It was enough that she passed and was going to her preferred grammar school, The next day at school it was all showmanship with the children trying to outdo each other. She couldn’t participate as she did not know. There was only one other child who did not know her score.So in my roundabout way. It’s none of your business. Your niece got enough to do what she wants to do next. That’s all that needs to be celebrated.

We do usually share this stuff within our extended family but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if anyone decided to keep their results private. Why on earth would family need to know this stuff?

Um. No.

Some schools post results of top students on their websites, but even there, the last few years has seen a trend away from calling out a few students in favour of making a more general pronouncement about how the school faired overall.

(not the point, but local papers don't necessarily even really exist any more)

My daughter and her friends never told eachother what they got for their GCSEs last summer and they never have. My daughter says it doesn't matter to her as she's friends with them for who they are. I find it completely weird as I was nosey and wanted to know. My daughter did extremely well and we were so overjoyed.

No you are not entitled to know her results if she doesn’t want to share them!
All through primary and secondary school I knew another parent who wanted to know every test result my daughter got , I would never tell her cos she only wanted to know if my daughters results were better than her daughters, her child was very bright and she always wanted to show off . It still infuriated me now! Ironically my daughter was the one who ended up going to uni not hers .

DD asked me not to share hers too. She got into her first choice Uni, to do the course she'd wanted to do for years and that was all that mattered.
My Mum tried to dig for details, but she's got form for being a first class comparer-another DC in the wider family did their A-levels the same year and DD didn't want to be caught up in it.
I respected her choice not to share.

I think when people don't do as well as they'd hoped they are reluctant to share. I know I was upset about my GCSE results and my degree one so I didn't share those as much as my A-level and post-grad ones.

Yes, absolutely. We were clearly all supposed to say ‘Boo hiss! Pesky sister and niece holding out on you! How strange and secretive they are! Can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to share every detail of their lives with you!”

Not necessarily. My mother kept schtum about my A level equivalent results because I did ‘too well’, and she was afraid the neighbours would think she was boasting and ‘getting above myself’. (Note that in 18 years, my mother hadn’t worked out that I wasn’t actually her…)

Unfortunately for her, those results won me a big international scholarship and my school (more used to topping the ‘record numbers of fifth years pregnant’ scoreboard) got carried away and told the local press on a slow news day.

And my mother, characteristically, was mortified, because now, in her view, we were definitely ‘getting above ourselves’, and I was in the paper ‘showing off’.

You are being nosey. You don’t need to know for any reason whatsoever. We didn’t share my daughter’s grades, don’t have any friends who shared their child’s. My daughter and 4 friends are all away to university this year. Why does anyone need to know except them and their parents?

I don’t think it’s weird when not immediate family, none of my DN’s have told me what they got, I never asked and never would. If they tell me great, if not it’s no problem. As long as they’re happy.

some find it incredibly stressful experience or may not be entirely happy with the results or want their peers to know.

It's not up to me to share my DCs results, it is up to them if they want to do so. I do not think exam results should be a yardstick for others to make judgments about them.

This, a hundred times. I’m really emotionally invested in this subject as I bombed an A level after being a straight A student for the whole of school. People who don’t share could be processing really upsetting news.

Funnily enough I never share them. I find it a bit braggy, and an invasion of privacy. I remember finding out all my cousins' grades amd judging how clever they were on that basis. It led to a lot of extra pressure as well.

With my kids they did well forvthemselves but I didn't want to share.

You are confusing secretive and private. Your DN wants to keep her grades private, so you should respect that.

You say that she's not prepared to say what grades she got, but did you ask her personally?

There's no real need for you to know exactly what she got if you are going to be proud and supportive of her regardless.

Same thing happened with our niece, no one has any idea what she got but apparently she did well but didn't get into Uni?!? My SIL actually mentioned the other day that she still has no idea what she got.