I need help

sam19972014

Hello
First of all I think you need to understand why I feel like this.
It all started on results day for GCSE a year and a half ago. I messed up. I knew I did before even going, just not this badly. I was predicted 9A* in yr 1 but for some reason I didn’t care, I tried to revise early but it did not work so I gave up for some reason and did not learn/revise and slacked for the whole year. I got 3A* and 6A’s. I was distraught, my dream was to go to either Oxford or Cambridge and with these GCSE’s I slimmed my chances hugely. I hated my self for doing no work what so ever. It had other affects such as missing out on the Oxbridge group at college, people making fun of you and not having that support of being in the Oxbridge group.
Therefore this motivated me to work hard this year and get the 4A’s required to apply. I chose to study maths, chem, physics and history. Anyway fast forward 8 months and everything is going well. A bit of bumps on the way which could have been sorted oi my gcse’s were on point in the first place therefore allowing the support from oxbridge so I would never encounter such problems. Anyway I learnt the hard way. I got through…I knew everything well, like really well. I was on track for 4A’s my self.
However here comes the part when everything got turned upside down. Exam season was upon us and it was May. I was ready, I was pumped and I was confident. My physics practical was my first assessed exam of the year. However my sixth form ended up not setting it up correctly therefore without my knowledge all my data was wrong thus a U. It wasnt my fault, college mucked up.
Then 1 weeks later it is my history exam and we opened the page and it turned out that my sixth form did not teach the whole spec. Therefore 700 pupils now knowing the paper. We all thought we filed- most of us did.
Finally in my Core 2 maths exam, I was designated to the back of one of the smaller halls in the college with only 2 examiners at the front. It then turned out that the person next to me who I thought was my friend halfway through the paper decided to try talk to me and cheat off me. I did not know what to do. This person I trusted was begging that I hand my paper across to him when no one is looking. So I froze, I did not know what to do, I never anticipated such a thing to happen in my exam therefore I froze and just sat there for the remainder of the test looking blindlessy at my desk. I was scared, I had no idea wtf to do :/ So i thought I failed that too.
SOo 3 papers messed up all nothing to with my self what so ever. Other people and external factors messed everything up. Therefore my whole study timetable was flipped, I had to work super hard to pull up the grades in my other exams for them subjects. However to do this i had to neglect chemistry. I had to leave it n the side to make up for the others. Unfortunately both chem exams were placed right after the pivitol history and physics exams.
So yep all that happened. I ended up getting 2A’s a B and a C. A’s in maths and history some how, B in physics (I got A’ in both my exams, averaged 85%) but as a result got a C in chem because of that attention to detail that i missed because of the crap that happened in other papers.
I was distraught, absolutely distraught. Devastated is the word. Like all the subjects that were affected were my best grades and the one that wasn’t was the worst. What made it harder was that I am 2% of a B in chem and to Universities that would of made such a difference.
After 8 months of solid work, it was all ruined by other people. I just didnt care anymore. Like what was the point. My dream of Cambridge over in a split second, all because of other people. It was not my fault. Gcse’s were, this was not.
As a determined person and wanting to do a chem physics degree I was like nope, I am keeping chem, I will pull it up. So I dropped history and kept chem. However I did not realise how hard Chem is at A2 plus put in the factor off just not caring at all well yep I just dont give a crap. No good good Uni wants a B in Chem for a chemical physics degree. The only ones that do are like Sheffield and Nottingham. I don’t want to go there. Dropping from Cambridge to Sheffiled like wtf. It is so hard to take. My next dream is Imperial and I can’t even get into there.
My plan was to keep chem, pull it to an A, ovbs resit the physics prac and get an A(only need a C init to make it an A overall) and A* in maths. My predictions were A*AB at the start but because of my recent not giving a crap because what is the point as I am the most unluckiest kid in Europe my A* in maths got moved to an A as I have been doing no work, Not been doing any wok actually because I just feel like whats the point.
Yep so there is my story.
I just wanted to get that out there. SO much relief. Like I dunno what to do,it is December nearly. I feel like ****, I am depressed and probably going to fail. I need help. Cheers guys.

Reply 1

math42

There's more to life than getting into Oxbridge, but doing so, or getting into any top uni for that matter, is still well within your grasp. You could work hard for the remainder of the year and aim for A*s and then apply in your gap year, for instance.

Reply 2

sam19972014

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

I get what you mean but Oxbridge meant everything to me. Atleast applying :smile:

But I cannot even do that because if what happened. True I am considering that but Chemistry is so hard at A2 and just Psychologically I have this block in my head every-time I step into chem that I cannot seem to get rid off :/

Reply 3

JustaSpork

I know other people will/have said this to you, but I will say it again because it really is the truth. Oxbridge is not the be-all and end-all. I found it difficult accepting this a few years back, but I've come to realise that Oxbridge would've closed a lot of doors rather than opened them due to the sheer workload. Also the validation of 'being' Oxbridge is something that I came to realise is quite destructive too. Not only do dumb people get into Oxbridge but there's a lot of smart people out in the world who don't go to Oxbridge. There are more kinds of intelligence than just academic intelligence. Never see yourself as any less of a person because you weren't able to get in.

Secondly, life is not fair, but the perspective you choose to look at it is far more important. It's tempting to blame external factors as to why you didn't do as well as you'd liked when it comes to exams, but from what you've described I think it's unhealthy to neglect that you had no way of affecting the outcomes.

During UCAS stuff I had two friends who were both applying for Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Both of them super bright people, no denying that. However, neither of them got in to Natural Sciences and they both took it very different ways. One decided he been screwed over by the school and wanted to reapply next year. The other one just saw it as part of life and moved on and took an offer from elsewhere.

Living life feeling like a victim is not fun or helpful to yourself. The only thing you can change is yourself. So in order to improve your situation you have to look at what you can do. And if something went wrong, you can acknowledge the mistakes of others but if you really don't want it happening again you need to ask yourself what you needed to have done to have prevented the mistake. Again places like Imperial are hard to get into because they are a lot of work. Do you really want to work incredibly hard or are you more interested in the academic validation?

You say you're not seeing the point of work, why do you think that is? The grades you have got are far, far away from being bad. You could definitely get an A in chemistry with resits and then reapply next year for the courses you want to do.