- That's such a weighted question.
- [Voiceover] Most of a person's young life
revolves around school,
waking up every day at the crack of dawn,
carrying an ungodly amount of books,
and working towards good grades
that will theoretically help them
get into a good college and a good job.
Students are constantly asking,
"Do good grades actually matter?
"Is my life predetermined by the grades I get in school?"
- I think they matter
in a sense, but I don't think people
should be obsessed with them
and think that they measure intelligence.
- I should have done better in school.
Probably would have made things a lot easier.
- OK, I think I guess high school grades matter
because they get you into college.
College grades don't matter.
- [Voiceover] A 2013 NPR poll found that nearly 40%
of parents believed their high schooler
feels high levels of school related stress.
Some symptoms of grade anxiety might be
increased heart rate, sweating,
and decreased appetite.
Being a kid should be fun, right?
The National Institute of Mental Health
reports that anxiety in children and young adults
has been increasing since the 1950's.
According to some researchers
The increase in standardized testing
may contribute to this.
The SAT is the subject of millions
of high schooler's little malleable minds,
always there over their heads
like some sort of dark cloud
filled with math.
You know what I mean.
This also begs the question,
do standardized tests truly measure intelligence?
- Oh God, no.
Load of BS.
- Like the thing is,
I consider myself a pretty intelligent dude,
and I just got an average score on the SATs,
so I think there's something wrong with the SAT.
- The SAT's bad because it measures how well
you can take a test
rather than how much intelligence you actually have.
- [Voiceover] One school of thought
is that these tests are unable to account
for important areas, like critical thinking,
collaboration, and imagination.
Will memorizing vocabulary entitle you
to a better future?
According to a survey by
the National Association of Colleges and Employers,
78.3% of employers
claim to screen future employees by GPA.
However, 63.5% of employers
only use a 3.0 as a GPA cutoff for employment.
So, pushing yourself to be above average
may not mean much in the long run.
There's also the worry that schools
are formulating their curriculums around the test.
This is believed to be a result of incentive systems
put in place by the Department of Education
that rewards schools with higher test scores.
A proposal by New York governor Andrew Cuomo
would have 50% of a teacher's evaluation
correlate to the result of their student's scores.
Education should be fluid and expressive,
tailored to student's needs and wants,
not based around a system of points.
What if you just want to paint some stuff
or write some stuff?
So, do grades matter?
Yes and no.
If you're looking to pursue a path of higher education,
then yeah, they do matter.
But don't stress about grades.
Everyone's path is different,
and chances are you won't even remember
your SAT score in five years.
Whatever you focus on, just try
to the best of your ability,
whatever that may be.
The amount of effort you put into something
will always say more than a letter on a report card.
("Remember (Nostalgia Machine)")