Dealing With a Low Mark–Do Nothing the First Day!

If you’re consistently a 4.0 student, I’ll see you next week. For most students, however, there is that paper, that quiz, that midterm that got handed back, and you looked at the grade and were disappointed. Shocked, maybe, surprised (or maybe not) but definitely disappointed.

What to do?

First, do nothing. Focus on the rest of the class, if the papers were handed out at the beginning of class. Do nothing about the grade the first day.

That’s because before doing anything about the actual grade, you need to deal with the feelings. This will help free your analytic mind for strategizing on dealing with the grade, the course, the instructor. The big feelings of anger, fear, guilt and shame will get in your way unless you look after them.

Dealing with the feelings means naming them, accepting them, framing them, and affirming yourself. Note: If your feelings have you in distress, reach out to counselling. That’s what they are there for, and they have many tools to share with you. 

If your discomfort is par-for-the-course for getting a disappointing grade, however, the following tips are built around getting you through the initial feelings of disappointment and on to the steps of dealing with the low mark.

Anger

Name your anger. Make your anger statement: “I’m really upset that after all that work, I still didn’t get a better grade.” “It’s unfair that the instructor always grades students in the honours program more leniently.”

Then accept that anger: “Well of course I’m upset!”

Frame the feeling “I’ll cool down shortly.”

Then affirm yourself: “And I will figure out how to deal with this after dinner.”

Fear

Recognize that feeling, the one where your throat sinks to your stomach. Make your fear statement and name what you are afraid of. “I’m afraid I’m going to fail this course.” “I’m afraid that I’ll lose my funding.”

Accept the fear: “Being afraid like this doesn’t feel very good–I don’t like it, but I can accept that being afraid with a low grade is part of being human.”

Frame the fear by renaming everything that you are afraid of: “I’m really afraid I’m going to fail the course and lose my funding and not get into the program I want.” This doesn’t have to be an accurate fear–some students have this fear when they drop from the 90s to the 80s.

Ask yourself how realistic each of these fears is. If you got 15% on a math midterm, your fear may be realistic. If you got 55% on a weekly math quiz, not so much. Framing helps move you from catastrophizing to being realistic–which you need to be to problem solve effectively

Then affirm yourself: “I can address each of these scary outcomes one at a time. I can evaluate each one, make a plan, and act.”

Guilt

Maybe you didn’t study for this one, or haven’t done all of the prep, or wrote your paper at the last minute. Or maybe you did, but believe you “should” have studied longer, reviewed 65 journal articles instead of only 60. The feeling here is self-blame, which is different from being accountable to yourself. If you are shouldsting on yourself, pause, and name the feeling: “I feel guilty that I listened to my friend’s troubles instead of reviewing the chapter.” “I feel guilty for going to the party the night before the exam.”

Then accept that you are blaming yourself for past behaviour, and are not feeling good about what you did or didn’t do.

Next, frame the feeling: “I can’t do anything about the past behaviour that led to this feeling. I will likely feel this way the next time I don’t polish my paper.”

And finally, affirm yourself: “I can spend this emotional energy creatively on addressing procrastination,” or perhaps, “I can catch myself going overboard on self-blame and get into better thought habits–that will also help my grade.”

Shame or Embarrassment

These are two levels of one of the most uncomfortable feelings–they are so uncomfortable that sometimes moving to anger with others or anger with self is a relief. That approach still leaves the feeling undealt with.

This can happen when everyone else in your group gets a better grade. Or you have to face your parents or funder with embarrassment about the grade, or shame that you didn’t “do better,” or shame that you didn’t work harder.

It hurts just writing that last paragraph. Bear with me and read on.

Deal with this one before you get together with your friends after the exam, or at least be prepared for it. Deal with it before you discuss your grade with your partner, funder, parent, or program supervisor.

Name the feeling: “I feel ashamed that I made this grade.”

Accept the feeling: “It’s okay for me to be embarrassed. It’s understandable. It’s not comfortable, but it sure is embarrassing. I do not like feeling ashamed.”

Frame the feeling: “It also makes me afraid that my friends won’t respect me, that I am disappointing my parents.” “I feel that I am unworthy to be in this program.” “I’m really afraid, here, afraid that I am not smart enough to do the work.”

Notice here how this one can have a triple punch with the addition of fear and guilt. Sincere self-affirmation is really needed here.

Affirmation: “My worthiness to be in this program does not depend on this one grade. Taking the long view, I have ups and downs, and even if I have the lowest grade of my friends in this course, I know that half of all doctors, lawyers and engineers graduated in the bottom half of their class. I’ve got this far–I’m pretty sure I can do that!”

Taking Perspective

This mark isn’t the entire universe, even for today. Provide yourself with the endorphins of exercise–take a walk or a bike ride. Reach out for a brief positive social connection. Look after your other courses.

And look after yourself!

Taking Time

It takes more time to describe these steps than it does to actually do them. That first day whenever your mind comes to the grade, run through the four steps: 

• Name.
• Accept.
• Frame.
• Affirm.

Your mind will be free for strategizing and taking action about what to do with that grade–which I will talk about next week.

For the rest of this term, I’ll be working with my clients on successes, as well as how to move any disappointing grades on to success. Let me know how it’s going for you! [email protected]