As a student in high school, it is easy to become stressed due to the increasing pressure surrounding grades and GPA and whether or not they meet the expectations set not only by society, but also by yourself.

Recently, like most other seniors, I took part in the college application process, and it seemed as though college talk was inescapable at school. Regardless of whether it was before school, during class, during lunch or even after school, people were always having college-related conversations. Topics like what colleges you applied to and what credentials you had were among the many discussed, but they always had a constant underlying theme: GPA determined where you applied.

We all know it’s true. Some colleges offer a holistic approach to viewing applications, but essentially GPA offers the most weight in a college’s decision. A student with a 4.0 GPA and a few extracurricular activities obviously has a higher chance of getting into a renowned college than a student with a 3.0 and numerous activities.

This causes most students to enter high school with the notion that they must do absolutely everything they can to receive the highest GPA that they possibly can, which defeats the actual purpose of school—to learn.

In the November 2011 issue of Educational Leadership Journal, author and lecturer Alfie Kohn stated that educational psychologists who studied the effects of grades in the 1990s came to three conclusions: Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning, grades create a preference for the easiest possible task and grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.

I remember last year during one of my science classes, my teacher passed back a test on which the majority of the class had done poorly. Most of those students asked for points back, but my teacher strictly told them that it’s not about the grade­—it’s about what you learn, and this resulted in many upset and angry students.

Because students know that the main and, technically, only criterion that represents their progress in school is that final grade on an assignment or assessment, they stress about the result instead of the process of learning. This is not the only effect. Students can begin to have negative thoughts about their ability to perform if they do not live up to their expectations and end up with worse results due to fear and insecurity.

This is what educational psychologist Caroline Pulfrey noticed in her study consisting of three experiments in August 2011. These three experiments proved that the anticipation of a grade increases performance avoidance,  fear of failure and  loss of interest. Common sense might suggest that providing students with both a comment and a grade would be beneficial, but research shows that the positive benefits of formative comment is overshadowed by the negative effects of the grade.

Some students focus on achieving an “A” to the point that they sacrifice their creativity for the easy way out, the emphasis being that if doing things the easy way gets an “A,” then why bother putting in extra effort for an “A”? This is one of many reasons that has led school districts in the United States to change their grading systems. With this change, low performing schools, such as the Windsor Locks Public School system in Connecticut, have noticed an increase in student performance. As of September 2014, 25 school districts in Connecticut adapted the following grading system: exceeding standards (ES), meeting standards (MS), progressing toward standards (PS) and limited progress (LP). A 2010 study showed the elimination of grades produced substantial benefits with no apparent disadvantages in medical school.

The pressure to perform and “be the best” is escalating on students who hope to purse education after high school. The value of learning has been disregarded for letters and numbers that most students think define who they are. Successes and failures should be celebrated because they are both an integral part of learning.

Just as someone else’s words cannot define you, a letter cannot define you either.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Sreeti Ravi at [email protected].