The sentence “I put your test grades in last night” is one of the most fear-inducing phrases to a high school student. Hands start to inch towards phones to open up powerschool, palms begin to sweat as everyones mind races. Students pull out phones during class to check if new scores changed the overall grade they have. Pained looks and laughs of glee litter the class as score details are examined.

The obsession with grades has slowly escalated to students checking powerschool even when they know that nothing has changed. Just in case a grade has dropped, or raised. Grades are supposed to be used as a mark of progress, things you can improve on or things that are going well. When checked all the time, they lose their intended purpose.

In our modern day school system though, grades have become an even bigger part of a class. Students feel immense pressure to receive grades that are ‘above average’ and need to check them all the time to make sure that they stay where they were intended to be. This poses a problem with stress and attention. Kids are so focused on getting good grades that they forget to learn.

So much emphasis is put on getting good grades- the general mindset is if you want to get into a good college, get good grades (unless you’re really talented in something else). Your success in life reflects your grade point average. But in reality, they’re meant for something else. Grades reflect progress. Low grades show the need for help in a class, not your intelligence on a subject, but this is sometimes forgotten when you’re constantly surrounded by kids who are better at the subject than you are.

As someone who takes five AP classes, I feel like I can relate. When I get a 98 percent, there’s a kid who gets 100. There’s always going to be that kid who makes you feel like crap whenever you see your grades. But there’s nothing you can do about it. That kid will always be looking over your shoulder, fueling the obsession, and sometimes, that sucks. It sucks to feel like you’re less than what you are and it really sucks to have someone tell you that. But that doesn’t mean that it’s true.

I’m not going to sit here and lecture, pretending that I don’t check powerschool. Every single student checks powerschool. But that’s another thing. Checking occasionally isn’t the same as pulling it up first thing whenever you log onto a computer. It isn’t the same as checking just because you got bored of typing your essay. Remember that you are more than what is on the screen, and that you are not measured by the range of your grades.